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More Tanks…Update

Hurrah, the laptop is back and tonight has been spent slicing tanks.

Somewhere I have a set of pre sliced tanks but I cannot find them…

Sliced up and ready for printing are the following:

MkIII with a long 50mm

38T

MKII

Early Stug with and without schurtzen

I still need to slice a MkIV

I also sliced a Churchill… sadly it is a MKIII, I couldn’t find a MK1… well I could, but it was 1/72 instead of 1/100. I decided against the A10 etc as who in their right mind would want to play with one.

Just for fun, I also sliced a kubelwagen, an Austin 10 staff car and an Austin 7 Tilly. The latter is printing now.

So the allied force looks like this…

This will be split into two equal sets, one for me and one for the prize. I will print either two or four Churchill’s (I haven’t decided yet – they take over three hours each to print).

As for the Axis so far:

Yeah the Tiger would splat the allied tanks on its own, but it is for me. I might do a me against all comers with a Tiger, which might be fun…

The Panther is obviously in the wrong timeframe, but so far two MkIII’s a MkIV and two 38T’s (the MKII is a bit confused as I have a track from a C and a D on it… at least you can’t see both sides at the same time.

The buildings are mostly glued together too.

I have another half dozen that need roofs. I will have to get them printed off too. The scale is off with them, the seem more 1/72 than 1/100. In hindsight I should have reduced the size a bit more, but too late now.

The Tilly has just finished printing and here she is…

I will see what other non tracked vehicles are available, I really want a 222 as they are my all time favourite AFV.

Right I can go to bed now that the print has finished. It took a total of 1 hour 24 minutes to complete.

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More Tanks… Again….

So today involved some more tanks and giving them a spray of white undercoat so that I can use the airbrush to get some colour on. So I now have six Matilda, three Char B and four Somua (technically I have four and a bit Char B, but I need to print another turret before it is finished).

Things took slightly longer as the Somua in the middle had a bit of an accident. As I was stripping away the support I managed to pull both tracks off as well as the back off the turret. This is probably due to damp getting into the PLA causing it not to stick as well. I just need to find out what colours I have and what colours I need before I can get these painted.

I also ended up listening to this…

I remember doing a lot of Vietnam wargaming, primarily with Esci 20mm plastics and using Bodycount rules.

I then bought some 1/200 scale kit at a convention then kind of went off it again until, funnily enough, joining the Shetland club. I ran an RPG based on an Alpha team in the highlands of Vietnam. We had a hoot. Five players… a four man Alpha team and a Kit Carson scout. As all of my stuff had gone, I went for cardboard troops and flats for vehicles.

I still have the card figures…

Hopefully my good lady will bring the laptop back with her soon so that I can start on some more Germans. The other thing I will need to print are some more roofs for the buildings. Hopefully I have some suitable desert colours for the allies.

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Tanks…and yet More Tanks

So nothing painted today, but a few more tanks printed…

So here we have six Matilda, three Somua, three Char B, a Honey, a whippet and a very outnumbered MKII. I am part way through printing another Char. I have got some more early British cruiser tanks ready to go, but for that I need the laptop as they are stored on it’s hard drive.

These are destined for Games day next month. I still need to print some more honeys and some more whippets (possibly) then go daft printing more German tanks.

Each tank is taking about an hour and a half to an hour and forty five to print. Not the fastest thing to get on the bed, but to be honest some of the stuff I have printed took ten hours so by comparison these are speedy.

The buildings are already done and have been for months… April to be exact…

https://bogenwaldblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/08/desert-house-5-update/

Evidently way back in March was the last time I printed any tanks.

https://bogenwaldblog.wordpress.com/2019/03/11/printing-tanks-ii/

The rules I will be using are ‘What a Tanker’

I decided on these thanks to Mark in the States who ran some games at various conventions and his local club I think too. He must be very persuasive on his blog as I have Sharp Practice and couldn’t get on with it at all.

I purchased them and liked their simplicity…As Mark pointed out… very easy rules for a participation game.

My plan is to basically print and paint two forces, plus a couple of small villages. One shall be for the Games day and the other is as a give away. Shetland is trying to get our own MRI scanner so my plan is that if people make a donation to the cause then they get a raffle ticket to win the second set. I will have to check all of the ins and outs of this. I was going to contact the guys to see if They would donate another second set of rules to go with the tanks and terrain. I think I have probably run out of time now…

I would have printed out some German tanks, but sadly my good lady had wandered off with the laptop and forgot to bring it back.

So tomorrow, if the laptop returns then I will print out a whole pile more tanks from both sides. I might print out some armoured cars, just fir the hell of it. My favourite being the German 222. Not sure why but it is most certainly my favourite armoured car.

We shall see how many tanks (if any) I get done tomorrow…

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Random Stuff…Lizardmen

Not much done tonight… I am somewhat fatigued… didn’t get in until 19.00 so quite a long day…

Anyway tonight I worked on and pretty much finished the larger blue Lizardmen. The Leviadon blue is a bit dark so I did some dry brushing to lighten them up a bit (not that you can really see in the photo). The shoulder guards are actually bone coloured, but look metallic in this photo.

Tomorrow I will do the last two bases of the grey lizards. This weekend I am going to have to get going on desert war tanks as it is only a month (probably less) to the Games day and I still have loads to print and paint, not to mention building terrain etc.

The Orca were back round Shetland today, some amazing footage here…please be warned it does involve another seal hunt …https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2019/09/19/watch-as-seal-captured-on-video-being-flipped-into-air-by-orca/

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Rainbow Aztecs

Okay so maybe not quite rainbow coloured, but quite bright non the less.

Not that you can really see from the above. Still a long way to go, but the contrast paint seems to be doing a reasonable job on this scale. I have now got sixteen pots of the stuff. Because I am a pillock I have got two pots of Blood angel red, I will take the unopened one back tomorrow to exchange it for a different colour. One of the other colours I cannot stand. It is a very bright green. The one thing I must do before returning the pot is to write down what I have got so I don’t balls up again.

I also fired up the printer again today and did another couple of statues…

I gave them a blast with a grey rattle can to mainly act as an undercoat, but also to allow them to be photographed easier. The middle one is from last night, the other two are today’s print. I put them on a raft and they printed really well. I put a base of Aztecs near them to let you see the size if them. These were printed at 70% of the original size and they are still quite large. The hands come separately and fit nicely into the wrist socket.

My original idea was to base them in a group, but looking at the size of them I think I will go for individual bases. I will print of some 50mm textured bases tomorrow and get these stuck down. To be honest I will probably print off one more. There is a worn version which I think I will give a go.

I printed off five more Lizardmen today too, but disaster struck and only one is useable, one is missing a weapon, one is missing a base and the other two are basically spaghetti monsters. Next time I print them one at a time👍.

Tomorrow will crack on with the Aztecs as I want them finished ASAP.

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Scalians… Temple of the Moon

After 10 hours (I think… totally forgot to check before switching off the printer) I have got my temple finished and it is, in my mind, absolutely superb.

Once again the Black PLA is helping no-one see the detail.

The piece comes from here I-Lovecraft. The stuff on there is lovely, if you have a 3D printer check it out. There are Fantasy, Meso American, Roman and Asian buildings and accessories. My favourite out is Bridgeton – it’s a modular bridge with houses built onto it. Something I think I will save up for.

Anyway back to the Temple I printed.

It comes in 5 main pieces (plus a brazier) there are four floor pieces.

These in turn hold up the Jaguar head.

Based on the hole in this, my bed needs levelling again. I will have to have a think as to whether I want these pieces overgrown and disused or have them full colour. If so it looks like Disney’s El Dorado will be coming out again as I really like the colours of the city.

So what do I think of this piece, firstly I haven’t done it justice on my printer. First off I didn’t use the hi resolution version that was available in the download, secondly I set my printer to a middling quality, I could have set it higher, but with that comes a longer print time 10 hours seemed long enough and I am impatient. I meant to get up early this morning and totally failed to do so! I only set the printer going at 11.00 am so I wanted it before I went to bed. Yesterday I was up to near as damn 2.00 am waiting for the pyramid to print. I think they are pretty awesome. Both are €12.50 in the online shop, but I got mine in the humble bundle so came in at a fraction of the cost. The thousand dollar question is would I buy them full price. Probably yes, depending on finances at the time. The MDF ones shown above were a whole lot cheaper, but and it’s a big but… these are a a whole lot more detailed and I can scale them up or down, not to mention print out two dozen if I wanted to. The temple is pretty much a single centre piece (but the separate heads are really useful to add as Scatter). I would still go for it as I couldn’t get anything as nice in resin or plastic for the same price. There was a nice resin temple for fish tanks in my local pet shop. It was nice, overgrown etc but it was £25 so even mooching about for other things still works out more expensive.

Once I get better at the 3D modelling, these could be distressed and damaged prior to printing which means even more things that can be done for the price.

So all in all, definitely worth the money. Something near to 16 hours print time, but still way faster than anything I could get delivered from the mainland.

So here they both are with a base of Scalians for Scale.

I dropped both of these to 60%. I might do another pyramid but print it full size. I reckon that would be a bit impressive on the table.

My next conundrum is how to base them, if at all. Temples like these would be part of a larger complex. A table of pyramids and temples would be cool, but it would be an absolute nightmare to try and store safely.

I could go for something like my HOTT stronghold here Temple Completed I did this on a smaller courtyard… like I say something to ponder. Tomorrow I intend to finish of painting the Scalians, print off some more bits and bobs – including some 25% sized jaguar heads to make some form of pathway to the temple and then make a start on my Tin Soldier Aztecs.

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Scalians… Something a Little Different

What with one thing and another today then I never got anything painted. Technically I went into work today to clear out my desk before starting the new job and ended up chatting to colleagues who I haven’t seen for about 10 weeks so… I will need to go in and sort out my desk another time. I then went out this evening with some of my colleagues for our regular catch up meal, just back in to get this written up.

Modelling wise my day wasn’t wasted. I got thinking of the Scalian Forces and how they would need themed terrain. So off I went to look on Thingiverse. It was then that I remembered my humble bundle I bought way back in March. Something was making me think that there were Jungly things in the pack. I fired up the computer and had a look.

Apologies for the naff photo, but it was moving quite quick and the iPad couldn’t keep up. I found two pyramids, a jaguar temple of the moon and various scatter pieces too.

The other thing I found were some 3D printable Lizardmen. I took a guess at reducing the size to 70% and I ended up with this size.

You can’t really see him properly as he is black PLA but he does fit in nicely with the general figure. He will be joined by a few more to make a unit of larger lizard warriors akin to Kroxigor in Warhammer.

I also printed off some carved disks. Because I printed them flat the detail isn’t as good as it could be had I done them vertically. Problem with a circle is that it needs a whole lot of support to go vertical.

So no painting done but still something to show at the end of the day. The lizard is from Fat Dragon Games and for the life of me I cannot remember the maker of the terrain stuff. Lizard took 45 minutes to print, whilst the pyramid is just over 6 hours.

The jaguar temple is going to be nearer 10 hours. I will set it away tomorrow morning and see what appears at the end of the day.

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Worm Infestation

They just keep on coming! Ok maybe I should stop hitting print, but they are strangely satisfying.

I have decided on a red colour scheme for these… I did cock up the layer height on my first print. I bet you can’t tell which one it was!

The nice thing about the 3D printable files is that one can up and down. The dodgy print one is 100 %. The middle one of the double ones is the 100% one too.

Another package came in the post today…

I was a bit concerned that I was going to be building a whole pile more figures but nope, they came ready built and based 👍

They aren’t too bad size wise to the EM4 miniatures. These are pretty much the light infantry version…

And these the heavy infantry version (with two weird mutant things)

These are going to be painted up as Fleet Rescue (whatever colour they are).

Big day tomorrow, job interview for a deputy headship of one of our high schools, therefore early night tonight…

I will try and get the light infantry and the new stuff sprayed tomorrow evening.

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Washes, Highlights and Another Big Bug

This sounds like a hairdressers advert, well apart from the big bug, unless that is some form of bouffant hairstyle.

Tonight I managed some highlights on the robots…

As with most things they look a lot better in real life. I spent ages highlighting edges and flat panels, not that you can tell, there is now a huge contrast between the dark recesses and the raised areas.

I also bunged a light wash on the elves, yeah I am back on with them…

Trooper Ted is keeping an eye on them 🙄

And finally the big bug, where does that fit in… my latest purchase, all the way from Virginia Beach in Virginia in the USA.

It’s a Tanker bug, complete with shooty bits. Press the button on its back and the spring loaded mechanism fires the ‘plasma’ out of its mouth.

So why all the way from the states and why a toy from the ’90s… simple reason really. I got this chappy for a fiver with £12 postage. Compare that to the £35 used and £60 in box you can see why. And the States, it was the only place I could find one at the time. Typically once the purchase had been made then a few popped up in the Uk on EBay. I did do a bit of research and as the cost was below £30 then I would pay no import duty… looks like it was right.

Although the bug itself was funky, along with bubble wrap was a bit of a newspaper, which was just as interesting as I have never seen a newspaper from the states before… the one weird thing (to me that is) is it is really long and thin.

Compare it to the mighty tome that is…The Shetland Times …a mighty paper of editorial prowess and cutting edge reporting….

As you can see, starlings can destroy your car… secondary pupils at the New Anderson High school need road safety lessons and as our brand (shiny) new high school appeared about 100th out of 339 schools in some league table everyone threw a wobbly about how the rankings are flawed. It is really funny how rankings are flawed when they show a poor result, I have yet to see anyone, anywhere go ‘huzzah we are top, but there again the rankings are totally flawed so we reckon we should be nearer the middle!’

To be fair we don’t have official league tables in Scotland and it was a single performance indicator that was used to gain the data.

Ohh yeah, some schools are getting about 9 weeks off this year due to building work taking place…

Ohh yeah and someone was appalled that the paper had printed the ‘f’ word in full in this parochial family newspaper… on that note, I had better f*** off and get some things done before bed… tomorrow is Friday… I might still be able to find something that is forgotten… probably more 10mm elves….

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Little Steps

Only managed a smidge of hobby time tonight…

The light in the kitchen is now dire since I moved things around in here.

Luckily I moved one if the lights around just now and providing I kneel on the floor then I can take some photos in light…

Teddy bear Trooper is getting there as are my CHAS proxies

Hopefully I will get these three finished tomorrow and get on with my elves, my poor forgotten (again) elves!