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Printer Woes…Again

There are some days when there aren’t enough swear words in the world to suffice. I went to sort things out this morning and found some rather deep scratches on the glass bed…I managed to get two banners and a mace and shield off the plate, no miniatures were in evidence.

I haven’t got a clue where the scratches came from. The only thing I can think of is that something had got stuck to the vat and when I moved it then it scratched the glass. I tried printing again and although I got something off I still had failures. Now I forgot to reset the lift speed which might account for things. The scratches were in the same place as some of the failures but not all, so that might not be the cause…

I got a miniature off the bit where the centre scratch is…. here he is….

As things are upside down things look weird… the two missing figures should have been bottom left and the three missing pole arms bottom right. It is all a bit annoying and confusing. I will re level tomorrow and print six miniatures, each in a different place and see if I can work things out. wish me luck!

I did manage to finish the unit of twelve Dwarves…

I also ordered a pile more of these bases… hopefully they will come sooner rather than later.

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Starting on the Samurai Cavalry

Tonight I made a start on the cavalry…

The archers just need the flesh doing and then they are done, apart from the bases…

I will hopefully get some more done on these tomorrow night. I am interviewing tomorrow, so wish me luck. I need the right person for this job.

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The Dwarves Muster

Today I managed to get some more Dwarves printed… All was going well until this evening when I went to print the last one (well actually three) with their banners…two of the three printed and the banner sort of did. So I relevelled and set it off again. Hopefully by tomorrow I will have something to show for it.

Anyway here are my heavy Infantry without their banner…

I also managed to get my rear rank of pike done… now interestingly there is one missing. Part of me now wonders if it failed and caused a problem in the vat…

I also have a large problem… The above is the last base I had! I am hoping that I can get some more, otherwise it is going to be an absolute sod if I have to change them into something else part way through. These came with my Flintloque miniatures and I transferred them onto 2p’s or mdf bases. I never thought I would actually run out of the unused bases.

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Maximilian, Dwarves and the Samurai

Well Max and the Dwarves came out really nicely…

I achieved a mage too! I have also printed out half of a rear rank of pike, along with some artillery crew. These will be available to view tomorrow. The second half are in the process right now. Over four and a half hours to print, for no other reason that the pike was vertical.

I also managed to get some more done on the Samurai archers….

That is them nearly done…I am not sure what colour to do the fletching on the arrows, if I do them white it will look like I have missed a bit so I might have to just water down some Contrast to make it off white.

Tomorrow I will get them finished I hope, then onto some cavalry before swinging back round to more infantry. I am sure that I have some Teppo too.

This made me chortle a bit too much…

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Something Achieved

Today was rather tiring. A day’s training via video conferencing… child protection training is never fun, but as a child protection trainer then it is always weird that I have to be trained in it. Yesterday I managed 9800 steps… today 4000 most of that after I got home. I managed to get some stuff done after the parent council meeting.

First off I scampered to see how the mounted Maximilian had got on… he hadn’t. The magician, the sword arm and Max himself were missing. Once again it is a bit of a mystery as to why they failed, when everything else has been working fine. As they were the first of their type printed It might have been an issue with the supports, but normally things are tested solidly before going out, so it could well be that either it was too cold and the light weight supports failed, or it could be that the build plate has gone off level again.

The only thing to print were the new officer and the lady magician (I am actually struggling with words tonight and cannot think what either are). Here they are with the flag and drummer…

They fit in nicely size wise with the others. I am busy printing a few of the Dwarves that came as part of the kickstarter. We shall see if they print okay.

I also managed to do a bit more work on the samurai…

So the amount of white on these has reduced a bit, this time each colour got a specific helmet colour, I really couldn’t be bothered messing around with half a dozen shades.

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Sort of a Night Off

I am what is best known as knackered. The last time I felt this tired was when my eldest was born and they didn’t sleep for 12 weeks as they had reflux… a week and a half to go until the holidays, in that time I have to interview people, have two days of training, short list with a colleague, sort out for the end of the year and generally stop the oldest kids going off the rails before leaving for secondary school, sort out end of year assessments and record keeping etc…wish me luck!

Anyway tonight I seriously could not be bothered to do much, I sliced a pile more miniatures and rescued the remaining five halberds off the printer…

So I now have a unit of twelve with attached flag waver and drummer.

I am printing off a mounted general and entourage. I shrunk my Lovecraftian zweihander down to the same size as these ones to add in as a fancy officer type. I think he will fit right in (78%) seems the right size this time.

The original test prints from last month.

So that is three full units of twelve done, a half size pike unit and some officer types… in terms of Lion Rampant, when the pike are done then I will have 20 points of a 24 point retinue.

I really doubt I will get anything done tomorrow night as I have a parent council meeting until 21.00. Luckily I will be able to do it from home as we are online. I just have to write the head teacher’s report before 19.00 tomorrow… it is always a sod trying to remember everything that I need to add.

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More Printing, More Samurai

Tonight I had more success on the printer front. The next lot worked fine apart from a couple of niggles… First is the sword on the flag waver hasn’t printed again, second is that some of the pike and halberd shafts are wonky in places, but I am getting there…

I am printing another set of halberdiers and flag/drummer combo that will give me a unit of twelve halberdiers with flag and musician as well as a musician and flag for the pikes. I will need to print a few with vertical pikes to go as the rear rank.

I also managed to get some paint onto the samurai archers…

So it was a bit of a productive evening, not the greatest, but at least something was achieved.

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6mm Samurai

Today has definitely been a day for the Queen, I spent most of this evening extremely annoyed. Partly at myself, but also at other people…or one person in particular who for whatever reason is not a team player. Anyway enough of my whining, I went the shed to see how yesterday’s print went and flipping heck another print completed. I set it away again and after a few minutes of grumping (still) I realised that the build plate was still hanging up. So after a bit more muttering, I cleaned the vat and set it away with three more bills. This time with them at attention to go for a second row. Tomorrow I have to decide whether to have the second pike rank at attention or similar to the bills …in mid poke.

Anyway I managed to crack on with the samurai and got them nearly there…

I am going to base them on 20×40 with eight to a base (I think). I still have to decide on a mon for the sashimono. To be honest it will probably be a simple dot or two.

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Shhhhh It’s Working!

Well after a bit of a wobbly few weeks, the printer seems to behaving itself (I know I have just doomed myself there). I relevelled yesterday and cranked the bottom layers to 7 in the hope that the model would adhere to the build plate and not the plastic… fingers crossed it is working. So far I am nine for nine on the success front. Here they are, they are going to be two separate units in the end. One unit of twelve pile and one of twelve halberdiers.

I am printing the same three pike at the minute to be the front rank. The second rank will be at attention. I will print another six random halberdiers too. Now I was having a look at Lion Rampant and this lot aren’t I. It as it seems to stop at the Wars of the Roses. I will have to have a mooch at some home brew ideas for the late Renaissance.

Now today Dave over on The Imperfect modeller had painted a very nice miniature with a Lion Rampant on the shield… I had mentioned how we see things today and how they were represented in the past… this is what I was talking about… here we see a modern representation of the flag of the Holy Roman Empire from around 1515 (I think)…

A rather funky two headed eagle, however this is an original painting from 1515… spot the difference…

Now a lad I knew from the re-enactment day’s was well into costume and has written a number of books about uniforms… he went to various museums and saw original kit from the early 19th century and made accurate representations of what he had found… no-one would buy it or was interested in it as It didn’t look good… Going back to the painting of the shield designs, I reckon not everyone was an artist… I rest my case… Lion Rampant on a shield!

One of my favourite ‘reference’ material is the ‘Morgan’ Bible here we see another Lion Rampant.

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Printing Failures and the Odd Success

Today I set away to print the last four arquebusiers… I sliced them and added them to the printer and set it away. I did four and Lo and behold it printed two! So after a bit of swearing I relevelled the print plate, remembering point six this time).

So after a bit of shopping I wandered back into the shed to find the bloody thing hadn’t printed a thing. So after muttering under my breath, or rather blaspheming loudly, I relevelled again and set it off…. this time I came back early on and found this time it was only printing one of them. So I pulled the plug and relevelled the bed again.

This time I got another set of three figures to print. These are the halbediers… as I set it away I bumped the number of layers up to 7, in the hope that it will adhere to the metal rather than the FEP. I will find out in an hour if it has worked.

But anyway this is where we have got to so far with the army…

To the left the crossbows and the right the guns. My plan is to have another unit of crossbowmen…. I had better read the army lists before I go wild with units. With this Kickstarter I certainly have a lot of choice!

I also tried painting something different… a bust of an elf witch…

I am not sure about the flesh tones, it cannot really be seen here, but it is a bit mottled. I will carry on with it tomorrow. Next up is The hair I think. It will be a light tan, as opposed to Galadriel’s colour in the Lord of the Rings films. I am thinking a kind of green colour for the dress.

I might even get some work done on the 6mm Samurai too!