Argggghhhhh!

And word to that effect… it has been a busy day, our local cinema reopened yesterday and their premiere was a play done by Shetland Youth theatre.. because I’d Covid Shennanigans it ended up being filmed. Really proud of my eldest as they were excellent in it.

However that is not the reasons for the Miffedness… I decided to print something so spent a good old while getting things into the build plate in the slicer. I filled it up… bad mistake!

This is what I started with…

Apologies for the naff photo

And this is what I ended up with!

There is only one wheel, instead of four, no driver, no luggage or shield… not to mention no loops on the stagecoach pole…

So I have relevelled the thing, tested the screen and am now in the process of printing a pile of miniatures that require no support…

Problem is I have loads of these already…

But if these print fine then it is probably down to failed supports… fingers crossed!

I managed to salvage a couple of miniatures out of the a above…

Yellow Tops…Even More Reinforcements

Today has been a day of frustration, lots of frustration! The bloody printer kept missing out various bits, not sure why but some of the miniatures on the plate did not print, on the up side, I now have a whole load more miniatures, that I was going to do at another time.

The matriarch and the ram were two of the things that I tried to print… annoyingly, when I moved them into the middle they printed fine. Now I am no expert, but this would indicate a levelling problem. I re levelled the bed and still had a failure in the same spots, now it could have been a simple support issue. I will try printing some other bits and pieces tomorrow and see how I get on.

Yellow Tops… Reinforcements

Well, I suppose sort of might be a better way of putting it…

I spent a good deal of this evening sorting out a build plate with four miniatures, two shields and lots of weapons for them all… I came back to the printer to find this…

Now the mathematically astute will notice a distinct lack of number 4 miniature and the more observant will also notice a one legged man. There are also a lot of the weapons missing too, not to mention the bottoms of the two hand guns… I managed to print the hand to hold the shotgun, only to find I had printed the right hand instead of the left.

So I did what I could with the bits I had and came up with these two (plus the power maul for the sergeant)…

I decided to print them all again. This time I noticed that the bolt pistol and grenade pistol were actually sitting in mid air, so sorted that out! I also supported the heck out of everything that I could. Further to this I increased the lift height and slowed down the lift speed as the FEP was certainly being pulled upwards by the suction. On second thoughts, I have just realised that I increased the lift speed…. doh!

On the up side these are nearly finished…

I am rather pleased that I now have a long weekend… no work for four days! I need the above finished by lunchtime as my mate is coming around for his Birthday Barbecue around 16.00. I do need to go shopping for all of the barbecue food and drinks, but hopefully I can get the wash on them and highlights done. He might have to wait until Saturday (his birthday) to actually get them as it allows me to get some PVA on the bases as well as getting them varnished. The extras will have to come a bit later on.

Further Foresting of the helmet

Much swearing occurred this evening, stupid stuff wouldn’t stick to the stupid glue on the stupid helmet, but apart from that I managed a little more on the first heavy layers…

As you can see I am onto the top now I will get onto the right hand side tomorrow.

I just found a pile more flocks and scatter material this evening so I reckon I can make it pretty.

I really haven’t got a clue as to whether the stuff will stay on…but with a few layers of watered down PVA then there is a chance that it will stay on at least until the photos are done 🥴

Yellow Tops… Getting There

Tonight I managed to get some more paint onto these chaps and am nearly done them. I want to get a wash onto the metalwork and then a dry brush. I added a dark paint into the mouth area and it made me a bit happier than yesterday…

So this is them nearly finished… I will get some of the dark sand onto their bases tomorrow. The one thing I did notice this evening, or should I say notice properly, is that the one chucking the grenade has lost his rifle barrel.

I had a go at printing the last two from this squad.. it was a bit of a pain to be honest. Chitubox, the slicer program was playing silly buggers and messing with the resolution. I eventually overcame it by totally reloading it and voila my printer appeared, so apart from the failure of the force truncheon (or whatever it is called), the rest printed ok.

So we have the sergeant with a las pistol and the marshal with a bolt gun and chain sword. In hindsight I think adding the bolt gun in that pose hasn’t really worked. I really should have rotated the hand more and had it on its side… hey ho never mind.

I will print off the failed bit tomorrow. He should get eight of the ten for his Birthday by Friday.

The one thing I found about this printer was the relief of just pressing print and off it went… none of the faffing on for half an hour trying to get the print head to come down.

Foresting the Helmet II

Yes I managed to do another small bit on the helmet, I am beginning to wonder if the quick drying glue stops being quick drying if it gets old?

I am considering asking on the Facebook page if the glue can go off. If so I will order some more as it is useful stuff

At the rate I am going then it should be ready for at least Christmas 2022…it is sooooo slow!

Hopefully tomorrow I can move onto the other side. The stuff I did last night eventually stuck. Once all the heavy stuff is done then I will set to work on the less dense flock. This is definitely becoming a long term work in progress.

Yellow Tops…Further Work

I got a wiggle I. With these this evening and managed to get a lot of the white covered up. I am liking the yellow more, but there is still something that is bugging me about the colour… I just cannot put my finger on it.

I think I will darken the mouth area and get some darker colour into the eye slits, that may help my niggle.

I will get the metallics done tomorrow This will be gold or brass on the chest decoration and on the shoulder decoration that two of them have. I will also add gun metal to the weapons. I do quite like these as miniatures and might sort myself out some …I actually have the multi part ones too…a few with riot shields and combat shotguns would go well… not to mention the sergeant and officer to go with these ones. Hopefully I will be bothered to get the printer running tomorrow evening.

Yellow Tops

Tonight I got the black done on the Arbites , still a long way to go, but in a fit of excitement I added some yellow to the helmets…

Now it might just be because of the white that is still on the miniature, but I am not sure whether I like it or not. Once the rest is done then if I still don’t like it I can easily paint over it with a different colour…my mates birthday is on Saturday so I had better get a wiggle on tomorrow.

Foresting the Helmet

Tonight I set about using my basing glue and some clump foliage to get a base level on the cheek piece…

This seemed like a good idea, but it is annoyingly fiddly and difficult for the stuff to stick to the helmet. So I will leave it drying over night (so much for quick drying) and see what happens with it tomorrow.

In my mind there are going to be thick clumps like this as well as thinner areas too. Once it is all set (hopefully) then I will add different colours to this to get it looking more natural.

Printers and Painting

Tonight I bit the bullet sand set up the new Resin printer… I thought I would do the sensible thing and print off the test prints…

I do think it looks rather smart with its green cover… this thing has about 50% more printing space than the Zero, which is a big plus.

He test rooks look like this…

The white colour is residue form the ISO… I should have let them drain more

Speaking of draining, some absolute pillock packed up the arm for the wash and Cure machine and sent it off when the printer got returned. Whoops! Luckily I still had the basket.

I also managed a bit of painting too.

These will probably have black boots, belts and gloves. Probably yellow helmets and chest decoration…not sure about the rest yet.