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Printing Success

Huzzah, the roof came out fine, well apart from a couple of gaps it is fine. However putting it on a raft with supports inside it made my job a nightmare… luckily I only stabbed my self only once.

My second Kickstarter core bundle came through too. I had already started on the ‘crow’ tower. But me being me didn’t do it for 28mm as designed, instead I dropped it down to something that would suit my 6 or 10mm Armies…

Today I have been doing more work in the conservatory, or rather on the conservatory. If you remember we put a skylight in it and it has been nothing but trouble, so today I spat the dummy and removed it… as you can imagine this left a ruddy great hole in the roof. So with a bit of help from the family we got some wood cut and filled in the gaps. It had been a fine day although a bit on the chilly side. So I had just glued everything in place and the heavens opened with some of the worst sleet I have seen in a good while. Needless to say I hadn’t sealed everything yet, so we now have a very wet floor. I managed to get some plastic over things, but it was a bit late. I was so wet I put my trousers straight into the tumble drier to get them useable again quickly.

Tomorrow I carry on and get the roofing felt on and get that all sealed too. Busy, busy, busy!

Tomorrow I intend to try and paint something… anything in fact. I am going to print out some of the militia too from the Lovecraft Kickstarter.

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A Day of Printing Ups and Downs

Well if you remember, yesterday I was busy printing my 6mm temple. I got the base and walls done…

I was immensely pleased with the result, so today I set about printing the roof. Now because the corners come in two parts, I decided to save time (bad idea) and print them like they come in the package. This is vertically on the end. Now I was a bit concerned that there wouldn’t be much contact between the edge of the roof and the build plate so I added a raft to help out. This adds a fair old bit of time to the print, but it does generally help… except today. I came in at the four and a half hour mark to find this shit storm happening…

I swore…lots!

I haven’t got a clue what the heck happened, but it would seem one of them has come adrift and then things have snowballed from there. So this evening I built everything in 3D builder, and have placed it as it would appear on the building. I have once again added a raft, but have also added supports too. Just in case… it is now a 10 hour plus print, b7t hopefully it will be okay.

Now onto the printing success… I backed a Kickstarter called the Frost. This is by a very talented artist called Duncan Lovecraft. He does some amazing stuff… As part of the Kickstarter he had a grab bag of goodies so for the hell of it I printed a couple of dwarves, these are lovely….

One is the bog standard adventurer dwarf and the other is a Landsknecht dwarf… I just thought he looked funky. This Kickstarter attracted my attention as I fancied playing Mordheim again and Lo and behold it has a pile of suitable miniatures, as well as some great terrain, that will also work for Frostgrave.

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Building, Printing and Painting

Cor blimey, I have been busy today, shopping, building, sawing, Printing, Painting and making dinner to name but a few.

Well as you know I do like my 6mm Samurai and 3DAlien World’s has produced a very nice temple building. It came out today so I just had to get it. In 28mm it would be huge, in fact the Ender would only take one base bit at a time, luckily I was going 6mm. So I built bits in 3D Builder first and then reduced them down to 24% the base is printing right now, but the walls came off really nicely…

Unfortunately I don’t think I am going to be able to pre build the roof, but I will most definitely give it a go.

I also got the Trewell Common buildings finished too..

Now you may notice that the photo was taken on a different surface… this is because I now have a dedicated painting place I; the lounge…

This pretty much can store most of my paints miniatures and other bits and pieces. I tried it out this evening and did some more on the Cultists…

I also did some work on the conservatory. We are putting down decking as a different kind of flooring and to cut a long story short…short being quite appropriate here….

I swore….lots!

80cm short! It comes in 4.8m lengths… hopefully there will be a knackered piece that I can get cheap… wish me luck!

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Helmets and Hovels

Well my printer has just passed its 25th hour straight. Another five and it should be finished. I took a couple of photos, there were going to be four barrels, but two popped off the build plate early on and one of these dropped off right at the end of printing. For some reason the little building which is 40% it’s original size (my goat shed) has warped on one corner…

I also decided to try something a bit more complex this evening and gave a helmet a go… it certainly leaves a lot to be desired, but hey you have to start somewhere.

I need to practice vertical cuts and make sure that I spread the contact adhesive out more evenly, but it is mad of some sheets of EVA that I have had for at least three years, so no harm done. I am still amazed that this came from a flat sheet of foam. The bit on the top is going to be a top ridge with built in nasal guard. I will make cheek pieces and a neck guard too.

On a totally different subject, this is my 601st post in a row. Probably 500 more than there should have been I hear you cry! However, I have had 25000 views and 8018 visitors. Which is pretty awesome. So a big thank you to everyone who pops in to look and leaves a comment too.

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Destructive Day

Today we decided it was time to do something about the local landmark of our rather knackered caravan.

Here it is this time last year

Well we were going to cut it up last year then the starlings got in and made their nests in it, so we couldn’t, then Lockdown came, then we didn’t have a car to pull the trailer…all in all the winter totally buggered it… well okay buggered it more is a better way to describe it…the last big wind caused this side to completely collapse.

We decided that before the birds nested in it again then we would start to take it down. This proved to be a bigger job time wise than we thought, but with a bit of brute force and ignorance we now have it down to waist height…

We tidied up after this shot 😉

I now ache like buggery…part of the reason for this was using the reciprocating saw upside down and back to front as I tried to cut it into manageable bits. Needless to say I haven’t got any painting done this evening. I did manage to get the reprinted cottage of the build plate…

This is a much better size than yesterday’s attempt. I am now printing the larger cottage, with a small animal barn and some barrels… oh and a hen on her nest too.

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A Smidge of Painting

Tonight I got my brush out and sat down to paint something only to realise that is was 22.00. So I didn’t get that much done. Argentbadger had suggested I leave the flesh tones white, so I had a go at the Contrast white over the base colour of white and it was giving a bit of a shading, but it just didn’t look right. So I added a smidge of flesh tone into the white and added a fair bit of water… this was the effect…

It’s not white, but it is a really light skin tone. So a bit thanks to Argent as I really wasn’t sure what colour to do the faces etc.

I set the FDM printer away this evening and got the cottage printing again, this time at 65% original size. Part of me now thinks it might be a bit small, but I will see in fifteen hours time.

It has been a long two weeks since all the kids came back into school. I am now on Easter break and tomorrow morning I do not want to get up until I wake up… if that is 15.00 then so be it!

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Printing Cock-Ups

My FDM has now been running for 26 hours straight and is making a rather lovely small cottage… there is however a bit of a problem, this one seems to be a bit on the large side, especially for a small cottage.

Considering that the build plate itself is 22cm square then you will see what I mean. I am just going to let it run its course and then shove some figures near to it and see what they look like. To be honest I can’t remember adding a raft or the tree supports, so I am now wondering if I had somehow clicked a button to increase the size.

My other balls up was my goblin Warg rider and Warg…

Now the more observationally astute will notice… a) the lack of any goblins, or Wargs for that matter and also b) its a 2 legged moose… evidently I pressed the wrong button last night on the resin printer too…

So as I was faffing on for so long, the prints have eventually finished, the FDM printer taking 27 hours plus to finish, and it is indeed bloody huge….

On the up side, the goblin and Wargs printed properly this time…

Diorama Idea number 2

Finally… when I was hunting through a box Then I came across some of my earliest ever painted miniatures and I thought it was time for their 25 (or more) year update. So they are going to get stripped and redone in a new paint scheme… let’s see how I have progressed…

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Firing up the Printer

This evening, after about four months I fired up both printers again. The Resin did a multiparty elf and dwarf and the FDM is having a go at a 28mm cottage.

I did the elf and dwarf as an idea for a diorama….

I will either do the one on one combat as above or possibly these two against a goblin on a Warg… battle of the five armies style.

I also managed to get a bit of paint onto the cultists. I decided to just go for black on the weapons. I had spent a few days trying to work out what colours to go for them…

I haven’t forgotten about the foam armour, it’s just I have run out of foam and have had to order some more.

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A Night Off

It has been a hard couple of days at work and I am knackered. I am two, no three staff down as of today and the fly with a blue bottom is the best way to describe me as of late.

Anyway my daughter got her photos into a exhibition led by creative Scotland, so we watched that over Zoom and then I messed around downloading all of the 3D printer files I haven’t got around to saving yet… this sadly took a long time as there were rather a lot of files to organise.

If truth be told I have too much and will probably never ever print half if it, let alone print it.

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Working on the Leather

When I got home from work today there was a nice parcel waiting for me. This was the 1 and 2mm EVA foam. This will be used to add designs to the pieces instead of the cardboard.

I decided to try and get some more done on the arm guards this evening… the one on the right is working just fine, the green and fold certainly need some work, but I am getting there.

Now this is going to sound really pretentious, and it isn’t meant to be, but I keep forgetting these aren’t 10mm leather. When I was taking the photo of the one outside the other day, I really couldn’t get why it was blowing away.

I really am enjoying doing these, one it is because my daughter really appreciates them and two they are really good fun.

It is hard to describe how I feel about them. I suppose, in a round about way, I am proud of them, more so than painting miniatures…it is something that I am doing from start to finish. These all started with a flat bit of foam and ended up being something wearable. I suppose it is like people doing dioramas. You take an idea and run with it from start to finish. There are lot of you out there that will know more than me.