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Random Ramblings…

Warning, long, long rambling post about… er… about elitism or something like that.

Whilst waiting for the Bases to dry on this lot

I had another notification from a well known Social Media Platform that rhymes with… well as I can’t think of anything … it was Facebook.

In one of the groups someone posted the following…

“Hi quick question, do any of you think that 3d printers will kill off terrain builders like us.”

Now it kind of made me think (it does happen occasionally) and I replied in a somewhat rambling post as to how it wouldn’t as it is a tool and it might be seen as a way to support the building of terrain. As you can imagine views were pretty much split yes and no with a nice smattering of who gives a shit.

But it did get me thinking about Elitism In hobbies. Will my sub £200 Ender 3 supplant the artistic talents of some amazing terrain builders out there, Hell no and I wouldn’t even pretend it might. But it does mean if I have half a dozen things I want, I can set it away and come back a few hours later and voila there it is on the bed.

Some people have said to me as a ‘joke’ that 3D printers are somehow cheating. Now claiming that you did all the work when all you press is start is a bit arsey. I am happy to say my models etc are there because I am standing on the shoulders of giants, but I am quite proud of my 30mm bases 😂😂😂. But seriously cheating!

Am I cheating, err no, unless you count MDF and card buildings cheating and if that is the case then shop bought flock or tufts or trees are too. I have in fact made all of these myself and although relatively easy it was a right pain time wise.

Part of me wonders what the original question was posted for, it seems weird, some did take it as a deliberate attempt to stir the shit a bit. Maybe it was, who knows

But it isn’t just in this hobby, my wife is a very talented knitter and it has hit their world too. On one of the forums someone was berating those people who used Aldi’s cheap wool to knit a jumper when they should obviously be using hand spun, hand dyed, drawn strand by strand from a 4 year old sheep in a full moon in late May or some other pretentious shite. Who gives a flying fling, it’s about what you can a – afford and b- what works for you. A Printer is the same. My desert houses. I paid the designer $10 for the pattern and I can print as many as I want. But I want about 6 to 8 of them. Now this has taken away a bit of business from other people, but it has technically saved me a hod of cash …but this is where it gets interesting…..

Building on the left printed on card by me and glued together. Building on the right made by me out of cork tiles. Because I made the one on the right, I have taken away further business from the designer on the left. But according to the poster on Facebook the one on the right is better as the card one is killing off terrain builders like him.

But it goes beyond that, IRO posted not that long ago about saving a blog, the blogger had written this…

“A while ago I came across a post on a fellow bloggers site informing the world of a cancer that was driving away real wargamers from the internet…”posers” who though claiming to be gamers were in fact nothing but shameless self-promoters, who like some sixteen year old girl posting endless “selfies” of themselves, merely used their blogs to showcase their latest figures and bask in the praise of other bloggers rather than posting “Batreps” of the games that they played.”

Well that is me buggered sideways, backwards and probably upside down. I therefore apologise whole heartedly for my shameless self promo… you know what bollocks to them , I shall keep on sticking my figures up here. If anyone would like to know a blow by blow account of how the elf wanted to save the donkey instead of the maiden from the wolves let me know.

But it is exactly the elitist bullshit that is creeping in. I call myself a gamer and apart from getting back into the RPG’s I have played in one HOTT tournament and one Games day since probably this time last year.

In conclusion, my favourite Facebook post was the following…

Yes – 3D printers are evil and only for untalented people who want to pretend they are crafters.

Is that the sort of thing you were hoping provoke? Virtually the same subject was brought up 2 days ago in Dragonlock Group.

It’s all just tools.

So there you go … It’s all just tools….

One last photo for JNV 😂

That is my painting snack sorted out for tonight 👍

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Gaming, Not Painting

No painting tonight but we did get a bit of gaming in. The characters are attached to a trade caravan and are attempting to find the murderer of a ranger.

Here we have the caravan. All but the horses and a single figure are printed.

The attack of the wolves caused a bit of consternation with an elf fighting alongside a dwarf before it became fashionable in Middle Earth.

Okay the dwarf had gone into a beserk rage and had charged the nearest wolves, he happened to see them before he saw the elf. Luckily the dice was on the side of the elf as the dwarf charged off rather than turning his attention to Tauriel.

But will they catch the killer before they get to Bree, that is the question.

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Odds and Squads III

Almost there on this lot….

Cultists all but finished…

I might try a bit more highlighting on the red as you can’t really tell I did any!

Inspectors…just need basing up as tonight I varnished them…

There are a couple of cock ups on them which need sorting, the blue splodge on the green cup being a case in point. The lady also has a ring that needs some paint on it. Hopefully my mate will like them.

And finally the weird hand warriors…a bit of highlighting on them but otherwise nearly all done, well apart from the basing.

As for basing of the printed miniatures. They are on a flagstone style base, but to be honest I think I am just going to use the standard flock I have been using recently.

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Odd Squad

With one thing and another I only managed a bit on the cultists today…

It was mainly a bit of tidying up and getting some paint on the armoured one. I would have liked to have got more done but sadly today was a bit busy with going to the cinema to Watch Alita Battle Angel, which I thought was rather fab, even with a bit in the middle where I went ???

I then attempted to buy the weekly shop, it’s a bugger when the boat is off and panic buying sets in. No veg, no fruit and no bread. I managed to get the things for tea, my wife said she fancied bacon egg and chips the other day, luckily the shop had those bits in.

Tonight I was forced by my son to watch the Last Airbender with him. Perhaps if I was 8 I would have enjoyed it, but it was a chore. It was so bad I really fancied going off to paint some more 10mm elves.

Hopefully tomorrow I will get these finished and the inspectors based up.

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Odds and Squads II

Managed a bit of painting tonight whilst watching Enemy at the Gates. With musical accompaniment by the Minions…

A surreal mix of soundtracks coming from the other room…

Anyway the squads….

First up the inspectors from Heresy Miniatures…

Second up are the printed Cultists downloaded from Ill Gotten Games…

And finally a small ‘squad’ of Hand Monster things again from Ill Gotten Games…

The inspectors are pretty much done apart from the bases. The other two sets still have a bit of work to go…

And Finally… my daughter’s dwarf is ready for basing….

Off to see Alita Battle Angel tomorrow afternoon, but should still manage a bit of painting.

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Friday Forgotten Forces

Another Friday, another delve… this time 10mm cavemen

These are from ages ago. I started these for a Games Day in 2015. They are Magister Millitum. These were supplanted by the 10mm Eskimo from the same manufacturer.

They were bought for my mammoth hunting games, but I felt the others looked better as they had both spears and bows.

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Wordy Post Tonight

Well I have been promising my eldest a game of Scrabble for the last couple of days…

Not exactly the newest edition, I did manage to beat her even though I had a slow start.

I was quite proud of my personal best score of 75 and just now I realised I only got 45 points…. I had better tell her tomorrow. We were feeling quite proud until we realised we just scraped into the Good score.

I also managed a little more on the weird hand monsters…

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Odds and Squads…

This Month’s Azazel’s Challenge is a squad challenge.

Here is my work in Progress for at least one ‘squad’.

These are being painted up for my mate to be part of an up and coming RPG we will be playing.

Still a fair bit to go but getting there. Another view of the same lot…

The other potential ‘squad’ is this lot.

Some form of cultists from Ill Gotten Games. There is one of the cultists missing, I must have left him in the shed (we painted in the house tonight). These are from the Curse of Moht printed game. Do fantasy figures form squads? I don’t know to be honest, but either way I want them finished by the end of the month. In the background is one of the heroes he is seen in his urban and rural garb.

It was nice to sit down with my daughter again and do some painting together.

She has decided her rabbits are finished and she is now starting on a printed dwarf.

She would have got them based, but bedtime arrived, much to her annoyance!

We shall carry on tomorrow…

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Painted Dwarves

I have decided to call these two finished…

I feel they definitely look different from the originals.

I also took a photo of the rear…

I added a crossbow to one and a coil of rope to the other.

Being evil parents that we are, we forced the kids of technology to do something creative, Lucy wanted to paint a figure, and so did James so off we went.

Lucy started her rabbits last year and decided to crack on and try and get them finished. James chose a chaos marine to practice on.

Lucy has started using washes and dry brushing. She was also really good at tidying up bits she had overpainted. Still a bit to go, but they were both very pleased with their results. Lucy has now asked for me to print her a dwarf too as that is what she wants to paint next. So tomorrow we return to the shed and get some painting done.

The other thing was my good mate from the North if England phoned up to say he had been watching Bolt Action YouTube vids and wished I was still down there so we could get a game in. It must be 25 years since we had last played a war game together.

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Nothing Printed, Painted or Built

Tonight was a totally can’t be arsed kind of an evening. I went off to paint a couple of my dwarves in the big shed. Outside temperature has dropped below minus so it was a little chilly. I put on my down riding jacket and the heater and waited until things warmed up. Whilst waiting for the paint to unfreeze (a slight exaggeration there). I played on the console and as you might have guessed, I achieved nothing.

Off into the bath and to while away the time, I watched the following

A channel called building Middle Earth. As I am into Tolkien I have been watching this channel for a little while, I do like his builds.

In this one he was building a Minis Tirith dwelling out of Hirst Blocks.

This was something I did about 10 years ago (by did read stopped doing). By the end I had around 20 Plus moulds, all imported from the states, I used to get a good deal… buy 4 get 1 free, plus he helped out on the taxes too. When I became rather skint I sold pretty much all of them on EBay and weirdly made more money than I paid for them. My eldest when she was a tot used to help me. She loved measuring out the spoonfuls of plaster. We got pretty slick at it by the end… if I left things for a while I would forget the ratio, so to remind me I stuck a label on the bottom of the cupboard shelf…

Yep it’s still there, in case I ever feel the urge to purchase Keramin again. The ratio above is not the recommended one from the package, but rather a trial and error system of getting the best results.

Anyway the moulds are long gone but the bricks remain. I must have thousands of the things, even after I gave a kilo or two away to the gaming club.

This is only one such box/bag/sweetie tin that contains various bits and bobs.

Although I don’t make things out of them any more, why?quite simply the weight – oh and time to cast enough blocks and then actually build something. Don’t get my wrong these are awesome, but I think I just ran out of steam. It didn’t help that the cost of getting the hard plaster up here was getting silly. A bag of Keramin cost £6 …postage to the uk was somewhere near £3 with an extra £6 to get to me.

They are handy for bits and pieces of ruins though…

I really should just bin them as in those 10 years I haven’t really used anything apart from some Egyptian statues. And truth be told I now have the printer. Okay it isn’t the same as building it yourself one brick at a time but the printed stuff does tend to bounce a bit easier and furthermore it is a twentieth of the weight.

When I say the moulds have all gone, that is not exactly right. I have one left… #75 the ruined Fieldstone mould. The other piece of Trivia is some of my moulded pieces supported my Wife in one of her International conferences. They made a pathway for people to follow (on a table – I didn’t make that many 😉). It went down quite well from what I remember.

Even though the Temperature here is chilly – spring is definitely on the way as the Oyster catchers are back and making a massive racket.