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A Knight and a Goblin

So this evening I set about adding the metallics to the knight and his pair of foot soldiers. I got a bit heavy handed on the gun metal so looked for anything I could to avoid wasting the paint. I found a box of various bits and found my armoured bear and a couple of goblins. Basically anything that needed a metallic colour got some.

I will hopefully carry on tomorrow and get the shading and highlights done on the armour.

This weekend I am embarking on a project I never though I was going to do…

I am super annoyed that a whole pile of my Contrast Paints have dried up. I maybe haven’t used them for three months and I am going to have to bin a lot.

I used to say I preferred the pots as you can shove your brush in and get the amount you need, but at £4.50 a pot I reckon I have nearly lost £50 worth of paint. Pretty miffed about it to be honest.

So watch this space and listen for my fell voice on the wind as I drop pots, knock over bottles etc.

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A Big Mouthed Frog

This evening I set to work with the Contrast paint. I did a bit more on the knight and his entourage as well as this Operatic Wide Mouthed frog from Alternative Armies.

I really had to push myself to get going, but once sat down I set to work with gusto. Now the pallette in front arrived in the post today. It is made from silicone and is for either wax melts or chocolates… I cannot remember. Anyway it had 24 indentations and is about 30cm long and 18cm wide. This is it on Amazon Here (evidently it is for wax seals). I thought it was a bit on the large size so attacked it with the scissors…

After the scissor attack.

So I am slowly getting back into painting regularly, I am really hoping that I will carry on with it. I did about 45 minutes this evening so it is do-able.

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Printer Shenanigans

Well the other day my good Blog Buddy Eric was asking me about resin printer failures. I am no expert, but hopefully talked enough sense to help him out…

Anyway I ran a print for the Ikko Ikki and lo and behold a failed print.

I managed to print the bodies, but as you can see there seems a distinct lack of Japanese heads and arms. The bowman is also missing an arm. Anyway I emptied the Vat and checked the FEP ( the plastic film on the bottom of the vat that the light ravels through). As I was doing this I noticed about half of the screws were loose. I tightened these and went for something I knew worked…basically this lot:

It pretty much worked okay apart from the helmet.

So I redid the Ikko … this time I did the supports and once again a failure. I got the bodies and only a few arms.

Now if you compare the two images above. The first one is darker… then the wheels in my brain started working. I decided to add a bit of flexible resin mixed in with the ordinary stuff I use.

And??? I hear you ask. Well flexibility can cause problems as the miniature can twist away from the supports ( well I think that is how it works). The bodies are thick enough to survive this… arms and heads are small enough to allow the flex. Notice the missing arm on the bowman is his bow arm. I printed twice and voila… two dudes without their left arm.

I pretty much used up the mix, I used an old bottle to store the remnants and am printing a new knight and entourage with my straight resin… I will find out tomorrow if it worked… I could check now, but it is raining and pitch black… so you will have to wait.

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It’s Not Me

So after getting lots of paint on this knight I have decided to keep going on this one, but will then paint another one using a darker red and lighter black which is more like my original kit.

The other thing is, my crest is a Northumbrian Boar. One of the helms actually has a boar on it… I chose bull horns for this one. So all in all, a new knight is being printed. I have added a couple of foot soldiers to the plate too.

The other thing I am printing is some Wargames Atlantic Ikko Ikki. I decided to join them on Teams for a test period.

They do have some nice stuff… it’s a lot smaller than most things I have already, but that’s the beauty of 3D printing. From what I remember I basically need to increase x and y by 105% and z by 110%.

I will finish painting the above before starting on the next.

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It’s All About Me!

This evening I decided to slap some paint on the third Knight. As discussed the other day I went for my reenactment livery.

So this time I used my old favourite… Contrast. However there were some issues…. Dah, Dah, Daahhhh!!

As you probably noticed I haven’t exactly been going hammer and tongs with my painting over the last three or four months. Because of this a whole pile of my contrast is now the equivalent of coloured tar. Luckily for me the livery colours had unopened pots so I managed a speedy paint job.

I was pleased with how they went on, sadly though the ‘Black Legion’ isn’t really Contrast in the same way as the others are.

The big question I am now pondering is whether I actually start to replace my Contrast or go Xpress and Speedpaints…. Watch this space.

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A Knight & his Entourage

This evening I got this trio cured and glued onto some bases. It was my plan to get them undercoated for painting tomorrow.

This one is going to be done in my re-enactment colours. These colours will be matched on the large shields, but the foot soldier clothing will be in random colours as befits the period.

The more astute of you will notice the lack of undercoat… I have two words ‘Effin midges.

They were so bad I actually ended up finding my net hood to go into the shed to retrieve the above. They were so numerous around the door it seemed misty.

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A Pony, A Dwarf and a Ruffian…

Walk into a bar…. Well okay maybe not.

I managed another bit of painting this evening and got these finished.

I am quite pleased with myself as I was really not wanting to do anything. I started with the pony and as I had paint on the palette I moved onto the dwarf, ditto with him so a third miniature was done.

These were all done with Speedpaints 2.0. I had less problem with bleeding this evening… so either I am getting more used to them or I shook the pots more.

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A Knight to Remember

So today I set to work on the Speedpaints knight. These paints are a lot different to the Xpress ones. Colours are fine. The biggest issue I found was that they seemed to bleed/spread into other areas.

You can see how much the yellow spread.

Now to be fair, these paints are relatively new and as such I do need to learn how to use them. I had forgotten these weren’t what I am used to so perhaps I didn’t leave them long enough. Possibly a case of “only fools blame their tools, when the skill is lacking!”

So anyway here is the glamour shot…

I had a spare shield so painted it up.

Here he is with his buddy…

So, on the left Speedpaints 2.0 and on the right Xpress paint. Have I got a favourite… I am a bit torn… but if we look at only the blue, then i would have to go Speedpaint. I am going to print some more knights and do some with Contrast and the rest in the above two.

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Midge Induced Painting

This evening I was sitting in the conservatory messing on the computer. I had actually set an alarm for 21.00 but the midges had somehow got in there with me… they were a bloody nightmare so I evacuated.

I decided to do something constructive. And painting seemed constructive enough.

So I worked on the Xpress painted knight and various other miniatures I had handy to avoid wasting paint.

This is where I got to with him…

I may have gone a bit overboard with the mud along the bottom of the horse trapping. I will need to do something with the stag on the helmet as it is looking very flat.

I also need to grubby up the bottom of his tabard too.

I will get the base done tomorrow which should make it look better overall.

I shall also try something on the Speedpaint knight tomorrow.

I also have to print another one to do a Contrast knight.

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Painting Again…

Zoggin Heck another day with paint on a brush….I must be Ill or something !

This chappy is done in Speedpaints 2.0. On this one I tried the metallic Speedpaint. It went on so nicely and sort of dried flat. However I put a wash over the metallic bits on the first knight and have actually ended up with a similar effect. I was going to dry brush them with silver anyway so no problem there.

So let’s see if I can manage three days in a row… (probably won’t pick up a brush for a month).

To be honest, I reckon the only reason I did anything today was because of Geek Club in school.