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Troopers … Packs and Pea Shooters

I managed another half hour tonight, I used to manage a couple of hours straight, but right now I can just about manage half an hour painting. My wet palette has been really useful as it allows me to do the half hour, close the lid and come back to it in @ day or two.

Anyway I mixed up a batch of dark blue and black at a ratio of about 1:1. This is the base colour for my packs and weapons. I am getting there with these but they seem to be taking their time.

Part of this is the 30 minutes a night and Zi think the other part is that I am trying to do more shading and highlighting.

I did a day’s teaching in one of our smaller schools today and snapped a view from my commute home. The photo was a panorama, but is all squashed up on here… still not a bad view. It was a bit rushed as I was avoiding the heavy hail showers.

Tiny is doing well, still the only one to hatch but has grasped the intricacies of eating and drinking. I am hoping that he/she will get some chums soon…

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Another Smidge on the LI

Yep another hardly noticeable amount done on the Light Infantry.

Not that you can tell from this photo anyway. But to be honest when you hold them up to the light the highlights on the armour are in fact now visible, I reckon another going over tomorrow with the same colour and then they will be almost visible to the naked eye.

The plasma bug got a couple of thin coats of white to allow the blue to show up better. It might have been better if I hadn’t done it with a size 0 brush. Took bloody ages!

Oh and congratulations are in order as I have evidently just become a grandfather which is a bit concerning as my middle child is only 10, but her baby ‘tiny’ arrived at 18.40 today. He/she weighs very little and arrived after around 10 hours of pushing.

No siblings have appeared yet, nor are their any indications that any are on their way.

Next year I want to leave it to the hen, as it was a very stressful for all humans involved.

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Light Infantry… a smidge more done

Ye gods I am Knackered…. so only a little bit done on my Troopers tonight.

They are slowly getting there. I highlighted all of the armour, not that you can really tell. Luckily I opened up my wet palette so the mixed paint should still be good tomorrow.

I also repainted the medic’s armour white in places. I know it isn’t cannon to either the book or the films/series but hey they are my figures and it kind of works.

Tonight I also had a mooch about my Humble bundle downloads… somehow I nearly ended up with a 7 and a half hour print of a Carthaginian war elephant. It was more to see if the printer could manage it as it seemed it wouldn’t print without supports. Luckily common sense prevailed (as I don’t have any ancients and at least no Carthaginian forces) so it went back into the downloads.

The one thing I should try is my fighter bomber I found on Thingiverse… it will make a nice TAC fighter for the ST world.

Strange Fact… that probably everyone knows… Starship Troopers was originally going to be called Bug Attack on Outpost Nine (or something like that). The director had never read the book and was advised to do so, and thus Starship Troopers was born.

Tomorrow we are going to carry on play testing my mates new RPG… some how I don’t think our characters will make it out alive.

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Big Bugs and Light Infantry

I decided to spray my Plasma bug black today to help speed up the painting. My major issue was that I had already sprayed the bulb white… a quick ponder and out came the cling film.

It worked really well or so I thought. I bet you can’t spot where the cling film was torn!

I gave it a blast with grey to help add some highlights. I was quite pleased as I managed to get get this done before work.

When I got home I did some more on the Light Infantry. Mainly the armour on the troopers as well as a bit of splinteresque camouflage on the sniper.

Still a whole lot to do but I am getting there at a rough rate of half an hour a day… day 17 so far.

Whilst I am painting I have been listening to an audiobook on YouTube…

It is about 30 years since I read it last. My Starship Troopers obsession is now taking me into comics… the first 4 should be with me soon.

I suppose I should make a comment on the YouTube comment, it is in fact quite a big thing… 2 weeks ago my internet download speed was 0.2 at its very best.

I am now sitting at this…

It is amazing how much easier it is to watch YouTube at this kind of speed 🤯

Off to listen to more of my story 😁. 4 hours in and not a bug in sight 🤔

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More Troopers

I had asked Doug over at EM4 if there were any if the metal arms for the plastic troopers. Sadly there were none and were not likely to be going to be any either. But a little while ago he emailed me to apologise that his other company Moonraker Miniatures had some left. I thought this was jolly decent of him as I wouldn’t be spending hundreds of pounds on a couple of packets of arms.

So the order arrived today.

I have built one set up using the command sprue arm set and the Ganger heavy weapons set. The later are for gangers as the name implies and not really for the troopers. A couple fitted so these became heavy weapons and the rest became a medic, an officer and a comms trooper.

Not knowing really what I was getting in this set, I also ordered some metal miniatures

From left to right, heavy weapons, sniper/scout, comms and an obvious officer type. My initial idea is that in the RPG as the players specialise then they can choose a new miniature if they want.

I will attempt to get these painted up sometime soon.

As I was driving to pick up some horse feed I drove past some more of Lerwick’s defences….

The photos taken of the bunkers etc were on the skyline. The original road block is about 60m in front of my car.

If the weather is good this weekend I will mosey along to the battery and get some photos.

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Washes, Highlights and Another Big Bug

This sounds like a hairdressers advert, well apart from the big bug, unless that is some form of bouffant hairstyle.

Tonight I managed some highlights on the robots…

As with most things they look a lot better in real life. I spent ages highlighting edges and flat panels, not that you can tell, there is now a huge contrast between the dark recesses and the raised areas.

I also bunged a light wash on the elves, yeah I am back on with them…

Trooper Ted is keeping an eye on them 🙄

And finally the big bug, where does that fit in… my latest purchase, all the way from Virginia Beach in Virginia in the USA.

It’s a Tanker bug, complete with shooty bits. Press the button on its back and the spring loaded mechanism fires the ‘plasma’ out of its mouth.

So why all the way from the states and why a toy from the ’90s… simple reason really. I got this chappy for a fiver with £12 postage. Compare that to the £35 used and £60 in box you can see why. And the States, it was the only place I could find one at the time. Typically once the purchase had been made then a few popped up in the Uk on EBay. I did do a bit of research and as the cost was below £30 then I would pay no import duty… looks like it was right.

Although the bug itself was funky, along with bubble wrap was a bit of a newspaper, which was just as interesting as I have never seen a newspaper from the states before… the one weird thing (to me that is) is it is really long and thin.

Compare it to the mighty tome that is…The Shetland Times …a mighty paper of editorial prowess and cutting edge reporting….

As you can see, starlings can destroy your car… secondary pupils at the New Anderson High school need road safety lessons and as our brand (shiny) new high school appeared about 100th out of 339 schools in some league table everyone threw a wobbly about how the rankings are flawed. It is really funny how rankings are flawed when they show a poor result, I have yet to see anyone, anywhere go ‘huzzah we are top, but there again the rankings are totally flawed so we reckon we should be nearer the middle!’

To be fair we don’t have official league tables in Scotland and it was a single performance indicator that was used to gain the data.

Ohh yeah, some schools are getting about 9 weeks off this year due to building work taking place…

Ohh yeah and someone was appalled that the paper had printed the ‘f’ word in full in this parochial family newspaper… on that note, I had better f*** off and get some things done before bed… tomorrow is Friday… I might still be able to find something that is forgotten… probably more 10mm elves….

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Little Steps

Only managed a smidge of hobby time tonight…

The light in the kitchen is now dire since I moved things around in here.

Luckily I moved one if the lights around just now and providing I kneel on the floor then I can take some photos in light…

Teddy bear Trooper is getting there as are my CHAS proxies

Hopefully I will get these three finished tomorrow and get on with my elves, my poor forgotten (again) elves!

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Forgotten Forces Friday

Well I forgot last week.. so here is this week’s….

Well not so much a force but quite forceful… may I introduce Cynthia and Charles Wellbeloved, heir and heiress to the Wellbeloved fortune. These two have taken part in various wargames and role playing games over the years and to be honest the years seem to have taken their toll. As Indiana Jones says… “it’s not the age, it’s the miles”

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Elves, Cultists and Dropships

I managed to get my elves sprayed tonight, I decided on a different spray colour as I am doing a different colour of cloaks etc.

I also managed to get some paint onto the missing cultist…

The purple paint is pretty naff and will require about 30 coats I reckon. The pigment, for whatever reason, is not mixing in.

And finally the crashed dropship, some pillock forgot to change the print quality so this looks a whole lot worse than the full one.

I still reckon it will make a good objective for the games…

regarding the game, I am considering starting them on the invasion of Klendathu (yeah the bit where everyone pretty much dies… casualties in the first hour were 300 000.

My plan is that they have survived and need to make their way away from the landing zones to await rescue. A short campaign on Klendathu and then (if they survive) move them onto actual mobile infantry from the books and Roughnecks series.

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Mobile Infantry III

Well I got a bit more done on these little chaps…

It was mainly highlighting on the grey uniforms – not that you can tell from the photo…

The other bit of news is…

They now have a way to get down to a planet 😁

This took a very long time to print, but I got there in the end!

I have also had a mess around with 3D Builder and have made an extended 16 seater. According to Cura it will take 18 + hours to print. I added all the bits together in one ship apart from the roof and the rear hatch.

I also had a mess around making a lighter recon craft using the two engine pods and the nose cone. If I remember tomorrow I will get some shots of the STL files.

Back to work tomorrow…