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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…

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Mobile Infantry II

I managed a bit more on these chaps today…

Still a fair way to go but getting there.

I also carried on printing their ride:

This is in various bits that are glued together. The sides will have panels, the left hand side being printed now. Something went wrong with the interior bit, it separated. It could be a printer glitch or a slicer glitch. The nose didn’t have the same problem so I am in the dark.

This is the interior of the craft. You can see the flaw line on the right hand side. It is just about noticeable on the left hand side.

This is more work by Terrain4Print, again from Thingiverse, so cost at zero to purchase it. I will see what his Patreon costs are as I think he deserves something for his hard work.

I haven’t downloaded it yet, but there is a crashed version of this too. Once this is built I may do a second one and use 3D builder to splice on some weapon pods.

Happy with the way it is going so far. I am running out of this spool, hopefully I will have enough to get the wings and rear hatch done.

Tomorrow I am off gallivanting again. This time to have a look at the WW2 defences of Lerwick. We have some of the best preserved outside of France. This includes a bunker design that is only ever found in France…

I will endeavour to take photographs…

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Mobile Infantry….Sort Of!

Well believe it or not my order from EM4 arrived today, which for the isles is very speedy indeed. Ordered on Monday night at 21.45..dispatched on Tuesday and with me by Thursday… So well done EM4

So what did I get for my money….

The boxes came flat packed which is a nice touch, I never even considered getting any boxes at all. The back shows what you get..

Now bear in mind that these cost me £10.20 plus VAT and postage so they are really good for the money. There is a mould line but to be honest most plastic stuff does anyway, some worse than others.

I made a one up as a test subject:

20 seconds had him built. He isn’t glued yet but that can wait. He is a shiny grey plastic that is quite hard . I will get him prepped and sprayed and see how he paints up.

Compared to a bug….

He is quite small but bugs are meant to be scary so he will do. I ordered 4 boxes of these to allow me to have a whole squad with the long arms, and some fleet types with pistols. I might raid my Catachan Troopers box to see if there is anything useful in there, but as these are smaller then I doubt it.

So what do I think…

Are they Mobile Infantry… nope – they are proxies and for the money I paid for them then to be honest I don’t really care. This lot plus postage and VAT is cheaper than some of the postage alone on EBay.

If I get some actual MI miniatures will I still use these, yes I probably will as they will be ideal as security guards or non Federation Forces.

Were they worth the money… yes indeed, I challenge anyone to find a set of brand new 25mm miniatures cheaper. There might indeed be somewhere out there but I certainly haven’t found them yet.

These will be painted up as the ‘light’ mobile infantry on the films rather than the CAP troopers from the animated series or indeed the newer CGI films.

I also downloaded a ‘suitable’ drop ship on Thingiverse for these to land in, not to mention sci fi buildings, bunkers and various vehicles and scatter pieces.

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BUUUGGGSSSS

Yep I am back into Starship trooper mode!

Today the postman brought me a very nice parcel…

I managed to get a good deal on EBay … sixteen miniatures for £48 with free postage. Yeah that is a lot of money for plastic, but the Starship Troopers miniatures are like rocking horse droppings. I though £3 a mini wasn’t too bad, having a look at other things up for sale I could get six for £45 or one for £11. So all in all not a bad price.

They are a whole lot smaller than the ones I printed… even my 60% sized one is big…

These two were pre assembled, the rest were still on the sprue. I need some flying ones and at least a Tanker bug, but once again these are going for silly money.

I would like some ST mobile infantry, there are less of them than there are bugs it would seem. There are more in the states than over here, £20 postage on top of £30 plus for the actual miniatures is putting me off – that and a poor track record of getting stuff actually to my house from the states.

So to proxy the troopers I ordered some EM4 plastic troopers five miniatures for £2.55…

https://em4miniatures.com/collections/science-fiction-near-future-miniatures/products/troopers

For that price you really can’t go wrong…

I got four sets so have a fair amount to play with. Sadly the command conversion and in fact most of the conversion bits were sold out which was a bit of a bummer to say the least. I will give him a shout to see if they are going to be restocked at any point. These have been sold out for ages so I really don’t see that they will be… but as they say …Shy Bairns get nowt. At the very least I might get a contact for who made them.

So off I go back to EBay to see if anything ST is going cheap… I have more chance of spotting a flying pig!

I have found a proxy drop ship on Thingiverse that I can print myself, as well as terrain and ground vehicles so that should keep me busy for a while.

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Friday’s Forgotten Forces

Another Friday and another box in the shed…

This time we have Goblins and Thorin Oakenshield and party from the GW Hobbit game.

These were bought to add some cannon fodder for Dragon Rampant

There is the full compliment of heroes and pretty much all of the goblins apart from the one on the sling.

The figures are nice and pretty much accurately portray the characters. It really is a great pity that the films were so crap.Goblins certainly improved genetically in the Misty Mountains from the hobbit to the LOTR.

The dwarves have shrunk in size over the 60years too…😂

I don’t know what to do with these as they have been sat there for so many years they are no longer required. I will see if anyone wants them up here and if not they will probably end up on EBay

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Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones

This post is to answer a comment that Ann made after me showing my Reaper Bones ghosty.

And to quote…

now this got me thinking. So I nipped out into the shed to find a couple of the bigger ones and set them out on the adventuring rock….

They do indeed have a bit of a sheen.. so for comparison I hoiked out a couple of GW plastic things I cobbled together.

I would say that the troll at least has a definite shine to it there does also seem to be on bits of the ogre. Because of the strong sunlight my test was not the best…

So I came inside to take another photo…

The two big ones do definitely have a sheen to them that isn’t present in the two hard plastic miniatures.

The interesting thing is that the ghost and the ogre had a lot of dry brushing added to them whereas the troll was base coated and painted up in washes.

But having a real close look at the ogre the sheen is there too.

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So in answer to Ann, nope you are not the only one it happens to… it happened to me too 👍

I am now of to play on a very expensive digger. I need to get a high speed broadband cable in by Monday. Wish me luck that I don’t find any power cables or phone cables. I know I won’t find a gas main as we don’t have mains gas on Shetland.