Last night I got kicked off the computer so I decided to get the ork heads painted with the Vallejo Xpress paints.
Once again these are very saturated colours. They seemed thinner than the Speedpaint 2.0. But as it was a while ago I need to do a side by side test. I will do a couple of colours from Contrast, Xpress and Speedpaint and paint the same thing with each one.
I also used some of these colours on various miniatures I had knocking about.
Or in this case a bridge to nowhere.
I am still in my making 2mm terrain… I have been carrying on fiddling with 3D builder and as you can see I got the bridge built. This is made up of modules. It allows me the option to build a bridge of any length, either in the software and printed or print the parts and glue them together.
Now you may have noticed something on the bridge… I decided having a go at an ox cart. This time I built the living parts too rather than pinching someone else’s and converting them.
They are a bit on the small side to see properly but I am really pleased with them.
Or possibly rem parvam Romani…well these are what various translation apps told me…
So these really small Romans have built some really small buildings to go with their siege engines… first up a small border fort…
This was a failed print so it is embedded into the modelling compound. I had basically Cocked up the supports and orientation of the print. You can see the error on the right hand towers… the crenellations are missing.
Today I worked on the interior buildings.
I went for a commandants house and Principia (HQ) granaries, the hospital and barracks with the Centurion’s house on the end.
I also went for the tented version of the legionary tents and the HQ too.
Because I am a twit, I forgot to add a base to the tents 🙂
Some of these would work for villas too.
One of the larger buildings has got a bit of a gap on a corner. I don’t know whether it is a delamination or a gap in the original file. By gap I mean less than half a millimetre.
Today we had a family outing to ‘Aa Fired Up’ in Lerwick. This is a decorate your own pots and a plethora of other unbaked ceramics. We all chose a mug and after much humming and hawing I decided on a Dino themed one…. Here it is in all its glory… well raw glaze state.
The dinosaurs are stickers which were removed after taking this photo. I will see if I chose suitable colours in a couple of weeks. Gemma who owns the business is such a lovely person and I am glad her business is still going strong. We actually were her first ever booking for our eldest’s birthday when she first opened.
This evening I stuck heads on Vallejo bottles. These are as bright as the Army Painter Speedpaints. Once the Greenstuff has cured I will do the individual colours like last time.
Once again I reckon these will need the use of medium to thin them down to the Contrast consistency.
Today I started messing around building a fortification in 3D Builder. At the minute these are in separate bits. They are also a whole lot bigger because I forgot to add in my 2mm stunt auxiliary for scale. Poor sod keeps getting giant cubes metaphorically dropped on his head in the software. On the other hand he may be entrapped in a big green cube!
So I made some more siege bits and pieces for the 2mm armies. Shown here are a siege tower and a covered ram. I have also made some covered Siege tents for want of a better word. The Romans used them on the siege of Jerusalem. Basically they were like the ram, without the ram bit. It allowed the troops to get close to wall without some oik dropping a boulder on their head. I have made two types. One with just a roof and one with side screens too. These things had two layers of rawhide sandwiching seaweed.
The final image shows some of the barbarian forces that I snipped off the other day.
Next up… I had better build some walls for the equipment to breach 🙂
Sooo I eventually got round to getting my paint toppers painted with the AP Speedpaints. They are definitely a lot different to contrast. They seem a lot thicker and although great colours aren’t really doing the highlight and shade the way Contrast does. This is not a criticism, I just need to work out how they work. I reckon there will be some thinning down with medium in my future….
When she came through my wife asked me why I was painting bottoms… I was looking at the front, she was looking at the back…
I now see what she means…
She thought they were grotesques mooning…
Out of interest the pure white one back left is the bottle of medium.
Well for some reason my SSD card decided to eat my files I made yesterday…after quite a bit of head scratching, puzzled mumbling and a lot of swearing I started again…
So we have a scorpion with and without crew on their little cart, a ballista, an onager, a four wheeled and two wheeled cart and some pack mules. I also did siege tower, but may have gone a bit over the top as it is taking forever to merge all the pieces together.
I have done test prints of all of the miniatures and they all printed fine. They do seem smaller than the other stuff, but it is probably just an optical illusion.
I also undercoated two Republican Legions, two Gallic forces and a Hoplite army too. Just got to paint the buggers now!
Second from the front on the left are the test prints of the things I made today.
So I decided to go down another rabbit hole. As you know I am going back into 2mm. I have printed out a whole load of units. Well today I started on the Imperial Romans… the one thing that was missing from the force were the artillery and transport.
Cue me starting to fiddle in 3D Builder ( I really, really need to learn how to use Blender properly). Anyway I eventually got to something I was happy with.
So we have pack mules, a four wheeled cart and a Scorpion cart with crew.
I used miniatures from project war gaming as my base.
For some reason this evening I decided to get back into the 2mm miniatures.
Well actually I know the reason. I saw my three legions based up. And I thought, they look really nice. Two are imperial and one is from the Republic. At this size, you can only tell the difference because of the line it triarii at the back and vélites in the front.
The second reason is I had a right sod of a job getting them off the supports. for some reason tonight I managed to pretty much get the infantry force for my proposed Carthaginian army done. I would show you, but the photo is totally blurred. By time I noticed I put them away.
The empty box in the middle is now full to the top. Still a lot more to get off the supports. In the past I have painted on the sprues, but after so many problems I am going to go this approach and use Copydex. To stick them to cardboard strips and undercoat and paint that way.
As the title says, I actually got my arse into gear and managed to paint something… not a huge amount, but I did manage. It was really hard to get motivated. I mean I actually had to force myself to sit down… it was a definite case of Captain Procrastination this evening.
I have added a Greenstuff saddle to the bear to give the rider a bit of packing under his backside.
I also finished the ram rider, he is now ready for basing.
I got a couple of packages today, one was a paddle board and the other was my long awaited Vallejo Xpress paints… sadly I had a bit of an issue…
Luckily it was just one of the bottles of red.
This came today and I asked for Speedpaints 2.0 for my birthday on Friday so look out for a wave of painting taking place…well I hope there will be.
Bogenwald 