Sunday 29 November 2020

OpenLOCK City Gatehouse

Two of my main 28mm scale boards are my countryside using the Sally 4th Terraformers tiles and my medieval city using Hirst Arts. I'd been planning to somehow combine these, the plan to have a city wall between the two. At the time of the original inspiration I was only working with Hirst Arts and the whole project was rather overwhelming. I decided to put it off until I retire...

With lockdown and my 3D Printers that has changed. I found OpenLOCK quite a few months ago and was very impressed with the ability to quickly clip parts together in a myriad of ways. Though each piece takes longer to print than Hirst Arts blocks there's a lot less time taken to build the buildings up. Also with OpenLOCK it's possible to try things out without committing. I have had to design a few special pieces myself as well.

So, with not too much other gaming going on I've been able to concentrate a little on a city wall and gatehouse. My two printers have been busy all the time in the background as I painted Man O'War ships or actually did some work. I do have a few spare bits I've printed and not used, but most have made it into the building.

A couple of weeks ago I finally finished printing all the parts and started painting the buildings. These are now all done so I thought I'd try them out on my boards and share the photos.







As you can see they fit in well with the Hirst Arts and MDF stuff I already have. Each floor is detailed with fully opening and closing doors. The portcullises will eventually have winding gear to raise and lower them, but I need to do some CAD to get those completed. I've started that, but got side-tracked. 








I've also got to work out exactly how I'm going to make the two board sets with different heights fit together. I think the wall will have to be raised slightly maybe. It quite possibly is going to be another 3D printing job.

I'm also going to fully furnish the interiors and have some furniture already printed.

So quite a bit to do yet!


Friday 20 November 2020

Trojan Rabbit and other Arthurian Characters

On Thingiverse there are many strange and wonderful things to print. One such is the Trojan Rabbit. There are actually a few implementations of this wonderful Siege Weapon, but I chose this to make this one.

Here we see the French guards have found their cadeux waiting outside the castle. Sir Bedevere has finally remembered that he's supposed to be inside the bunny and is trying to sneak in at the last moment. 


The miniatures are from the wonderful Medieval Mayhem range at Studio Minatures and I bought these quite a few years ago now. Having completed the rabbit I had to get them painted up as well. I have a load more on their way for a Christmas present.

Here we see the rest of the minis I have, bar Tim the Enchanter, who would probably have set fire to everything anyway (ok, ok, I forgot him). They're stood around a rather nice pavilion another 3d printed model from the same modeller as the rabbit.



Sunday 15 November 2020

Man O'War Chaos Additions - Plus everything

In my quest to get everything I have for Man O'War painted I've just completed my Chaos Fleet.

There's there's the Hellrammers and Hellslicers for the Slaanesh fleet.

And the Ironsharks for the Khorne fleet.

This brings my entire Chaos fleet to be completed.


Finally all the Man O'War ships I own are now painted. 


(There's a game of "Where's Wally" with the Lord of Change in that photo)

Friday 6 November 2020

3D Printed FDM Mini - Explorer Sample from HeroForge

For 3D printing miniatures resin (SLA) printers are the preferred choice. There's none of the lines that appear in filament (FDM) printers leave on their prints and the detail is finer.

I bought my latest FDM printer (Prusa Mini) without any intention of getting into printing miniatures, but thought I would have to try it at some point. I had been looking for something free to print and decided that the HeroForge samples would be a good choice.

I printed both of them but part of the Paladin miniature broke off during the clean-up process after the print completed. The Explorer however came out fine and wondered how well she would paint up.

She wasn't easy to paint, especially the face as I had to work out detail that would normally be visible on a sculpted model, but I am pleasantly surprised. Good enough that if I need a mini for a special purpose in the future I will look at printing one if I can't find an appropriate one elsewhere.



Sunday 1 November 2020

Man O'War Skaven

 Another week, another Man O'War fleet completed.

This time it's Skaven. I bought a few of these painted about 2 years ago on Facebook. Since then they've been sat not doing anything. A couple of weeks ago I bought a few more Deathburners and Warp-Raiders. 

Since the paint job on the 2nd-hand ships was pretty good I just decided to paint the extras in the same style. I did go back and add a slight bit extra highlights to the original ships and the whole lot has had a matt varnish since those had been quite glossy. Anyway, I'm quite pleased with how they have come out. I'll be trying them out next weekend.


The way things are going I'll soon have all the main Man O'War fleets. I have plans to make a 3D Printed High Elf fleet and once that is done I'll only have Chaos Dwarf and Dark Elf left. I guess I'll have to do those just for completeness. First though I have the last few Chaos ships to paint.