Nothing Interesting, Sadly - But with Pictures!

On the 3D printing front I'm currently churning through prints for other people. It's nice to have things to do and I enjoy printing for them. But it takes the printers out of commission for my own stuff. Of course that's when I find things I really want to print for myself but forget again when the printers are open.

Life.

I just finished a bunch of Gaslands terrain for someone. And car parts. That's when I found out that Inland's 'consistent color' isn't really that great. The grey went from light grey to medium/dark. Luckily it didn't matter in the print I was doing but I'm going to have to take both filament cats to the store and find out what is the grey going forward. Or stock up on both colors. I'm not sure yet.

These are both just called 'Grey' on the label. I think they're different colors. And yes. That's a grey hair of mine on the darker one. It got stuck under the label I put on each cat. It has been removed from the cat with extreme prejudice. It was nicely appropriate to the topic so I'll give myself points for it.

Another thing I'm printing is a lot of Star Wars: Legions terrain. I got done with Tatoine and now I'm on to Imperial. I hope to get some pictures once he's painted them because they look better that way. But it's been some long prints and I'm just starting up the Imperial. Luckily I have a spool of grey from a company that's gone out of business so I can use it up on this stuff. I should use up most of the spool if not all of it. The dark grey above matches close enough that it shouldn't matter if I have to swap it in.

I lied. Here's some of the Tatoine stuff. The light brown seemed appropriate to the setting and I printed them in thicker layers so they'll have a nice texture when he paints them.

I have a lot of printing left to go for another friend who bought into a Printable Scenery Kickstarter for elven terrain with the intention of me printing them. Literally this has been hours of printing. Hundreds of hours and spools of filament. He doesn't care what color they are so I've been using up more of those discontinued colors and am quite happy about it.

I don't think I ever shared any of those prints so here's a couple of them. If I have shared them you get to see them again.

Just to give you an idea that large one (it's a library) took 156 hours to print the four pieces. And those minis are on one inch bases. So there's a lot of time invested in his printing and he keeps sending more files my way. I hope some day to be caught up so I can mail it off to him.

Other than those there's been a couple of small print jobs for friends and those are nice to have done. I've also printed up some Tardis boxes that I'll sell as dice containers (yes, I checked the license and I can sell them) which used up all but some of the discontinued WhoBlue color. I need the rest of it for a game organizer container. Whatever is left is going to be Tardis LED earrings. It was meant for Tardis stuff, might as well use it that way.

I think that covers the 3D printing.

I haven't made much (any) progress in clearing off my workspace. I know I need to do it and I keep meaning to do it. But life happens then suddenly it's close to when I need to start winding down to go to sleep which means no working on organizing. It's maddening and worse because I'm doing it to myself.

Add onto that going to two conventions in the next month and my time is limited. I'll go to one, have a couple of weeks, then go to the other. The second one has planned very poorly for scheduling their convention. They used to have it in May, then October. Both weren't bad. Then they switched to Labor Day weekend. Which is bad. The timing is actually bad because of the huge convention just a couple of weeks ahead of it, being the same weekend as a huge convention, and over a holiday weekend. But I don't work there so I just show up and do my thing.

Last thing! I have a hoard of GM accessories. A literal hoard. I love those things and I'm a sucker for them. The item generators folder on my hard drive is packed full of files and I have other things as well. Just recently I got some dice (yay dice!) for when you need to add some detail to rooms on the fly. Of course I like to add more detail so I got three of each set.

I need to find a better way to store them. The little boxes are great until you pick one up wrong and have dice all over the floor. I'll probably end up designing and printing something to hold them. Or just toss them all in a random dice bag. It's not like I don't have plenty of those sitting around.

Each color is a different theme. I'd have to look up what they are and I will be making a reference card for myself since I know there's no way I'm going to remember it. But aren't they fun??

OK - Something I Printed

I've been rather less than generous with pictures of the 3D printed stuff, which is a rip since the idea is to see what I've been doing. Right?

Here's something I printed for a friend. He bought into their Kickstarter and then started sending me files and lists of what he wanted. I picked this one as the first print because it was going to take the longest.

I painted the miniature that's on there for a sense of scale. He's on a one inch square base.

This was four separate prints - first floor, second floor, roof, and doors. The total print time was 156 hours and it took over a kilo (one spool) of filament hence the purple snow on the roof.

Yes. You read that right. 156 hours to print this. That's what 3D printing is about. It's about waiting. The layers on this were 0.2mm each so it took five passes to make 1mm of print. I'll let you try to do the math on how many layers there were.

Here's the link to the file so you can see their painted pictures and the detail inside. It's pretty intense on the first floor.

https://www.printablescenery.com/product/library-of-ithillia/

I used up that orange-ish filament I'd had sitting around for a while and now I'm working on the purple. Due to getting a monthly subscription box I end up with spools of filament in colors I wouldn't have chosen for myself. Sometimes this is good, sometimes it isn't. He's getting prints out of the colors I don't like.

It's all right! He's going to paint it and I confirmed that he was fine with odd color prints. The printer makes it easy to change filament so that's a plus. I haven't enabled the sensor to pause the printer when it runs out of filament because I've heard about too many failures both ways - false positives and not working as it's supposed to work. I time the prints so I can be around when the filament will run out and I can swap in the next roll.

I posted this picture on Facebook - in some 3D printing for tabletop/gaming groups, in the printer group, and on my own page. I wanted to show it off. The sheer size of it is impressive. I take no credit for the design but it's a darn good print.

If that's all you want to know then you can stop here. I'm going to proceed with everything that's wrong with it and why. No. I don't and won't have pictures of that.

1 - Stringing. Inside the smaller curves the plastic didn't adhere well enough and it pulled out into strings. It happened because of the way the print cooling fan directs air. I haven't found a replacement fan shroud that minimizes this and I may take a crack at designing one myself. But there's very little if anything I can do in the print settings to help this one.

2 - Drooping. This is the opposite of what happens when the print gets cool too fast. When it doesn't cool fast enough the plastic can sag away from the previous layer. So you get little loops of filament. This happened on the sides where the print fan can't get an adequate amount of air in time. Again it comes down to something I can't change.

These problems happened due to the way the print fan shroud directs air and the size of the print. I couldn't move it around so that it was minimized or eliminated. I feel bad with the amount of cleanup he's doing to have to do but a lot of it isn't immediately visible or is in parts (like the inside of the roof) where it doesn't matter as much.

It's not perfect but it's darn pretty.

Unicorn!

He's actually part of my elf army. If he's not immediately killed he's got some cool special abilities. When I play, he tends to get immediately killed.

Reaper 14457 - Silvermaine

He's been converted by the sculptor to be anatomically correct and there's a whole story to go with that.







The colors match my army colors and even though it's difficult to see his eyes are painted in gem fashion to match the coordinating color I used for the entire army. His horn is highlighted the same way. Kind of a nice change from the white/grey typically seen on unicorn minis I think.

More mini progress!

I keep getting distracted by phone calls so it takes me a little longer to get the minis done but I also get the fun of talking to my friends.  Go figure.  Of course I could use my Bluetooth earpiece and try to do both but I hate fixing the mistakes that happen when I attempt to multitask.

I've got Saturday to try to finish painting the last minis and paint the bases.  At least try to paint the bases.  I can always do the basing while I'm in Texas but it would be nice to actually have a mostly finished army for once.

I'm hoping time permits me to put up the light tent and take pictures of what's done.  Well, mostly done since the bases aren't painted.

Once again the newly finished stuff is in green.

Here's the total list of what's being done and what has been done:

Troop 1
Larnach the Grey
Lysette
Caerwynn
Royal Guardsman x 4
Death Seeker x 2
Vale Long Thorn x 2

Troop 2
Chiral, Centaur
Centaur Warrior x 3
Hunting Cat x 2
Faery x 2

Troop 3
Silvermaine, Unicorn

Troop 4
Mossbeard the Treeman

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6 more minis painted

No pictures - I hope to set up my light tent this weekend and get pictures of what's been done.  The bases aren't painted yet but I might take some time to do that since it's pretty relaxing end-of-the-night work.

Here's the total list of what's being done and what has been done:

Troop 1
Larnach the Grey
Lysette
Caerwynn
Royal Guardsman x 4
Death Seeker x 2
Vale Long Thorn x 2

Troop 2
Chiral, Centaur
Centaur Warrior x 3
Hunting Cat x 2
Faery x 2

Troop 3
Silvermaine, Unicorn

Troop 4
Mossbeard the Treeman

The ones crossed in green are the latest ones done.  The unicorn and the treeman have base coats on them so they're "in progress".  Next up are the centaurs since they're kind of grunts as well so they don't need as much attention.

Two of the centaurs have their torsos done and one has the horse body started.  I'm trying to get away from the 'brown with black socks' that seems to be a standard horse color.  Of course it takes longer to paint but looks SO cool.

If I push myself I should have 2 of the 3 centaur warriors done before Saturday and the third one started at least.  Saturday is the monthly paint day so I'll bring a solo figure (one of the ones from Troop 1) and see about getting that done during the paint day.  Maybe 2 of them since I might even finish the first one.  Gotta love army painting.

Oh, and for the record.  Spraying varnish on fairies feels like spraying them with bug spray.  Icky.

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Some work in progress shots

The colors are tinted yellow even after correction so they're not quite as vivid as in person.  The blue is really a nice blue-green that I love.  I'll have true color pictures when they're painted.

I'm making this army for the ReaperCon Warlord tournament.  I know, I know.  I've been painting dwarves like a fiend but didn't want to field them this year.  And then there's the troop of battle nuns.  But those are for later.  This year, elves take the field.

WIP Elf 01

WIP Elf 02

WIP Elf 03

Obviously the armor isn't nearly done yet.  The plan is to pick out some details with a thinned metallic blue and then wash all the silver with green liner.  That should get me the blue-green to match the dominant color in the minis. I'm a big fan of color washing my silvers.

I got myself all confused by trying to work blues and greens into the colors to go along with that blue-green I like so much.  For the record, it's the Ocean Triad by Reaper.  I love using it as a skin tone too.  But I digress.

A friend of mine helped me talk colors and that's why almost everything else is a neutral.  The leather is a red-brown but not heavily so.  Mr. Color Wheel says it's the compliment of my blue-green and I think it looks pretty darn good.

I did spend a good chunk of tonight fixing and cleaning up the work I did here with inadequate lighting.  My paint table lamps has been packed away, along with the chair I've used for over 20 years at my work tables.  Excavating in the small bedroom resolved both of those issues.  The lamps are yellow shifted but I don't use them for picking colors so it's all good.

I also got most of the rest of the army based and primed in the last couple of days.  The last pieces are on order so I'll be painting like a fiend for the next few weeks.  I need this to keep myself occupied.

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There's always one...

I'm posting the progress of my elf army over on the Reaper Miniatures discussion forum because, well, they're Reaper miniatures, they're for a Reaper game, and it's fun.

I posted a quick update stating that I had used epoxy putty (green stuff) to mount the one-piece figures and since they didn't really look any different they could use their imagination.

And there's always one.

A very jovial post said that my loyal fans demanded pictures of the green stuff.  Never one to disappoint, here's what they got.

Assembled with Greenstuff

Because I was in that mood I added the red arrows showing there really was green stuff used.

But arranging the figures did show that one of the fairies had a wing malfunction.  The giant eagle fell over after I took the original picture and clipped one of the wings.  I can repair it while working on the rest of the figures.  Better now than later!

So all the figures in this picture are ready for primer.  Let's see if the weather cooperates this weekend.

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Quick update on the elf army

No, it doesn't have a name yet.  It's going by the clever code name 'elf army',

Here's the combination of primed and unprimed minis.  I didn't get to filling in the gaps last night so that's something to do before moving on.  Some of the unprimed ones are single cast (no assembly needed) so I can prime those whilst working on the others.

Initial Primed

These are the elves that started it all.  Mostly grunts there's a sergeant and a warlord in there somewhere.  And I think a cleric.  They kind of blur together when they're all in one place.

Assembled

And here's the ones I assembled this week.  The giant eagle still needs lots of cleanup at the joints but overall the figures went together well.

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