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.

I didn't forget my elves

Honestly, I didn't.  Once I finally got them here I carefully examined each one, put them in the "good" and "repair" piles and then went about fixing the paint on the ones that got abused.  I have all of the repairs done.  There weren't many - mostly a paint chip or where it rubbed on the foam.

I have to finish up the 3 that were painted onsite.  They were painted but need detail and cleanup work.  They're off to the side, watching me work on a small commission.

Yes, I said commission.  A friend needed some minis painted as part of his booth display at a large convention and asked me to do it.  How could I refuse?  Yes, I know.  Easily.  But that's what friends do.

After all that I hope for pictures this week.

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A couple of pictures of my elf army

I hope to have good detail shots in the near future but until then feast your eyes on the army on the table.

Elf Army 01

Elf Army 02

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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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Army Exchange Work in Progress Shots - Continued Some More

Got the reds pretty much done and started on the metallics.  At least, figured out what will be silver and what will be gold and got the silver started.

I feel the red/orange went on a little chalky and I need to deepen the shadows just a tad but overall I think it will work.  This shot is a little dark so I hope to have a better one up in a day or so.

Metals will be a combination of silver and gold.  Technically both are neutrals so I'm good with having them both on there.  Then it's just cleanup and I can call them done.

Army Exchange Work in Progress Shots - Continued

Still working on these little guys.  I did get an idea on how to paint what from someone else who suffered through painting them so I'm well on my way to being done.

For those who don't paint minis, red is one of the more difficult colors to paint.  It just doesn't cover and then you have to be careful highlighting it so it doesn't go all pink on you.  I stopped tonight after getting everything red I wanted red.  Trying to do more would have been .. bad.  As it is I have a little cleanup to do where red went places I didn't want red.

I'm saying 'red' a lot but that's because it was what I painted tonight.

Here's a better shot of the violet skin and stuff.

For those who want to know, you get a good deep red by painting it another color first.  Red by itself doesn't cover very well so you end up with splotchy coverage.  I painted all the red areas a rust brown that has fantastic coverage.  Then the red only had to darken that.  It's what we call "a trick of the trade".

The person who sent these want them done in what is called the Fire Triad.  It goes through oranges and yellow.  So I'll start bringing the highlights up to that yellow, probably starting tomorrow.  Then it's just the metallics and some detailing, like the horns on some of them, buckles, etc.

The end is in sight.

Army Exchange Work in Progress Shots

I did more than just these tonight but I didn't get pictures of one thing and the other isn't quite all together yet.  So you're stuck with my WIP shots.

I coordinated an army round-robin kind of thing.  For those who signed up, here's how it is going.  The first person sends out four minis to each person in the round along with a color scheme.  Each person has two months to paint them and send them back.  Then the next person does the same thing and so on.  This one takes more of a time commitment than a simple single miniature to be done in two months. *

These are from a Reaper Warlord Darkspawn army.  I'm not familiar with this army so I was at a loss as to how to paint them correctly.  I got some great advice from my buddy Shakandra so I have a much better idea of how to make these look right.

The fluff said they had either violet or purple skin.  I can't remember right now.  But the color scheme for this army is flame red so I needed to make the skin not clash.  That's why the subtle.

The skin color uses undercoating.  That means I put a coat of purple down and the brought the skin tones up on top of it.  That tints the skin colors without having to mix the purple into every layer.  I like this.  It's my newest favorite technique.

The hair isn't finished.  That's just the base coat.  I'm going to take it up to a very light cream white so that vivid marigold is only in the deep shadows.  That's another technique I'm liking but still practicing.

Once skin and hair are complete it's on to armor.  Armor will be a neutral because of all the colors on there already.  And I'm tempted to use my 'bad guy' leather colors.  I found that using the tanned skin colors really creep me out when used for anything but skin.  However using them for leather on the bad guy figures just makes them that much badder, in my opinion.

* For those not familiar, a miniature exchange is generally a double blind.  You send your name to the coordinator, sometimes with a preference as to what you want.  The coordinator matches up people.  So the person you're painting for is not the person painting for you.