My Printer Ruined My Ruin

This is the Medieval Church Ruin from Printable Scenery. It's a companion piece to a non-ruined medieval church of the same design, and I got it for cheap as part of a bundle. It's modelled for 28mm miniatures, but I've printed it here at 50% for use with 15mm figures — though it's a wee bit small, and 60% would be better.

Alas, my printer's layer-shifting chose this time to reassert itself, so the ruin is even more ruinous than it really should be. It's still usable as piece of wargaming terrain, but a stone structure this wonky would be so unstable that it would come down with a sneeze.

I am working my way through all the possibilities to diagnose the source of the layer-shifting, but it's a long slog. It's one of the most infuriating 3d printer problems, because it can hide itself until exactly the worst possible time, and then spring forth again like the monster in a horror movie that everyone assumes has been destroyed.

I'll probably reprint this model after I've got the printer running smoothly again, assuming I ever do.

Hezrou

This is a model by Schlossbauer on Thingiverse, printed by me on my Ender 3.

It's a Hezrou, which used to be called a Type II Demon back in the ancient AD&D days. It stands about 45mm tall.

I ended up having to slice its base off and print it lying at 45° on its back; I've been having issues with the nozzle knocking into tree supports recently, which is a bit of a pain. It's now based on a 33mm fender washer, which I prefer in any case, as it adds a bit of weight to the plastic model and lowers its centre of gravity.

One of the many, many advantages of 3d printing for gaming miniatures is the ease with which they can be re-scaled. The fully painted one here is printed at 100% of its designed size; the other primed examples are, from left to right, printed at 120%, 80%, and 50%.

It's good to have a bunch of monsters that are obviously the same species, but not all completely identical.

Panzer Grey (yet again)

This is a colour photograph taken by Hitler's personal photographer, Hugo Jaeger, of German troops standing around waiting to parade. It's early in the war; the panzer troops are still in their big black berets, and all the equipment is still painted grey. Interestingly, there are no balkenkreuz or tactical numbers showing on any of the vehicles, but they may very well have been freshly painted specifically for the parade.

Although it's a colour photo (not a colourized black & white photo), that doesn't necessarily mean the colours are accurate. At best, we can look at elements that are in known colours to judge the colour balance and exposure of the image as a whole.

In this case, there's not a lot to choose from. The colour of the German No.1 uniform of the men on horseback is reasonably well known from existing museum pieces, and there's the skin tone of the men. To me the colour balance looks fairly good, though the image as a whole is perhaps a fraction under-exposed.

Jeep (1:100)

"I told you, you should have gone before we set off."

A jeep in 1:100 scale is a teensy tiny little thing.

This one is mostly a model by M. Bergman, I've just added a driver and passenger and printed it on my Ender 3.

The quality is adequate for wargaming purposes, but small items like this, and especially the two crewmen, would be much better printed on a resin printer. I shall have to get one of those one day.

21st Panzer Stuff

Because I have the attention span of a mayfly, I've started a new project: some of the conversions of French AFVs used by the 21st Panzer in Normandy. I haven't seen anything much of these things available digitally — I'm sure there are some models out there, I just haven't found them.

I'm beginning with the 105mm Geschützwagen 39H(f), because almost all of it can be re-used for the PaK40 version as well.

I'm starting from Marco Bergman's 1:100 scale Hotchkiss H39 hull, chopping it up and adding new detail to the running gear. The superstructure comes next, and then the two guns.

Later....

Got the basic shell of the superstructure pretty much done, though with quite a bit more work than I expected. Blender's "solidify" modifier seldom creates a shell of consistent thickness, unfortunately, but I haven't found a better way to do this sort of thing. I just have to resign myself to doing a whole lot of manual tweaking afterwards.

Later still....

Very nearly finished now. There are still some bits and pieces to attend to, like the muffler and tools and what-not, but this is just about done. Which is good, because I'm a bit bored with it now.