Sunday 17 March 2024

Preparing Paper

I am in the throes of preparation for reviving the mouldering corpse of my old space opera campaign. When it was last active, some considerable time ago, I was using the Hero System 5th Edition to run it. I did like the Hero System in many ways, but it was not the simplest game to run or to play in.

This time I'm planning on using Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying d100 system, though the milieu will remain the Star Hero Terran Empire. I have a d100 sci-fi game, based on the Mythras Imperative rules, called M-Space that I will pull all the character generation and equipment and what-not out of, since all the definition work has already been done there.

Rather than spending hours and hours painting 3-dimensional miniatures for the game, I'm once again making use of Okum Arts paper minis, which are great and cheap and pre-coloured. The pile to the left are all robots; the rest are various humanoids. I'm printing them on some 150gsm inkjet paper, so when folded and glued they make quite a stiff and sturdy miniature, still easily cut out with a little pair of decoupage scissors. Plain 80-90gsm printer paper is usable, but the resulting minis are still very thin even after being folded and glued, so they need card reinforcing strips applied along their bottom edge so that they don't fall out of the standee bases.

I've shown these before — these are some of them that I made for Call of Cthulhu, in 3d-printed bases that I designed in Blender and printed on my Ender 3.

I prefer black bases, but at the time I printed these I only had grey filament. Now I have some black PLA+, so I'm printing a bunch more. Because why not, after all?

Monday 11 March 2024

Critter

 

I cannot remember who sculpted this, nor what it was called, nor whether it's supposed to be a specific monster or just a generically monstery critter. It stands (or squats) 40mm to the tip of its muzzle.

I printed it quite some time ago, and just got around to painting it.


FDG Ranger

 

This is one of the support-free FRPG minis produced by Fat Dragon Games, in this case a ranger.

I like them as gaming pieces because their poses tend to be quite restrained. I'm not fond of the sorts of fantasy minis that are presented in hugely animated leaping-slashing-bellowing poses; they're exhausting to look at.

These FDG minis have the additional benefit that they can be reliably and successfully printed on a FDM printer.

That's maybe not as important as it once was, now that decent resin printers are affordable, and the resins available are tougher, but I still appreciate it. Plus, the new generation of FDM printers appear to be capable of detail and smoothness comparable with entry-level resin printers, while being much cheaper to run.

My old Ender 3 is not, alas, that good. Still good enough for tabletop work though.

Sunday 10 March 2024

Binding BRP

 

More adventures in bookbinding.

Some time ago I got a copy of Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying when the PDF was on sale at DriveThreRPG for 99c.

I printed it full-size and bound it in a fan-glue binding (the green one). The BRP Quick-Start rules were free, so I did them too (the floral cover, on the left). Both of those bindings have been around for a year or so, and since then I've also bought a PoD paperback edition of the rules.

Recently I thought I'd like a copy in a more compact form, so I printed the Big Yellow Book in A5 signatures, and stitched and bound it into a Little Big Crimson Yellow Book, on the right.

Now Chaosium have released a shiny new edition of BRP, with an editable RTF text block available under the ORC. However, even without any illustrations, and with all the text at 10pt, an A5 production of that comes to somewhere around 700-800 pages, so it might be a while before I get up the gumption to lay that all out and print it in signatures.

Thursday 7 March 2024

Very Old Wizards

 These are all very old 25mm figures that I painted some time in the late 1980s, mostly using Maimeri gouache acrylics. They all came, as far as I can recall, from two three-figure sets from Ral Partha, and I think they were designed by Tom Meier and/or Julie Guthrie.



Wednesday 6 March 2024

Reaper Great Worm

 

This plastic Great Worm from Reaper (one of their very first Bones models) is a mini that I painted quite a few years ago. I've used it as a test piece, to photograph against my new velvet backdrop.

I like the look of the dark background, and I'll probably use it quite a lot. I think it would make post-processing a lot easier if I could arrange the lighting to be a lot more focused on the models, and I'll experiment with some method to restrict the light circle quite a bit.

Black Velvet Backdrop

I bought a piece of black furnishing velvet to try as a backdrop for photographing my models.

I've hung it off a frame at the back of my photo box, draped forward over the floor of the stage.

I have three fairly powerful daylight LED bulbs over the stage, which is just a translucent plastic storage crate. There is a mirror tile on either side to reflect some fill light back into the scene.


My camera (a Nikon D3500), in common with all cameras with automated exposure controls, tends to freak out a bit when a scene is overwhelmingly dark or light. Fortunately, it has pretty easy exposure compensation controls, although finding the exact degree of over- or under-exposure is generally a matter off guesswork and trial and error.

This image has been underexposed by one stop, and though the minis look a little dark, the colour card is still a little bit washed out as the camera struggles to get the right exposure.


This one has been underexposed by two stops, and everything is pretty dark.

The velvet background is nice and black, but the white of the exposure card is perceptibly grey, and the minis are very dark. I could probably bring them out with some post-processing, but I suspect there would be a lot less faffing about involved in darkening the background of the first image than in trying to get an acceptable tonal range in the minis in the second.


This guy, a 28mm monk from Reaper, was underexposed by one stop to keep the dark background from making the camera blow out the highlights. But with this one, I focused the lighting much more closely on the mini, so that almost no detail from the background was picked up at all. He's been post-processed to further darken the background.

I like this effect, and I'll probably make a lot more use of it.


This was an experiment with a modeling light setup (i.e. using light to model the surface of the subject), using a single lamp from the upper right, and a convex makeup mirror as a fill reflector.

It's probably not often that useful a lighting rig for photographing miniatures, as highlights and shadows tend to be painted in, and the lighting generally needs to be more flat and even. However, I have it in my grab-bag if I should ever need it.

Monday 4 March 2024

Organisation

 

I've been very slowly tidying and organising my workroom, so that I could conceivably actually use it for something other than storing junk.

Part of that has been tidying up my modeling bench.

The top image is it yesterday; the bottom is its current state — it's unlikely to stay like this for long, but I'll enjoy it while I may.

It's refreshing to have more than a six inch square area free to work in.

Panther to Jagdpanther and back again

 


Some time ago I bought a box of five 1:100 (15mm) plastic kit Panthers from PSC. They included alternate hull and gun pieces to make Jagdpanthers, if the modeller so chose.

Realistically, getting three Panthers and two Jagdpanthers out of the box would probably have been sufficient for 99% of my wargaming needs, but being the cheap and stingy person that I am, I decided that I wanted to get maximum flexibility from the set.

So, through the magic of magnetism, I made the two options interchangeable on the basic running gear. I used epoxy to set the magnets in place because of both its strength and its gap-filling properties.

The bottom magnets were straightforward enough to place, but to get accurate registration and polarity for the upper magnets, I placed the two sets of magnets together with a piece of cling-film between them, put a liberal blob of epoxy in about the right spot on the inside of the upper hull, and closed it up and let the epoxy drool down and around the upper magnets.

I numbered each set so that the matching magnets always go together.

I will have to make sure that the camo pattern at the front edge of the hulls match, more or less, when I paint them up, but that's not really a big deal.

Just as an aside, I also glued a slug of lead in the hull bottom to give the plastic model a bit of heft. It makes it feel more satisfying in the hand, but it does have the disadvantage that the increased mass means that if I drop it on a hard surface it's more likely to smash into a bajillion pieces.

Sunday 3 March 2024

Found Terrain

 

When I was stacking the first batch of firewood for next winter, I kicked this little knotty chunk of twisted pine, and thought that it would make a good rocky outcrop.

So I painted it, and added some foam-flock mossy patches, and voila! A rocky outcrop.

Shown here with the 28mm Sergeant Measureby, to the left, and a pair of 15mm PSC plastic British paratroopers in front.

Tuesday 20 February 2024

Churchill NA-75 (15mm)


 On the off-chance that we might get a Battlegroup campaign book for Italy before I shuffle off this mortal coil, I've been messing about with one of the estimable Mr Bergman's designs, a Churchill NA75.

I've done almost nothing to the model itself except to add some sockets to magnetize the turret, but I've added a commander figure based on the one I did for my Humber scout car.


I've got a troop of three printed and primed, and now I just have to remember how I painted the last Churchill I did.


I like the way it turned out, but I painted it some considerable time ago in 2018, and I didn't make any notes. So I'll have to work it out by guess and fading memory.

The commander figures in the left and centre vehicles came (I think) from Battlefront, while the one on the right is one I sculpted myself. It's a tad too small I think, but it'll do.


As a side-effect of this tinkering, I made some commander figures that I can insert into any future British vehicles. These are the first batch, in 15mm scale.

I've enlarged them slightly from the original design, so that they fit better with other commercial 15mm figures.

I'd like to make a version in a pixie suit as well, for 1944 onwards.

Sunday 18 February 2024

Bison


I've been messing about with the Sturmpanzer II "Bison" from TigerAce1945's Panzer II Pack, bumping up the detail here and there and refining a bit of the geometry.

His models have been a real boon, to me and to hundreds and thousands of others. Sure, I _could_ make one myself, but then I am very lazy.

The crew figures are a couple of 3dBreed artillerymen that I have edited a bit — I got rid of the loader's Y-yoke, and gave him a better-shaped helmet. Most 3dBreed figures have wide open angry mouths, and I had a fairly limited choice from those that don't.

This will go to give my 15mm Afrika Korps a bit more artillery support. Who knows, one day I may even get that army finished to a state where I could put it on the wargaming table.


2024-02-19

I've printed it a couple of times. The one behind I did before I noticed that it was missing a set of road wheels, so it's actually a bit smaller than it should be. I'll just have to pretend it's further away.

Ah well, I've used less accurate models on the wargames table before I guess; it's still eminently usable, and I doubt that any except the very pernickety will even notice as long as they're not right next to each other.


2024-02-23

I've been fiddling about in Blender, doing a quick procedurally generated terrain to put the model in. It's not really relevant to 3d printing, or at least, not for my purposes. But it's an interesting way of teaching myself a thing or two about Blender's node systems.

Thursday 15 February 2024

Wespe

 

I've been working on a 1:100 scale Wespe in Blender for the last couple of days. I actually started it quite a long time ago, but for whatever reason abandoned it, and I just happened upon the files again in my digital modeling folder.

I've always been quite fond of the Wespe, I like its compact neatness. It's not a blundering bloated behemoth like the Hummel. I saved up my pocket-money to buy a Tamiya 1/35 model of it when I was about 13 — now long gone, alas.

This model has been a bit of a headache, though no more than usual I suppose. I do need to hunt out some more pictorial references though.


I was in two minds about adding much interior detail in the fighting compartment. It does make it look better than an empty shell, but on the other hand it makes putting crew figures in there a bit trickier. The internal clutter I eventually came up with is entirely specious and made up, but it looks okay I think.


When I get a successful test print, I'll do a version in a firing posture with the gun elevated and the back door down.

I've designed it in such a way that the gun and superstructure can be printed separately from the hull, and the running gear as another separate component, so that should (fingers crossed) make printing relatively straightforward.

2024-02-16

I've put the STLs online. They're available at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/wespe/


It printed well and went together easy-peasy, so that's a win.

I'd think that the assembly of this very simple kit should be fairly obvious, but just in case, I prepared this:

Assembly guide


Tuesday 13 February 2024

Flayed Demon Thing

 

I don't know what this thing is supposed to be, but it looks angry.

I think the design is from Schlossbauer*, in which case I would have got it from Thingiverse. It's been sitting in the painting queue for some considerable time, a couple of years at least.

* Nope, apparently it's a Gormaw from EC3D Designs,

Sergeant Measureby is, as usual, doing sterling scale-indicating work with his Spear of 5mm Increments.

A Mighty Boar


Miguel Zavala (who goes by the name MZ4250 on various online platforms) recently designed a bunch of mounts for TTRPG characters, and this is one of them, a Giant Boar.

The original model was armoured with plate barding, which I removed, and I gave it a more compact base. This is a particularly long-legged boar, and I've made another remix to shorten his legs — I haven't printed that one yet.

Sergeant Measureby, with his Spear of 5mm Increments, is shown alongside for scale.

Saturday 10 February 2024

PzJg38 Hetzer

 

A perennial favourite, the PzJg 38 Hetzer. This is a vehicle that for some reason I haven't owned or fielded since my early wargaming days in the late '70s. Now it has distracted me from all the other things I really should finish off.

This model is, once again, based on a design by the prolific Mr Bergman that I have tidied up and added some detail to. I have the first test print printing right this moment, so hopefully it will all be well, and I can add it to the ever-extending paint queue.


Later...

I'll call that a win I think. The test print went well, so if I ever find I need more than one 15mm Hetzer I know I can get them.

Sunday 4 February 2024

Kit Printing Possibilities

 

I haven't bothered printing my models on my Mars Pro as a kit of components, because the water-washable resin I was using was so dimensionally unstable that the components never, ever fitted together properly.

However, the spirit-based resin I've started using has been behaving very much better, so I thought I'd give kit-printing a go again.

The benefit of printing a model in multiple parts is that I can adjust the angling of each component on the print bed to maximise the benefit of supports, without those supports interfering with other parts of the model. Also, if an individual component fails, the reprinting time is usually much shorter, and there's less waste of expensive resin.


The Wirbelwind hull on the left of this photo was printed in one piece, and you can see that the dense mass of supports required for all the little nooks and nubbins of the running gear has interfered severely with areas of the model geometry. 

Some supports went right through important parts of the model, while others broke away parts of the tracks as they were removed.

The model on the right was printed with the running gear as separate components, and a much better result was achieved.

I'll certainly be less definite about printing models in one piece in the future.

Friday 2 February 2024

Wirbelwind

 



Back on the ground again, and this time I'm working on a 1:100 (15mm) Flakpanzer Wirbelwind, mounting a 20mm Flakvierling. Mr. Bergman has given us a 37mm Ostwind, but this particular flakpanzer has been lacking until now. At least, as far as I've found.

The hull is taken from a Panzer IV-J (by Bergman I think). I've added a bit of detail refinement, and replaced the running gear with some by TigerAce1945. The crew are some figures I sculpted some time ago, and the turret and flakvierling are done from scratch, using one of the Bradford 1:72 drawings as reference. The armament is done pretty much by guess and memory; it's not all that visible in this scale, so I haven't busted a gut over accuracy. We'll see just how much that gnaws at me.

If I wanted to do a version with the guns elevated in their AA role, I'd have to completely redesign them. That's maybe a task for another day.

I might tinker with it a bit more, but it's in a usable state now.


2024-02-03

I reverted to a somewhat simplified running gear module as it would be easier to print, and would still look decent enough on the table top in this small scale.



I extracted the original running gear from the Pz.IV hull and set to work on it.

As usual, I discovered that it would have been more straightforward (and probably quicker) to have just built it from scratch, but by the time I decided on that I was too far through the process to stop and start over. Hey-ho.


I made a set with some track face detail as well.

Whether it's worth the trouble of printing it or not remains to be seen.


2024-02-05

Here's a comparison shot: the red primed vehicle on the right has running gear modules with just plain bars to indicate track links, while the raw grey resin one has some more indented detail.

The more detailed tracks definitely look better close up, but at tabletop distances there's not a lot to choose between them. The little nubbins running around the edges of the tracks are more visually important in suggesting links than the face detail.

In future, unless the track run is more exposed, I don't think it's really worth the extra effort to detail the track link faces. However, I've done this one now, so I might as well use it.