Saturday 29 December 2018

Jackboots of the Skies

One of the things it's really not necessary to have on the wargames table, but which I want to have anyway, are aircraft models. A case might be made for including models of dive-bombers and other ground-attack aircraft, but having models of strategic bombers cluttering the place up is really pretty pointless.

That, naturally, has not stopped me.

I found this model of a He 111 on Thingiverse, at http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3317489 by someone called T1ckL35. The model is produced at 1/200 scale, and I've re-scaled it to 1/144 to fit with my fighter models.

The Heinkel 111 wasn't particularly large as far as WWII bombers went, but it's a monster compared with my 1/144 fighter models, most of which are by Zvezda, as is this Me 109 F.

Zvezda do their wargaming aircraft in two scales: 1/144 for fighters, small fighter-bombers and the like, and 1/200 for bombers. That leads to some odd anomalies in sizing: for example, their 1/144 Fairey Battle is quite a bit larger than their 1/200 Bristol Blenheim. I prefer to have all my models in a constant scale if at all possible, but I can certainly understand their rationale for the decision.

 The model prints in two pieces, split along its vertical axis.

There are no locating pins or sockets, so some care will be needed to make sure that it glues together squarely. I've found that by squeezing the front and back of the tail fin between finger and thumb of one hand, and top and bottom of the fuselage between fingers and thumb of the other, I can get a pretty reliable alignment of the two halves.

Because I have a glass platen on my 3d printer, the matching surfaces are perfectly smooth, which is ideal for getting the strongest possible bond with cyanoacrylate glues. I will need to be using one with a little bit of working time though, just to make absolutely sure I have everything perfectly aligned before the glue goes off.

Upper surfaces
The two halves are arranged with their ventral surfaces facing each other on the printer platen, which is good — that means that any printing travel artifacts are on the ventral surfaces, which will generally not be particularly visible. The whole thing will need a bit of sanding to smooth it off in any case, but this will minimise the amount of work I will have to do on the visible dorsal surfaces.


Lower surfaces

Next day....

I've got it assembled and airbrushed with its basic splinter camouflage scheme.

I'm not at all familiar with Luftwaffe colours so I've just found some pictures on the internet and used a couple that look OK together to me: VMA 71011 Tank Green and VMA 71013 Yellow Olive.

I'm even less sure about the undersides, but I think a generic pale grey-blue will do the trick.

I will have to draw on the panel lines, and for that I'll see if I can find some fine waterproof medium-grey and light-grey fibre-tip technical pens. I could use black at a pinch, but that can look a bit cartoonish.


Thursday 27 December 2018

Raupenschlepper Ost


This is the 1942 Raupenschlepper Ost, a fully tracked truck developed for use in the mud and snows of Russia by the Germans in WWII. A great many were made, and they were very popular little vehicles.

The model is based on a 1/200 scale version by m_bergman, which was re-scaled to 1/100 and cut up into pieces by krueger54, so that it would print without supports. I took krueger54's version and made new running gear for it, and also a new hollow canvas tilt. The tilt piece just slots into the cargo bed, so it can be swapped out for different cargo loads, or I could print another tilt and paint it as an ambulance vehicle, for example. Maximum flexibility! Or else it could just be glued in place. Whatever.

Sunday 23 December 2018

Scaling

A note re: scaling —
  • A six-foot (1800mm) man at 1/56 would be 32mm tall. At 1/48 scale, he should be 37.5mm tall.
  • A 28mm 6-footer would be more like 1/64 scale.
  • A 1/72 scale 6-foot gent should actually be 25mm tall, so at least there's _one_ of the popular scales that is what it says on the tin.
  • A 20mm figure scales out to 1/90 scale.
  • At 1/100 scale, 6-foot men should be 18mm tall.
  • A genuine 15mm tall figure scales to 1/120 scale.
All this is all very well, though it's not going to make one jot of difference to the people who are heavily invested in their "20mm" 1/72 scale wargames forces.

The arguments about what a given millimetre-sizing means are perennial, but basically fall into one of two camps: either

  • a figure is measured from the soles of its feet to its eyes (to remove the possibility of error through measuring headgear of different sizes) 

or

  • a figure is measured from the sole of its feet to the top of its head, ignoring any headgear.
The effect is that different manufacturers create figures of quite different heights from those of other manufacturers, and market them under the same supposed millimetre size. It's all a complete shambles, and I think the idea of describing figures by some arbitrary and highly mobile mm-size is an absolutely terrible one.

Saturday 22 December 2018

FAMO Fresh

Here it is, fresh off the print bed, my shiny new 1:100 scale 18-tonne SdKfz 9 FAMO. It's a bit of a layer cake; I ran out of grey filament and had to swap to black part of the way through.

I've included the Zvezda King Tiger in the background for scale; the Famo is stupidly large. Large enough to comfortably throw a sIG33 in the boot with room to spare.

I think it will end up being my repair/recovery vehicle; I might just design a crane/winch module to slot into the cargo bed.

The two-colour scheme reminds me of the Matchbox kits of yore, that were manufactured in two different colours of plastic for no very good reason.



I designed this crane module to slip into the cargo bay. The actual recovery vehicle wouldn't have had any sides, but adding this will at least make it look a bit more recoveryish.

I haven't printed it yet, except for the floor piece to ensure that it would fit snugly in place, and I think it might be a bit of a tricky print.

Here it is, in place in the cargo bay of the FAMO. FDM is not the ideal medium to be printing this sort of thing in, a DLP or SLA resin printer would give much cleaner results. However, this will do for the purpose, which is to identify it as a recovery vehicle on the wargames table.

Friday 21 December 2018

StuIG 33b (15mm, 3d print)


I printed this model to test Cura 3.6's concentric top shell slicing, with very satisfactory results. It's a 1:100 scale (15mm) StuIG 33b, basically just a 150mm howitzer in a steel box on a StuG III chassis. It'll come in handy if we ever get to Stalingrad.

Thursday 20 December 2018

Cura 3.6 Concentric top/bottom shells


This is a 1:100 scale SiG33b, modelled by TigerAce1945 (I think), which I sliced with Cura 3.6. I'd read that its Concentric top/bottom shells were much improved, and so I tried it out on this print, and it certainly is better than it used to be. Most importantly from my point of view is that there's no separation between the top and side shells, which I've been getting a lot with the Cura profile I've been using.

Flame Tongueish

This promo image for the Hellboy reboot movie led me to think about a variant on that old D&D chestnut, the Flame Tongue magic sword.

Essentially, it would have a sort of Heat Metal effect on the blade, as in the Druidic spell. The longer it is wielded by its user, the hotter the blade becomes and the more heat damage it will inflict in addition to its sharpened-metal-bar damage. The heat damage would start out in the first round as an additional d3, then 2d3 in the second round, 3d3 in the 3rd, and tops out at +4d3 heat damage thereafter.

The twist (not much of a twist really) is that the heat will also gradually propagate through the grip, burning the hand of the wielder if they're not immune to that sort of damage. I'd run it on an increasing scale — say, no heat damage in the first round, then +1 point of damage per round (i.e. 1 point, then 2 points, then 3 points, an so on) until it's doing as much heat damage to its wielder as it could to a target (i.e. 12 points per round of burning). The wielder, in addition to taking the damage, would have to make a Will save at -1 per 2 points of heat damage, to not involuntarily drop the sword.

The sword cools when not being held at twice the rate it heats up.

Wednesday 19 December 2018

Zvezda Jagdtiger


A while ago I bought myself this Zvezda 1:100 kit of the 128mm tank killer, Jagdtiger, and I just got around to assembling and painting it today.

I have no immediate use for it, but I have a sentimental fondness for the vehicle from the days of my childhood, when our wargaming consisted of getting as many of the biggest and baddest tanks on to a table as we could, pretty much stacking them wheel to wheel. I would sneer at such a callow display these days, but boy, did we have fun.

This was the first real outing for my Badger Sotar 20-20 airbrush, and to say that I am satisfied with it would be a profound understatement. It is by far the best airbrush I've ever used. I have a fine tip and needle set coming to me, but it may not really be necessary — even the medium set it currently has installed is excellent.

Monday 17 December 2018

Gothic Paint Rack

For no particular reason, I felt the need to create a pseudo-Gothic Revival Puginesque paint rack for the 17ml dropper bottles used by Vallejo, reaper and others.

The STL is available on Thingiverse, it's about 15MB.

A single module, holding a bottle

.....and without a bottle.

Friday 14 December 2018

Bunkerknacker (15mm, 3d print)

Not a great model, nor a great print, but it should give those Matildas something to worry about.
These things were originally intended for the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in WWII, but in the end military action was unnecessary there and they didn't see service until later. There were some — about ten, I think — used in Poland and France, and later on about fifteen in Russia. The last of them was lost in 1943.

Essentially, it consists of an 88mm AA gun mounted on a heavy half track; at first, the 12-tonne SdKfz 8, and later the 18-tonne SdKfz 9 Famo. They were originally intended as bunker-busters, and they did that job extremely well in Poland. In France, their role expanded to anti-tank duties as well. The first designs didn't allow the 88mm to be used in its original anti-aircraft role, but the later ones on the 18-tonne vehicle could.

This model is supposed to be the 18-tonne version, which is a bit of a pity, as I really wanted the version that served in France in 1940 which differed in several respects. The earlier model had no drop-down sides to extend the fighting platform, and the cab was just plated over with a small cupola for the driver. However, this will do as a generic representation for the wargames table.

I need to get a crew for it — I have some Peter Pig 15mm German artillerymen somewhere, if I can just find them — and I need to find out what, if any, markings it should have.

Next Day

I found those Peter Pig artillerymen, no mean feat I can tell you, considering the appalling shambles that is my workroom. I only put three on the vehicle, far fewer than the actual crew required to operate an 88, but any more and it becomes intolerably crowded. Which it would have been, I suppose.


Milestone

I missed the fact that I made my one thousandth post forty-five posts ago. However, one thousand and forty five is no more arbitrary a number to celebrate than one thousand, so...

HUZZAH!

ONE THOUSAND and FORTY-FIVE POSTS!






Let joyfulness be unrestrained.

Thrills! Drama! Excitement!

I dragged a much-depleted old(ish) reel of blue no-name PLA out of the drying cupboard yesterday, and put it on to print out a 15mm 88mm Bunkerknacker, which it did just fine(ish). What I wasn't expecting though was that it glued itself to the bed so effectively that when I came to remove it, after everything had cooled down, I had to exert so much force that the main component split right through and flew off the bed in two pieces.

Fortunately the break was clean, and I could glue it back together easily enough, but the rough handling has bent a few bits here and there. Nothing too serious.

I had forgotten that I hadn't needed any hairspray or anything at all to help that particular filament stay on the bed.

I'm getting a lot of horizontal banding recently, and this old PLA filament shows it up even worse than my usual eSun PLA+. I'm not quite sure how to fix it; all my belts seem to be tight, and the z-screw has been lubricated. Maybe I've got a screw loose somewhere.....

Thursday 13 December 2018

Vickers Light Mk.VI (15mm, 3d print)

Vickers Light Tank Mk.VIc.
The figure is a 15mm BEF infantryman by Battlefront
 The most common tank in the British arsenal at the beginning of WWII was the Vickers Light Tank Mk.VI, in two main variants: the VIb (pictured below), armed with one .50 and one .303 Vickers machine-gun, and the VIc (right) with a 15mm BESA and co-axial 7.92mm BESA machine-gun.

Despite being the most common tank available to the BEF, I've had none at all in my wargaming force, because they are frankly pretty crap. They're bullet-proof (just), but fall to bits if confronted with anything heavier than rifle-calibre missiles, and their armament is wholly inadequate against almost any other tank, allied or enemy, they're likely to encounter in France.

However, I thought in the interests of historical veracity I'd better make some, so I have, half a dozen, which should provide plenty of cheap and easy targets for the Dirty Nazis.

Mk.VIc rear

Mk.VIb
The hull for the Mk.VIb and Mk.VIc is essentially identical, so I've just printed a pair of turrets for each hull.

The "B" markings for this particular model are made up, and will be different to all the others. That's because this one, the first one I printed, does not have turrets interchangeable with any of the other hulls, while the others all are, and I want to be able to distinguish it at a glance.

Tuesday 11 December 2018

Redesigning Models for FDM Printing

FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) 3d printing is a marvel, and it has revolutionised the way that I make the toys I push around the wargames table while making "Brrrrm brrrm BOOM!" noises. However, it is not without its limitations.

1:100 scale (15mm) Toldi II Hungarian WWII light tank
The major structural limitation lies in the fact that the strings of molten plastic can't be laid down in mid-air, and need some sort of support to lie on. The printer can make its own supports as it goes along, and usually they do a pretty good job at supporting, but the bottom surfaces, lying on those supports, can be pretty ugly. Often enough, that doesn't matter too much for my purposes, because those surfaces will seldom be seen.

Shown here to the right is a 1:100 scale Toldi II which has been printed sitting on its tracks on the bed of the printer. The bottom of the hull, and beneath the turret where it was raised up above the print bed by the turret-plug, show the characteristically loose fibrous-looking surface you get over supports. It's ugly, but you never see it, so it doesn't really matter. You can see that the bottom of the tracks, and the bottom of the turret plug, both of which were built up directly on the print bed, are much smoother.

Although the bottom surfaces aren't usually visually important on these vehicle models, there is a situation where the imprecision of a supported surface can matter. That is at the meeting between the turret and hull.

These two models (left) of the Vickers Light Mk.VIb were modeled differently. The one on the left had its turret printed in one piece, the same way as the Toldi II above, and you can see that the loose net-like structures left behind by the supports have somewhat rounded off the bottom edge of the turret, and they lift it away from the hull. The model on the right had its turret printed in two pieces, as shown below, so that the bottom edge of the turret itself was built up directly on the printer's glass bed, giving a very smooth surface and a clean, sharp edge. It sits right down in contact with the hull top.

The way I did this was to split up the turret into pieces. This picture (right) shows the whole model, laid out ready for printing.

When I was cutting the turrets up, at the same time I punched a hole through the turret plug, with a matching one in the bottom of the turret itself. The small cylinders you see here are used as locating pins, to ensure that the pieces get glued together accurately.

I also use the hole in the turret plug to house a 3x3mm cylindrical magnet, with a matching hole and magnet in the hull. The magnets are there to allow the turret to rotate freely without falling out and bouncing away under some furniture where it would never be found again.

You will observe that the hull is printed standing up on its tail. The reason for this is because this orientation is optimal for reducing visible layer lines on the vehicle's sloping panels, and it also gives me better, cleaner detail in the track run.

This turret for a British A10 cruiser tank (left) has been treated in the same way, except that the turret ring has also been detached from the turret and is printed along with the turret plug.

This arrangement maximises the cleanliness of the edges where it matters, where it will be seen, while keeping the number of individual parts to a reasonable minimum.

I could, if I so chose, split up the models into a multitude of component parts, each so arranged as to print to its best advantage. However, part of the appeal of a 3d printed model, for my purposes at any rate, is simplicity and speed of assembly. If I want to build a whole kitset model, I'll buy one. My aim is to find a happy medium between model quality and convenience, and this system achieves that for me.

All of the base models I've used as examples in this post have been by m_bergman (Toldi II, Vickers Mk.VIb) and TigerAce1945 (A10). Their models are available on Thingiverse, and I highly recommend them both.

Friday 7 December 2018

A10 Cruisers (15mm, 3d print)

This is a pair of 3d printed 1:100 scale British WWII A10 Cruisers, along with some 15mm Battlefront BEF figures in my sabot bases. The model is by m_bergman (or possibly TigerAce1945, I'm not 100% sure), very slightly modified by me.

There are some definite issues with these prints: the side shields didn't print, I suspect because they were too thin, and I got a bit of warping on the turret base, a problem I haven't had to deal with for months. Also, on one of them there is a slight layer shift with associated under-extrusion, and what might have caused that I don't yet know. However, neither of them is so poor that it needs to be binned, and they'll do fine on the wargames table.

I am going to have to do a bit of tinkering with my printer though, to get it back to printing properly again.

Saturday 1 December 2018

Blender 2.80

Blender 2.80 is now officially in beta.

From various bits and pieces I've seen about it on Youtube, it looks as though many of the UI and UX changes will be pretty good in the long run, but they're so extensive that I'm now pretty much completely lost in it.

I no longer seem to be able to set specific values for things like extrusions, bevels, and so forth nearly as easily, as they're no longer immediately accessible on the toolbar. And when I've tried to do so via the pop-up gizmo, the measurement values appear to default to metres, in spite of the fact that I've set them to millimetres in the global settings. These are just a couple of the UI issues I've encountered in just a short time of playing with 2.80.

I'll be keeping an eye on it, and I'll have to learn my way around the new UI eventually, but for the moment the changes are such that they've made my modeling life harder and less precise, rather than the other way around. I'll be sticking with 2.79 for quite a while yet, I think.

Friday 30 November 2018

CMP Chevy 15cwt 3d print

Here's my 3d printed CMP Chevrolet 15cwt light truck, all painted and crewed. The gunner is an assemblage of various bits and pieces out of the spares box; I think (though I'm not sure) that the figure is a gunner from a 25 pounder. It's from Battlefront, in any case, as is the Bren gun.

I have a bunch more of them awaiting paint, but this is the only one I've printed with the roof hatch open. Which turns out to be a relief, since putting the gunner together was kind of a pain with my decrepit eyes and fingers.

The markings are entirely specious; I know almost nothing about British WWII softskin markings, so I just made them up.

The model is available from my new shop on Gumroad.

Wednesday 28 November 2018

Sabots for the Desert

I painted these Battlefront 15mm 8th Army figures many years ago for Flames of War when it was still in its first edition, and they're pretty crappy. They really need to be repainted, pretty much from scratch. I want to be able to use them for Battlegroup Tobruk and Torch, so I've taken them off their old multi-figure FoW bases, and put them on to ½" (12.5mm) steel washers.

However, moving a bajillion individual 15mm figures is a bit of a trial, especially when their exact formation isn't immediately relevant to the game. So, to combine the flexibility of individually based figures with the convenience of multiple bases, I've designed and printed some magnetic sabot bases in 5, 4 and 3 man groups. Those numbers will give me all the combinations I need with no more than two bases per unit. I use 3mm x 1mm rare earth magnets in them, cheap as chips from China.

If it becomes necessary, the figures can be dismounted from their bases in the blink of an eye, or remounted again almost as quickly.

Ridiculous Land Dreadnaught

I designed this ridiculous dieselpunk Land Dreadnaught for 6mm a couple of years ago, and I thought I'd rescale it and bring up the detail for 15mm–20mm. At this scale, it's about 195mm long. I guess it could be used for 28mm games at a pinch, though in that scale it's not really any bigger than most tanks.

The figure is the 15mm SidScale from Printable Scenery, included to give an idea of the size of the beast.

I haven't yet figured out how I'm going to split it up for printing. The turrets will all be detached of course, and sockets punched into the hull for them to rotate in, but the big turret needs a bit more work I think. I want to make the main gun moveable, and I think it needs a bit more clutter up on the roof.

Later:

Some guys on the Tabletop 3d Printing FB group suggested that it needed wider tracks, and after initially reeling in horror at the thought of rebuilding them, I realised that widening them wouldn't actually be all that difficult.

So I did.

I also added a 20mm SidScale figure for size reference.

Later:

I added a massive access hatch with lifting lugs to the top of the main turret, for getting that big gun in and out I guess.

I also slapped on some panel lines, and some more rivets, because you can never have too many rivets.

I also added a machine-gun sub-turret to the top. It's the same basic geometry as the other gun sub-turrets, so one could mix and match cannon and machine-gun turrets just by printing the number of each one wants.

Next I need to figure out how I'm going to mount the gun so that it can be elevated or depressed, and then how to split everything up for printing. It's possible the best option might just be to only make the turrets and main gun separate objects, and to print the hull and side-sponsons all as one piece. We shall see.

Monday 26 November 2018

CMP 15cwt (15mm)

I remodeled my CMP Chevy 3-tonner into a 15cwt light truck.

I thought it would be a simple job — just shorten the bed and rear chassis, move some things around, cut the canopy in half and resculpt it a bit....

It was not as simple a job as I had expected.

Partly due to lack of forethought in the original modeling, with respect to making changes in the future, but mostly because I decided to have a go at open flaps at the rear of the canopy, and (probably due to my inexperience with sculpting in Blender) that proved to be a much tricker task than I thought it would be. Somehow the smooth, clean sculpting the Youtube Dudes manage as a matter of course eluded me.

Still, it's done now, and the first test print is on the printer as I type this. Hopefully I can start to replace some of the Austin Tilleys I've been using for all my light trucking needs up until now.


Here's the test print, finished. I've removed its supports and airbrushed it with a coat of primer. The officer is a WW1 british figure from Peter Pig, the guy sticking out of the roof hatch is (I think) a gunner from a Battlefront 25 pounder.

Overall I'm fairly happy with how it turned out, and I've learned a bit about how not to make my life more difficult than it really needs to be.

Saturday 24 November 2018

CMP Chevy — FDM Test Prints

Left: 0.08mm layer height
Right: 0.1mm layer height
I've done a couple of test prints of the CMP Chevy model I designed the other day. Both models have had their supports removed, and been airbrushed with a primer coat, but no other post-processing has been done as yet.

On the left, the most recent version, after I'd sculpted in the folds and billows of the canvas tilt, and printed at a layer height of 0.08mm, that being an even multiple of the Ender 3's Z-stepping.

On the right, an older iteration, while the tilt was still in its basic geometry, printed at 0.1mm.

There is not a great deal of difference between the two in terms of layer artifacts, but the layer-stepping in the 0.1mm model is definitely more visibly pronounced on the sloping upper surfaces. Going to the finer layers does add to the printing time — another 25% — but it will be a bit easier to smooth down the upper surfaces.

As far as the sculpting of the canvas tilt goes, I'm fairly happy with it. The modelling on the sides could maybe be exaggerated a little bit more, but it doesn't need too much. Go too far, and it will start looking overly cartoonish. I've learned that I didn't really need to worry about pre-modelling the folds of the canvas over the ends before moving to sculpting in Blender; in fact, it probably made my life harder than it needed to be. I could have just modelled up the folds entirely within the sculpting mode.

Friday 23 November 2018

Softskins

Trucks are not something that most wargames model companies tend to spend much effort on. They'll do some of the most common ones, just to show willing, and leave it at that. I can't say that I blame them, since most wargamers are equally uninterested in spending money on anything that doesn't have armour and goes boom.

I've been looking through my old Military Modelling magazines for scale drawings of some of the more interesting looking British trucks of the interwar period and WWII. I don't really need them, as such; I have enough common-or-garden 15mm truck models to stand in when I want to deploy them on to the game table, but I'd like to be able to field some of the funkier looking vehicles that were pressed into service. The interwar Thornycrofts, for example, that were still being used in WWII, and looked like something out of the Great War.

This one is the first fruit of my digital trucking loins, a CMP Chevrolet 3-tonner. It's not a truck that is hard to come by a model of, even in 1:100 scale, but I did it to learn my way around modelling non-tankish things, and also because this one will be dead easy to change to the 15cwt version just by cutting the back in half and moving a few bits around. The main thing I need experience with is the fabric tilt — I need to learn just how far I need to take the sculpting to ensure that it looks appropriately canvas-like when it's printed on my FDM printer.

Tuesday 20 November 2018

Sabot Bases for 15mm Infantry

 I like to base my 15mm figures individually for flexibility, but it's usually much more convenient to move them when they're mounted on multiple-figure bases.

The solution to this issue is, of course, sabot bases, and I've tried several methods of making them. Up until now, the most successful has been laser-cut MDF, with thin card or fridge magnet material glued underneath.

However, now that I have a 3d printer, I reasoned that I could create magnetised sabot bases with a minimum of trouble, just ten or fifteen minutes design time in Blender, and about twenty minutes to print this particular three-man base. Printing a whole army's worth of bases will take a while, but I can put them on to print at night and take them off the next morning. Easy-peasy.


I use 3x1mm rare-earth magnets I bought from China. I have hundreds of them, and they cost very little — I don't recall exactly how much, but it was something like $2.50 for a hundred.

The magnets are thin enough that the sabots don't have to be overly thick, and strong enough that I can pick up the whole base by one figure quite securely.
I use two magnets per socket, because I base my 15mm figures on steel washers, which have an inconvenient hole right in the middle where it would be most convenient to put a magnet. However, the magnets are cheap enough that doubling up isn't a big deal, and it does make for a more secure hold, with one magnet on each side of the base.

I'll judge this experiment a success, and go ahead and make sabots in sizes to suit my army organizations. For the British, that means one five-man and one 3-man base per section, which allows me to split off the Bren team if need be. The most tedious part of making them all will be painting and flocking them to match the figure bases.

Monday 19 November 2018

Tiger (P)

Ferdinand Porsche's submission for the chassis of the tank which later came to be known as the Tiger was not successful in that respect, but the chassis was used for the Ferdinand 88mm heavy tank destroyer. Just one saw service in the gun-tank configuration, and it was used as the command vehicle for a company of Ferdinands in Russia. It was lost in 1944.

This 1:100 scale model is 3d printed, and I've photographed it with a Zvezda Ferdinand in the background. I don't know exactly what markings the original had, so I've just given it some generic command-ish markings.

Update:

I'm informed that the tank was this one, Panzerbefehlswagen VI(P), turret number 003, commanded by Hauptmann Grillenberg, Eastern Front, Early/Mid 1944.

So I might have to re-paint the turret numbers. Dang.

Saturday 17 November 2018

Lizard, finished

Here's the Guy Lizard ACV I showed in the raw in my last post, now all painted up and ready for service.

It will cost me an extra 12 points to upgrade my BEF FHQ from a staff car to this, but it might be worth it to keep them safe from my wildly erratic mortarmen.

Friday 16 November 2018

Lizard Guy. I mean, Guy Lizard.

I've put together a digital model of a Guy Lizard ACV in 1:100 scale — estimated from photographs with blokes in them, since I have no concrete dimensions at hand — and I've got it on the printer at this very moment.

Hopefully next time my BEF commander gets bombarded by his own mortar battery, he'll be safe and snug inside an armoured shell. (I can't remember, offhand, what it costs to upgrade from a staff car to the Lizard, but what the hell...)

Because the roof and engine cover have such gently sloping surfaces, I split the model in half to print it vertically rather than sitting on its wheels. This minimises the visible print lines, which can be distressingly obvious when the slope is very gradual, even at very fine layer heights. I'm kind of curious to see how it will turn out, but I'll just have to wait until tomorrow morning to see.


I've put the model up on Shapeways at http://shpws.me/QQLF — whether it will pass their pre-printing checks is anybody's guess, as they're steadily becoming a more and more crappy business, and their site has become next to impossible to use.


Here's my two-part FDM print, fresh off the printer and assembled. I've photographed it alongside an undercoated Dorchester as a scale reference; I suspect the Lizard might be just a tad too large, as the Dorchester was noted for its spaciousness. However, it's not so big that it will look out of place on the table top, and it will do for me.

Friday 9 November 2018

Thankful For Small Blessings

Shock news! The shonky airbrush supplies company I ordered a Badger Sotar 20-20 from way back in January have finally broken down and sent me an airbrush.

Not the version I actually ordered, mind — I ordered the Fine needle/tip, and they sent me a Medium — but at this point I'm prepared to call it a partial victory and just close the book.

Somehow I don't think I'll be doing business with Midwest Airbrush Supply again any time soon. Maybe this is an indication they're getting their act together, maybe it's because I demanded a refund, or maybe it's just a response to the fact that I was making my displeasure known across a range of internet platforms where airbrushery types hung out. I don't know, and at this point I don't much care.

I do have to say, even though they sent me the wrong version, the Sotar 20-20 is a stunningly fantastic airbrush. I'm almost afraid to use it, it's so gorgeous. The finish on all the parts is beautiful, and the action is the smoothest I've ever felt on an airbrush.

I shall have to put some paint through it and see how it sprays.






I knocked up a stand to fit it in Blender.

The STL can be got at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3205896


Here's the very first output from the Sotar, with its Medium tip and needle set installed. this is all freehand airbrushing, no masking. The model is a Zvezda 1/100 scale Jagdtiger, it's about 70mm long (not including the gun barrel).