Tuesday 25 January 2022

Doctor Zarkov's Spaceship (nearly, sort of)

 

I've been fiddling around in Blender, putting together a Space Opera spaceship loosely based on the ship of Doctor Zarkov in the 1935 Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon serials.

Something I hadn't remembered, but which I discovered when I looked at a screen-shot from one of the films, is that the ship has a fixed undercarriage just like an aeroplane of the era.


I tried a variety of layouts for the STLs.

The one-piece model (the red one) didn't print well at all; Cura's support game proved to be weak.

The green one, split longitudinally, worked fairly well, but in the end I went with the blue one, split fore and aft, as it required the absolute minimum of supports.



The STLs are available (free) at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5215636
Thingiverse has enraged me one time too many, and I've deleted my account there. Maybe I'll get around to putting them up elsewhere some day, if I can be bothered.

The model, as designed, is roughly 150mm long.









Sunday 9 January 2022

Humber Mk.II Armoured Car

 


Here's a WWII British armoured car, the Humber Mk.II in 15mm/1:100 scale. It mounts a BESA 15mm heavy machine gun with a coaxial 7.92mm machine gun, also a BESA. It was used in North Africa from late 1941, and stayed in active service in Africa, Europe, and the far East in various configurations throughout the war.

The vehicle is a Bergman design, and I've opened up the hatches and added a commander.

It's printed in resin on my Mars Pro.

Tuesday 4 January 2022

D&D5e character: Aedan Comarren

 

Character sheet PDF is at http://mojobob.com/roleplay/dnd5e/Fitz_5e_Character_Sheet_Mk1_A4.pdf
Annette ran a campaign for a while, which I hope we'll get back to some time, in which the party was made up of a family of quadtuplets, born of chiefly parents in mysteriously magical circumstances. By the agency of a dastardly wizard (who came to a bad end eventually) the four Comarren children were whisked away to the ends of the earth, and we had to (a) escape his magical bonds, (b) cut out his gizzards, and (c) find our way back home, all of which we managed to do.

When the campaign went into hiatus, we were off looking for our mother who had been abducted by some sort of toad-demon thing.

The four kids, in order of age, are Aedan (me), Conoran (Steve), Uther (Andrew), and Ethel (Clare).

My character, Aedan, is a stunningly beautiful youth who has been cosseted and indulged all his life, and is therefore blithely and innocently self-entitled. Plus, being the eldest (if only by a matter of minutes) is the primary heir to the chieftainship, and naturally expects all his siblings to look after him and defer to his wishes. To his credit, he's generous and loyal, and treats his eminence purely as a fact of nature, and not in any way a matter of personal virtue. It's just the way things are.

His character class is Barbarian, but he's by no means a bulging-thewed Conanesque brawler. In fact his strength is no better than average. However, his dexterity is exceptional, as is his constitution, and most importantly, his charisma. 

He's fun to play.


I created a miniature for Aedan in HeroForge, and at this moment of writing, it's on my printer, hopefully taking physical form.

Finding a non-musclebound male model barbarian figure ready-made turned out to be impossible, so HeroForge was my best option. It's a bit expensive, but hey-ho. The STL cost about the same, or a little bit more, than a metal figure from Reaper or the like, and of course I have to print it myself.


And this is it, printed and painted. I forgot that I'm terrible at painting naked flesh. Plus, I notice that he's got green paint on his hand, which is a nuisance.

Monday 3 January 2022

First Model of 2022

 



Here's my first model of 2022, a member of the Stalingrad Workers' Militia in 28mm.

Model design is by Propylene Foliescu, printed on my Mars Pro.