Heresy Girls Lady of Decay and Lady of Destiny, plus a Gothic Baptismal Font from the 3D printer

 A couple of female Space Marine proxies from the Heresy Girls Kickstarter.  I know... the fluff has no female Space Marines but what could be more heretical, and more thematic, than the Traitor Legions adding some women to the ranks?

First up is the Lady of Decay.  I went with the helmet head but there is a very cool helmet-free head included with the kit. This is the resin version and although I have the .stl files for these models I've proven that my printer isn't really up to it so I'll be skipping those for the time being.

The casting was clean and the resin accepted glue and paint easily.  The pose, as it tends to be for all the models in this project, is utilitarian and a tiny bit like it stepped out of a recruiting poster.

This will make a great proxy in my Death Guard.








Painting was the usual khaki undercoat with sand and then white dry-bushed over it followed by a coat of Secret Weapon Sewer Water mixed with a drop of Vallejo Glaze Medium. Weathering made use of the Secret Weapon Weathering paints with Brown Rust being the primary and a spot of Citadel Ryza Rust and Typhus Corrosion technicals. The base is green-stuff brushed a couple of shades of white and washed with Secret Weapon Ruby.

 The Order of Vampire Hunters Guardians are basically low budget Hell Hounds.  The detail is quite low but hey, they are part of a horde of zombie dogs... 

Based Khaki, brushed up with whited, washed with Drying Blood (SW) drybrushed with Buckskin Pale (Reaper) spot washed with Seraphim Sepia (GW) washed with Strong Tone (Army Painter Ink) bases are Agrellan Badlands (GW texture) washed with 50-50 Sewer Water (SW) and Glaze Medium (V) dry-brushed with Buckskin Pale (R)







 Here you see the guardians with Lady of Decay for scale.














The Lady of Destiny is essentially a Thousand Suns Icon Bearer. At least She'll perform that function in my Thousand Sons based Warband. 

Paint is Khaki with sand then white dry-brush followed by a wash of Sapphire (SW) and some spot paints of Voidshield Blue (AP)/Sapphire (SW) mix to get that almost Ultramarine Blue look in places.  Yellows are the Reaper Yellow Triad.

The base is greenstuff painted to resemble a magic activation circle.













Lastly there is the Gothic Baptismal Font which I printed from files from the Rampage Gothic Kickstarter.  Its printed in Black PLA and was painted with my Current yellow metal treatment of Brass Casings (SW), Flesh Wash (SW), rebrush with Brass Casings and then highlight with Shining Gold (GW).  White is the reaper Bone Triad plush a thin wash of Stormcloud (SW) re-layered with Splintered Bone (R) and Glaze Medium (V).  Reds are Phoenix Red (V), Ruby (SW) and a thin Gory Red (R) for texture.











I haven't seen many actual Baptismal Fonts and the size/layout of this one seems a little odd... almost like its missing some steps or an access platform.  Its pretty large as you can see here with the Lady of Destiny.  Its a great size for a terrain piece as its big enough to block LoS or provide a good bit of cover but I might scale it down and do a smaller version as well... one of the cool things about 3D printing is I can re-scale for another go if I feel like it.

Back to the desk!

Raging Heroes Build Day and Star Saga wave 2 arrives

 This unit or Raging Heroes Void Elf Executrix Troops took most of my day to assemble.  They look great but the arm system took a lot of fidgeting to get in place.  Once the first set got done and I understood the process better the rest came along a lot more willingly.  These should function as Ynnari Incubi.

I have a Command Unit of these still waiting assembly but I've run out of greenstuff for the bases so they'll have to wait a few days on the post.

Speaking of the Post!  Star Saga wave 2 showed up.  Everything looks great except that one of the models has the wrong arms on... but Mantic have included the correct par of arms and it looks to be an easy swap.  The minis come assembled so there should be painted Star Saga goodness in short order!

Wave 2 also included the MDF tile set and conversion rules to make the Warpath/Deadzone material compatible.

I like the expansion package format with each being in a unique box with a storage tray and additional components.

I somehow ended up with three sets of the Star Saga Screen.  I think failed to notice that one was included with the KickStarter Freebies Bundle and maybe one with the all-in pledge... thaen I must have added an extra one making it three... oops!  No worries! A few extra game screens aren't really a bad thing!

I'm hoping to get some more 3D printed terrain, The Order of Vampire Hunters Wave 2, and couple of Heresy Girls knocked out this week so I'd better get back to the desk!

Twisted! Guild of Harmony and some other things...

The Guild of Harmony is the mysterious fourth faction in Twisted!  It seems largely to be composed of miniatures that predated the game and had been available for a while.  They are wonderfully Steampunk and fit in very well with the other factions.

Trevor the Rat is a Kickstarter/Tradeshow Exclusive and I'm not entirely sure where he fits into the game but the miniature is fun.









I had a really hard time getting him to sit well and ultimately decided to depict him as having had an accident that severed his tail... oops!  Ouch! Now known as Trevor the Rat with no tail....

This pair of Special Edition Dickensian Urkins game along separately from the box set and I had forgotten about them while I was doing the faction... happily re-discovered they can now join their fellows!

I love the Urkin Shooter covered in books!  Appropriately named Library... its a super cool vibe... he even has books for armor~!










The Urkin Slasher is called Bedtime and was a little challenging but I was pretty happy with the tartan muffler and pink... or really faded red.. bath robe... the teddy bear turned out to be a gold color... possibly a clockwork version.

 Probably my favorite pair of the set Ariel and Bastion the Crab!  lots of fun painting cool colors.

I think they end up in the Guild of Harmony Faction but I have't located the cards yet so its hard to be sure!  Turns out I seem to have forgotten to order the Monkey King so I'll have to remedy that!

 Who wouldn't love a Steampunk Tinkerbelle!

She is a member of the Guild of Harmony and an accomplished mechanic in this incarnation.

She's very sweet but has a bad side... don't get on it!

 Striped corsets bright colors... the fairy herself is a bit sooty but in a celebratory way!

Finally the day/night tracker for The Order of Vampire Hunters. 

Back to the desk!

Raging Heroes Ash Tank Gunner and some Heresy Girl Assassins 3D printer experiments with the Snapmaker

 Raging Heroes' Ash Tank Gunner was initially thought of as a torso only sculpt for use in a vehicle hatch but had the lower body included pretty early on in the TGG1 Kickstarter process.  As a result she became useful in a Forward Observer or scout role.  I have a few iterations of her so its possible I'll do a tank crew version of her but I really like having her in stand alone form.

She's painted like the Veteran Jailbirds in a signature prison color scheme.  The orange is Reaper Lemon Yellow a wash of Secret Weapon Orange and Highlights of Reaper Marigold Yellow.

 Ash also sports the Blood Red Rags of Rebellion that were popularized by the Jailbird Freedom Fighter Raven the Chainbreaker.

 Next up are the remaining four proxy Assassins from the Heresy Girls Kickstarter 1.  The Deathshadow was examined here although I think I forgot to mention the name of it.  In a similar vein I've done one each of the factory resin model and a 3D print from my Snapmaker on hi resolution.  The elements of failure are painted blue for clarity and also because I'll use these as active camo/ecm versions.

 First is Black Phoenix which seems like a Vindicare proxy.  The Snapmaker had a hard time with this one and I was unable to get the waist region of the torso to fill in so there is a big hole at the join.  With glue its stable but the poor girl looks kind of undead.

The factory resin, as all of them are in this set, was cleanly cast with little flash and practically no cleanup required.  The bases here are also from the 3D printer and the Snapmaker does good quality on them.

 Ghost is next and was the most successful of the 3D prints.  I used the alternate factory resin head and the 3D print version was not good.  Even on this more successful print there is a lot of printer error and lost detail.

 Ghost look like a Callidus Proxy and its passable in that role.  Its also useful for any sci-fi assassin or operative.

Last up is Jade Devil.  A clear proxy for Culexis psi-hunters.

This one was the most trouble for the Snapmaker and I got zero percent clear print.  Nice stealth field effect but a complete failure as a model print.

Bottom line is that the Snapmaker can't produce acceptable resolution in 28mm humanoid models.  I'm generally happy with its performance for buildings, bases, vehicles,  terrain, and accessories like dice boxes etc... but I'll have to move into SLA printing to make .stl files of 28mm soldiers viable.

Not all 3D printers, or 3D printer formats, are good for all printing projects so don't expect nozzle extruded 3D prints to fill the ranks of your toy soldier armies at this time.  SLA has much higher resolution and I'll get round to it eventually but for now I'll be relying on the printer for the more coarse applications where its pretty reliable.  The right tool for the right job!

Back to the desk!

The Order of Vampire Hunters scenery pack and From the 3D printer: Rampage Gothic Pulpit

 From the 3D printer is the Rampage Gothic Pulpit.  Its a two part model with independent stairs so the exact layout of them is very flexible.  It's currently occupied by one of the insidious Lust Elves from Raging Heroes and Sister Veridyan looks set to shift the errant elf.

The Pulpit is intended for one of the Space Papess models but she's currently unprepared to assume her spot... Honestly the one I have mostly constructed is already on a large scenic base so I'll have to build a second mounted on a 25mm base so she'll fit in it!

 I've gotten some questions about print times for various models and, I confess, I hadn't made any notes about that.  In future I'll be sure to include print times as part of the basic description on the 3D printed items.

That said... I *think it took about 3 hours for each section for a total of six hours.  I'll make another one eventually and verify that.

 Some of the fine detail was a challenge for the Snapmaker and, while it painted up reasonably well, there was a lot of detail... particularly on the pulpit tower... that was just a but too shallow or indistinct for my liking.  The design elements on the stairs were larger and, generally speaking, more coarse so they printed up cleanly with no issues.

I knocked out the scenery pack for The Order of Vampire Hunters... only to discover moments later that many of these scenery elements, as well as some of the Vampire "Trash Mobs" also occur in the Kickstarter Exclusives box.

/facepalm

I usually try to paint all models of a similar type as a set so I don't have to try to match them later.  It just helps to make all the models look like they belong together.  Oh well... next workbench KS Exclusives .... yay!

 A view of the various terrain parts with an unpainted Vampire Hunter for scale.

The full contents of the scenery pack.  The Kickstarter exclusives pack has a couple of extra box/barrel stacks and a couple of collapsed ceiling markers so it'll add a fair bit of terrain to this package.

3D printing: Ruined Lighthouse and Kingdom Death inspired terrain.

In the continuing quest to improve the terrain of the fabulous Kingdom Death Monster game I've added a set of 3D printed fallen and broken columns.

The printing in the area around the faces was a bit dicey and tended to have spaces and holes.  Nothing really serious but worth noting.

 I went with a tawny marbleized look for the columns because I imagine the twilight world of the Survivors to be covered in dirt, dust, and mold.  The ground faces tend to be alabaster because they might be newly deposited while the columns seem to have fallen long ago.

In any case they were an experiment in painting marbled surfaces and I learned a lot about painting in the various veining.

A sampling of the current state of the Kingdom Death inspired terrain set. 

 The biggest downside of this set is that the minis do not always sit easily on some of the elements that are intended to share a playable space with... its doable, just not pretty to look at.

Fortunately the columns and some of the larger things, like egg piles and sacks, are not intended as playable spaces so its not really a problem and the do look a lot better than the flat cardboard they replace. 

 Eerie lights emanating from the crystals complements the light variations on the mini bases.

I think that completes the terrain for the game.  I've printed replacements for all the cardboard terrain counters that I've found in the game and the Spidicules expansion... If I find anything else there will be more!

 Moving on to the Ruined Lighthouse from the Rampage: Lost Isles Kickstarter.

The first happy lesson was that printing this with black material was both less expensive (Black seems to be the cheapest color of PLA roll around by a couple of dollars a roll) and much, much easier to paint up.

Shown throughout with some of the excellent Raging Heroes Void Elves for scale.  This is important as, due to the limitations of my build space, I was compelled to print the model at 99% of its intended size.

 Because the material is black the primer stage was less demanding and full coverage of the crevices was not required.  This saved a lot of time and consumed much less primer than the tan, white, or gray material. 

 Rampage is really good about updating their products post release and I get regular emails about updated files.  Generally speaking these files seem to be re-scaling models that might have been proportioned for 20mm square bases to the increasingly common 30mm round lipped bases.

 Another great thing about Rampage is that many of their large models have .stl files for both large and small format printers.

In my case... my printer (Snapmaker) is on the petite side of small... which means that I am unable to print this size of model without using the small format files...without dramatically reducing the model dimensions.  Because of the inclusion of the small format files I'm able to print this model at 99% of its intended size.  Score!

 The model is quite large and I noticed that it printed with small holes for magnets!  Sometimes Storing and transporting big terrain models is problematic so I popped magnets into the designated holes and it went together surprisingly well... with a satisfying snapping sound to boot!

Here is the model broken down for storage/transport. I'll be adding magnets to many more buildings as, in addition to making them easy to deal with when not in use, it really opens up access to the interiors while on the tabletop!  Double win!

All in all this took me a time fraction of the time it takes to paint an equivalent model in another color.  Printing took a couple of days but cleanup and adding magnets time was under an hour.  Painting was done in two short afternoon sessions.









An early experiment with texture rollers from Greenstuff World (Thanks for the heads up Ed!).

While these will be great for Twisted! I'm really going to want to switch to a less spendy putty or clay and roll out big sheets of texture.  Then I'll want to get, or make, some small size biscuit/cookie cutters and punch out circles and squares.  I'm having difficulty locating circles and squares in the right sizes for this but its early days and I haven't put a lot of time into the search... hmmm... maybe some pill bottles are the right size.... we'll see!

Back to the desk to experiment!

New Void Elf Blood Vestals Sci-Fi version

With this batch of the new sculpts of Raging Heroes' Blood Vestals (Sci-Fi version) I decided to make them a little less of a direct port from the, semi nude, Dark Elf Witch Elves and painted a grey leotard instead of the bare breasts.  This makes them blend better with the Games Workshop Dark Eldar that I primarily use them with.

  Even though the original Void Elf Blood Vestals are awesome models I was very pleased with these updated versions.  They applied a lot of lessons learned to these models which are a great addition to, and blend well with, the original set.

 Raging Heroes, at this stage of their development, are primarily used as proxies for other game systems.  I've become a fan of proxies over the years and think that their existence, and strong showing on the tabletop, help drive innovation in the industry and encourage the biggest companies to work harder.  Raging heroes units have a lot of built in variety and often come with an assortment of alternate parts. I use these mainly as Dark Eldar Wyches and and Ynnari cultists.

These models were constructed from one pack of Blood Vestal Troopers and one pack of Blood Vestal Command.

The bladed weapons ended up being an eerie green that I think of as exotic materials, energy, or poison.  Its a quick application of Hexwraith Flame (GW, technical) with some accents using Splintered Bone (Reaper)

 The hair starts with Krylon Khaki base coat dry-brushed with Sandstone craft paint and then again with Pure White (Reaper).  A 50/50 wash of Nightmare Black (Reaper) and Glaze Medium (Vallejo).  Highlights by adding Pure White (Reaper)

The desk is full of terrain and magnets at the moment... as well as some greenstuff rollers...

So I'm guessing terrains and possibly some Heresy Girls, Jailbirds, and/or Twisted minis will finish up next.

Back to the desk!