Avatars of War Trolls!

Avatars of War has made some really great models over the years and these trolls are no exception!

Their .stl files print well, came presupported and gave my fussy machines little problem.

I elected to do three trolls with great weapon in blue to be used as Stone Trolls.

These were done quickly using the zenithal primer method followed by a basecoat of Blue Black wash (Secret Weapon). Colors were blocked in and the whole model washed with Soft Tone ink (Army Painter) 

Blue highlights are Deep Sky Blue (Vallejo Model Color).

Whites are the Reaper Bone Triad.

Metals are Engine Metal (SW) brushed up with Chrome (Vallejo Model Air)

Browns began as Heartwood Brown (Reaper)

The same process was used on the six common trolls except the base wash was Sewer Water (SW).

Vomit is Hexwraith Green (Citadel) brush up is Reaper Copper Verdigris.

Glass bottles are Copper Verdigris with shading from Hexwraith Green 

Reds are Maroon Red (Reaper) highlights Neo Burnt Red (SW).

Greys are Stone Gray (Reaper) brush up Misty Gray (Reaper).

Brassy metals are Brass Casings (SW) Flesh Wash (SW) brush up Chrome.

Bases were previously addressed and were printed in clear resin to to get the translucent effect on the crystals.

Everthing was sealed Dead Flat (Rustoleum) then crystals, eyes, glass, blood, tongues, and gems were spot varnished with Gloss Varnish (Vallejo).

Destroyed Ford F-30 LRDG with Bofors 37mm (UK, WW2)

 3D printed destroyed vehicle for WW2 games in 28mm. Plant based gray elegoo resin.

Sprayed camo tan Krylon paint and primer combo. Washed with Secret Weapon (SW) Dark Sepia brushed up and touch ups SW light Dust. Weathering with Forge World (FW) weathering powder Black Soot. Edge highlights for damages SW Engine Metal. Ground cover Army Painter (AP) Highland Tufts and Lowland Shrubs.

A few other projects on the desk. Notably a WW2 german Sd.Kfz.9 from the same file collection. Its really illustrative in terms of how massive that vehicle really was compared to other vehicles in its class. 

Also appearing are a couple of “nearly dones” from the Junkfort, some fishing boats and a small ship for use with Blood and Plunder and general Roleplaying games.

Back to the grind!

Junkfort Project

Sticking with the post-apocalypse theme I’ve been working on the Junkfort. These are printed on an Anycubic Kobra Max FDM machine and I’ve had some trouble dialing it in. Its quite temperamental to date and I’ve been spending more time rebuilding the hot end than printing with it. The files come from Rampage and they are full of very atmospheric details.

This is turning out to be a weathering exercise. In the main I used Secret Weapon acrylics and washes with the notable exception of white where I used Reaper Bone Triad… and, of course black which was Craft Smart.

More of this on the desk as well as wrapping up some ships for Blood and plunder. Otherwise I’ve been focusing on the resin printers doing base toppers and a bunch of Avatars of War trolls and goblins. I may also turn the printers off for a bit and focus on getting through the enormous pile of Kingdom Death that just got even bigger with the arrival of the Gambler’s Chest expansion.

Back to the brushes!

 
 

Fallout APC 3D Print

I really like the retro-futurism of the Fallout series. I was super excited when Modiphius made the APC available as a printable model so here it is!

Printed on the Anycubic Photon Mono X in Anycubic Basic Black Resin.

Base coats were Krylon Camo Green and Camo Tan. Secret Weapon (SW) Dark Sepia Wash for the inside and used as a liner on the outside. Wheels are Tire Black (SW). Here we see a Character from Mantic Games Star Saga for scale.

The model is detailed with an optional troop compartment. If you don't want to open the thing up there is no need to print the interior compartment.  Play Mat is from Antenociti's Workshop's Designed for Infinity range.

Tabletop view of mantic troopers deploying from the APC to deal with some basic Plague. A-Z Mart is from Antenociti's Workshop Survival range of MDF buildings.

Birds eye view. I'm super happy with the design of the APC. As its a file I'm likely to print a bunch in various states of wrecked for post Apoc scenery as well as a few more working models to supplement my Jailbird convoys... and, of course, to use for Fallout!

Back to the desk!
 

Patlee Salamander Stargazer on Celestial Shrine

 

I've always wanted a Skink Mage Priest to run as a rebel faction hero.  There have been a few notable Skink heroes but the Slann always had a lock on the Mage Priest role.

Raging Heroes Infinite comes to the rescue with the 3D printable Patlee Salamander Stargazer on Celestial Shrine.

This was printed on a Photon Ultra in Anycubic Basic Gray resin and was painted directly on the resin with no primer coat. In retrospect, models with this much gold would probably work out better over black resin.

I'm finding that I can often leverage the color of the resin to either speed up painting or to get new effects. So far paint adhesion and durability have been excellent.

In this case a regular process for the gold color is Brass Casings (Secret Weapon (SW)) base, wash with Flesh Wash (SW), Drybrush Necron Compound (GW). Over black resin that would have been all that was needed. Over the gray I ended up doing some lining with Dark Tone Ink (Army Painter (AP)). I'm still not entirely happy with the color depth for the gold.

 
I've recently been playing a lot of Horizon: Forbidden West and have really enjoyed the way colors are depicted for tribal societies. Its making me reconsider some of my more earth tone heavy schemes for medievals, elves, etc...

Speaking of earth tone heavy schemes... I've been tinkering with some Supers and Pulp Action Heroes with some 3D printable files from Bombshell. I'll also be doing some Retro Sci-Fi and messing around with Counterblast.

Back to the bench!

Raging Heroes Berserkers and Warriors

I've been a follower of Raging Heroes for many years now and have been an avid collector of their 3D print file Patreon, and now through their in house service, even though I didn't have a 3D Resin printer until now. I've done a fair bit of FDM Printing but that is really limited to terrain or accessories and I've never had any luck printing humanoid figures in any game scale. With the addition of the Photon Mono X printer to my workshop all of that has changed! I still have a lot to learn but the earliest results are now making their way to the paint desk.

First up are the troops from the Raging Heroes Viking Gods and Heroes theme from the Patreon.  these models have really heroic proportions and are quite beefy models in line with RH's more recent offerings.

I'm hoping to use these in Frostgrave and Kings of War. The bases are also printed from the set and painted in a winter theme. The set has bases sized from 25mm to 50mm. These are 30 mm bases.

I thought the cloaks to be made from the hides of Black Bears for which I imagined this fraternity to have traveled to the wilderness of North America to obtain.

I also had a stab at a unifying tartan for their kilts. These will be repeated throughout the warband.

Flesh tone: are Dark Flesh (Vallejo (V)),Flesh Wash (Secret Weapon (SW)), Dark Flesh (V) Layer, Sunny Flesh (V) Top Layer.

Bear Hide: Carbon Gray (Reaper (R)),Cobalt Grey (R) drybrush, Soft Body Black Wash (SW),Sunny Flesh (V) weathering. 

The Kilts are a bit more complex and I'll likely do a post on just that as I get more comfortable with the process. I think these were a good first attempt and should improve with more iterations.

Hair colors: A lot of red heads a couple of blondes and a guy with black hair... Vikings.

From a printing perspective some of the weapons, particularly the two handed axes, have a bit of a curve to them like they are flexing with the swing. I like the look as it implies motion but I don't know if its an intentional effect or just fortuitous.

The regular Warriors have much more tartan visible so it was easier to get a flow going. 

You'll notice that these guys are in super wide leg stances. So wide, in fact, that it was difficult to contain them on the 30mm bases. Since I want to use these as gaming pieces I really did not want to make the move to 40mm bases because that is usually more of a monster or crewed weapon size. The result was some creative mounting...

The first of these has a stance so wide it literally cannot be contained on a 30 mm base. I decided to mount him with one foot firmly planted on the ground and his kilt attached to a rock to support him solidly. I think its a passable look of a warrior leaping over the rocks to press the attack.

The next fellow had a ...slightly... less wide stance and has the insole of one foot and the very back of his heel touch the base... it was a little dicey and one foot has an extra bit of support on the bottom to insure continued contact.

This guy is more less aggressively spread and you can see the shield design. I kept to the same general colors as were used in the tartan to strengthen the theme.

The group Leader is, ironically, the only one that fit easily onto the 30mm base.

The group shot. One thing I'd love to see RH do is increase the number of troop poses. typically there are 3 troopers and one Troop Leader for a total of 4 discrete poses. Many games use unit sizes that range from 5 to 10. These print as a single piece so it would be nice to have a couple more unique poses. With 5 poses they could be printed as mirrors giving the feel of 10 different poses. Just a thought.

Overall I am super happy to finally be printing these out. The themes are lavish and include Centerpieces and Terrain bits that make the journey from imagination to physical model only because they can be 3D printed. 
 

The Port House 3D Print

 I'm flinging paint at the model backlog in between bouts of pre-move prep so I have a half dozen projects in one stage or another of completion that I hope to finish before pack out.

This is The Port House from Rampage: The Lost Islands Kickstarter.  Rampage is very aggressive with releasing files and they often follow up the initial file release with some adjustments, improvement, or corrections soon after the initial offering. This is the 1.0 version of the Port House.  They have updated this, and several other models from the project, since I printed it and it seems that they have generally re-scaled the models for the more common Heroic scale.  That means that this model is a wee bit petite compared to my other buildings.  Its even a bit small compared to the Tabletop World buildings that are scaled for true 25mm.

 Since most of my games that use this style of build tend to be fantasy themed I'll imagine this as a mouseling, or gnome, building.  I'll have to do up some mouselings with timber floor bases!

Actually for gaming I probably should have moved to clear acrylic bases years ago... but I didn't... so now I'm not inclined to do so... maybe when I start a completely new army I'll give it a go but I'll otherwise keep trying to theme match the bases for the existing sets.

Gerystone and wood standard process.  I skipped out on plaster for this one and may go back and add it later... I had some print errors with this model and went with it being a bit run down.

 You can see the very wide back window area that looks like exposed wood... printer error... also some of the supports for the railing failed to survive the print and some outside wood supports and one face of each of the doors are a little fuzzy or deformed.  This was an early 'learn to print' model for me and I learned a lot.  Still, I think it'll be serviceable enough on the tabletop as part of the larger town so no need to let it go to waste!

For scale there are some Twisted minis, a couple of Lead Adventurer minis, and some Reaper Mouselings.  The other buildings that I'd like to compare it with have been packed so I'll have to do that on the other side.

 I've done a lot of the Greystone Village buildings and I'm trying some new things.  Since this building has a tile roof, instead of a wood shingle roof, I went with a variegated red tile.  It was fun to play with the color mix to get a more natural looking roof.  The rest of the Lost island buildings tend to have this tile roof so it'll be a nice addition to the wood shingle schemes I've already done.

The Greystone has been a theme here for a long time but I think the next step will be to add some variations to the stones.  I'll probably do that with the next several residences but stick with the more monochrome grey for working buildings like shops, forges, warehouses etc.. 

I've also skipped on putting magnets in this building as the magnets seem to have found themselves packed up already.  It holds together very well as is and each level is in two parts that are offset from the level below.  I'll likely put magnets in the bottom level at least just to encourage it to stay together through vigorous rotations but it seemed to spin and slide and stick together as it is so no rush on it... one more thing to remember on the other side.

 The roof tile started as an Amethyst (Secret Weapon) wash over the black base followed with a Gory Red (Reaper) Dry-brush then patch dry-brush areas... some with Phoenix Red (Reaper) and other areas with Scrofulous Brown (Vallejo). 

The printer error is also visible from the outside rear of the model as a elongated window but I just painted it to resemble wood slats and moved on.  I think it adds some character to the model!

Pack Pack
Paint Paint
Zoom Zoom!

3D Prints Skiff and an Airport baggage moving vehicle

My painting subjects remain uniformly chaotic so today will feature the Prime Mover for an Airport Baggage Handler Vehicle.

This printed as six parts: Hull, undercarriage, and wheels (x4).  probably about three hours of print time total but I've been really sloppy about tracking that... improvements for the future!

Size wise... it looks like its a tiny bit on the large side but its a print so that is scale-able if it really bugs me... I can always describe this larger one as an ammo load mover or something similar.

 I experimented with some "Chipping Fluid" for the first time and its pretty interesting stuff.  Basically you prime, or paint, the model then paint on chipping fluid were you would like the chipped effect then, when dry, paint the top color(s) let dry then re-moisten and tap or scratch at the areas you want to chip off to show the underlying paint.  It'll take some practice but seems like a pretty effective technique.

 Left is the underlayer.  I did much more than the areas to be chipped so I could practice making effective rust textures to reveal...  I may print another one to do as a burnt out hulk since I kinda like how the base layer turned out.

Models included for scale are Anvil Industries Traveling Salesman (This is a guess really I've fogotten where I got him and can't seem to locate it on the net), GW's Canoness Veridyan, Heresy Girls Sniper (Black Pheonix), Twsited's Tink, and Varaseesh the Venomous from Raging Heroes.

 The Skiff is pretty substantial with four gun ports... that is a sturdy skiff! I still have the fittings to paint but I'll wait for that until I get some dowels for the masts... yar! a two masted skiff!  Sturdy indeed! I'll want to make the rigging break down-able for transport and storage so that'll be interesting.

Due to the limited print area of my Snapmaker this is printed in three sections with magnets to keep it together during play.

I'm really interested to print the larger ships from this project (Rampage Lost Islands Kickstarter) but am waiting for the Snapmaker's new print area expansion (Z-Axis Expansion Module) to become available before heading down that rabbit hole!

I'm also making progress on getting the place ready for our next relocation and should have another update on the Tabletop World Fisherman's House soon.  Also on the desk Raging Heroes Executrix Command, The Order of Vampire Hunters Kickstarter exclusives, Tabletop World Wizard's Tower, Kingdom Death, Twisted, and more...

Back to the desk!