RoC Chaos Dwarf Whirlwind

This guy accompanied many a Chaos Horde into battle in the 80s. The model was showing its age and I thought I'd do some touch ups, rebase it and generally do some long neglected maintenance.  Lets call him Hagar.

First things first... Hagar needed to be removed from his old cardboard base. Typical of the 80s the base was flocked, had a couple of raw pebbles glued to it, and... unusually... a hob-goblin child (Grenadier iirc) added for scenic context.  The little Hob isn't visible here but will show up later as I'll recycle it onto the new base.

Having divested Hagar of his old base it was time to give him a new one. This base was from Reaper (R) and was layered with White Pumice (V). Grooves and hoof tramples were made before the pumice dried also a couple of Citadel (GW) skulls, and the Hob-Child... which is still hidden behind fat old Hagar!

The base was given a coat of Flesh Wash (Secret Weapon (SW) and brushed with Sunny Flesh (Vallejo (V) brushed with Sand (V), and a final top dust of Splintered Bone (R).

I used Wet Mud Weathering Powder (Forge World (FW) set with Glaze Medium (V) to get the churned mud beneath the machine that tracks out the rear of the model.  This dried very flat so I used Satin Varnish (V) to give it a wet look.

Static Grass (mud) was the final bit on the base.

The Hob-Child can be seen sitting in the tattered remains of an orange shift crying as Hagar drives obliviously past her.  Fortunately she was spared the mowing doled out to everyone else!

For Hagar and his machine I retouched rather than re-imagined.  The metal parts of the machine were treated to my usual yellow or white metal work ups and the skin was painted Sunny Flesh (V), Flesh Wash (SW) and Basic Flesh (V).

The shield was updated from a faded gold to a more solid color with Brass Casings (SW), Flesh Wash (SW) and Silver (V) highlights. Baby Poop (SW) was spot washed to add color to the shading. Fresh Blood (R) highlighted with Phoenix Red (V) was used to accent the eyes and color the gums. Teeth were changed from base metal to off-white using Graveyard Bone (R) highlight with Splintered Bone (R).

Wood was Flesh Wash (SW) and Sunny Flesh dry-brush to reinforce the old wood color and make the grains pop.

Hagar's horns were redone as they had faded to a nondescript gray over the past 3+ decades.  Handle Wood (R), Flesh Wash (SW) brushed out with Graveyard Bone (R) and Splintered Bone (R).

Some lining with Soft Body Black (SW) wrapped up the project.

Its great to have Hagar ready to renew his assault on the tabletop! The modern oval base should make a good fit with newer games and not be to much trouble when he returns to the fight Oldhammer style!

Back to the desk!

 

RWBY: COMBAT READY!

 RWBY: COMBAT READY is a board game that I have not played... it looks super abstract but I'll eventually get round to giving it a go.

I am enamored of the RWBY anime and totally bought the game to mine it for minis... forgetting that they *might not* be in a useful scale...  

The models are in a soft plastic and are a little bit larger than GW Heroic scale. They come mounted on a 38mm-ish beveled base .... awkward! We can see Penny is a bit taller than Sister Veridyan.  I *may* re-base these later and mix them with the Kingdom Death: Death High series but maybe not... some of the models actually use all that base-top real estate.

Penny is my favorite model in the set:

She is a fun character and the least flash ridden of the set.  The models themselves are of relatively low detail and the faces are a poor match to the original art for several of them.

I did find a fun way to paint the base that I'd like to remember how to do...

Black wash

Cloudy Grey (Reaper) blobs (diluted) in a rough cobblestone pattern.

Base White (Reaper) stippled on the grey blobs.

Sewer Water (Secret Weapon) washed thinly over the whole base.

The Sewer Water wash wash attracted to the black washed base and blended the edges of the gray blobs without any help from me.  The White stippling added subsurface highlights giving everything a nice feeling of depth for very little effort.

Moving on from Penny to the natural pairing of Blake and Yang

These had the roughest of the faces but, since anime is so color coded, it all works out in the end.

Other groupings... sisters Yang and Ruby.... and Ruby and dreamy mean girl Weiss

These really use all that base...

Finally the Villans!

All in all I'm reasonably happy with the project.  The characters are easily identifiable and will be fun to have on the tabletop.  I'd have liked them to be a little more in scale with regular tabletop models but they are not so egregiously scaled as to be unusable with Heroic scale models.

Thoughts... Board Game Kickstarters as sources for cool models.... 

I'll be doing a lot less of that unless the models are presented in a scale that is useful to me. So far RWBY: COMBAT READY!, and Darksouls: The Board-game have been in funky scales while The Order of Vampire Hunters and Chronicle X have been in standard heroic scale with bases.  Excluding the board games that are made by war-games manufacturers, like GW and Mantic, or Board-games that are intended to function as, or compatible with, tabletop wargames... like Joan of Arc (15mm) I have to be aware that my idea of proper mini scale is not universal.

With that said... I wonder where Etherfields is gonna land for figure scale?

Next time I finish up some Void Elf Executrix troops that I started working on before the big move and have relocated.

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!

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!

3D Printed Sci-Fi wheeled APC and wheeled ARV

 The Jailbirds got a couple of new vehicles this week but they, themselves, were out of reach for photos!  We'll make do with some of their potential adversaries like trusty Canoness Veridyan (GW).

The vehicles were 3D printed on a Snapmaker at high quality.  The files came from a Duncan "Shadow" Louca vehicle Kickstarter.

These continue the badlands nomad theme that is basically a Flesh Wash (Secret Weapon) over the standard Khaki workup.

 The wheels were painted Rubber (Secret Weapon) and the weathering was done with Secret Weapon technical paints.  Old Mud, Caked Dirt, Engine Metal, and Rust Shadow.

Rust Shadow makes an excellent liner and gives a "Borderlands" style shadow.  I think it will look really great with some other vehicles colors which I'll get into when I'm doing some of the civilian vehicles pressed into service by the caravan.

 Repo-Man! is a very vital vehicle for the Jailbirds.  Their gear is mostly second tier except for their bikes which are cutting edge.  The Jailbirds basically drag anything they can get off the field although they tend to focus on wheeled vehicles since they are easier to operate and maintain in their caravan lifestyle.

 The Jailbirds are much more organized and uniform that the typical "Mad Max-esque" Badlanders as they also form semi-regular military formations.  Basically they wear uniforms of a sort and their vehicles are identifiable as part of a regular, if somewhat eclectic, military unit.

 "Tailgater" with Mantic Star Saga marines and Forgeworld ripper swarms for scale.  I used magnets for the turret and for the hatches with the idea to optionally use Raging Heroes Ash, Tank Gunner as a vehicle commander.

 Repo-Man shown with Travelling merchant (Anvil Industries) or Trader Joe as he is known to the Jailbirds.

I saw some construction cranes the other day that had all the moving surfaces finished in a rubbery black color and thought that would be better than a shiny metal, attention attracting, surface.

A last look at Repo-Man with Raging Heroes Void Elves for scale.





















Last, I did basing and prep for a couple of Reaper minis for an RPG character.  A halfling Ranger, a couple of big dogs, and a triad of pups.  One of the dogs to be a Saint Bernard the other probably a Rottweiler or something similar to make the dogs easy to identify.

Bruegleburg: A Day at the Fair street performers, vendor, pan-handler, and a doxie

 These Lead Adventurers festival workers or street performers would be right at home in a European Medieval, Renaissance, or Fantasy setting.

They are the first batch I've done from the Bruegleburg: A Day at the Fair Kickstarter.

 These are traditionally sculpted and very nostalgic.  Filled with individual personality they were really fun to work on.  All of these are metal and cast as one piece... no fiddly assembly!

I elected to mount these on 20mm square bases to fit in with my selection of Tabletop World buildings.  I know most of the modern games are trending towards the larger round lip style bases but most of what I do is still on the old 20mm squares for human sized models.

 I think of these two as "The Gossips" they are fancy on a budget and their Fair Day costumes have seen a lot of wear and tear over the years.

The baker and the beggar... selling basic bread rolls and trying to ignore the panhandler this festival worker has already had a long day.

The baker's skirt in red and white stripes... its always tricky to paint patterns on sitting models.

 Here are a few pictures of the Fair as it winds down for the evening.

These cottages are the Tabletop World Cottage 2 and the "street" is the Kingdom Death Monster board.

 I'm still in the deep woods with the new camera and was experimenting with varying some light levels to get a nighttime scene.

The doxy propositioning the card shark....

 Panhandler working the jesters.

In retrospect the Kingdom Death street graphics make these scenes way more eerie than I had thought... maybe its an All Hallows Eve Festival?

The gossips talking about the card shark's rendezvous with the doxy.

The pumpkin on the bench is making the case for Halloween... just sayin!

Different light levels.

I'm really enjoying building up the collection of background personalities. They'll make great objectives in tabletops war games and great NPCs for RPGs.