Re-furnishing the Study

This is where my Pain(t) Station desk used to be

I have not been doing much on the hobby front lately; first of all because we went on our annual family camping vacation the last two weeks of July, and then because it is so hot here in Denmark that it takes a lot  of guts to do anything but cower in the shadows.

Last weekend though, we spent packing and moving stuff from my late Mother-in-Law's estate outside Haderslev, and I have been busy emptying my trusty old desk in order to replace it with the somewhat larger and nicer desk formerly belonging to my, also late, Father-in-Law.

I also took the opportunity to organize some of the mess along the radiator under the windows (I have placed the bookcase 15-20 cm from the radiator, and as it has legs, I expect some kind of convection to happen when the radiator is on). Some of the figure cases are all but empty, and as soon as I have removed the last minis from them, I shall sell them off to free some space.

I have built another filament spool tower for the Prepping Station. I now have LotR minis on the right one, all kinds of mixed stuff on the other.

Yesterday I finally got the new desk put in place. I can store most of my paints in and on the desk, now, and as the Miniaturicum paint rack fits behind the elevated desktop, I am going to put something underneath it to be able to reach it while working - and I am going to print some racks to sit beside it, as there is plenty of room left.

So, next up is to find some suitable STL models for the extra racks, and boxes or the equivalent to elevate the racks.

In two and a half week we have Lea's postponed confirmation, and I shall be busy making preparations for it (moving stuff out of the living room so we can set up tables for the celebration, tidying up the garden and coutyard, etc., etc....), but after that, I expect to find time to work on the Smials for Frodo's Quest (and other projects).

Frodo's Quest: Dark Realms Shirelands Kickstarter

I just got on board, and thought I'd blow the war horn for this one!

This Kickstarter is a tremendously good deal, and it lands just in time for being included in my preparations for bringing the first scenario of Frodo's Quest to this year's Horisont Con (which is being revived after a pause of a couple of years).

Picture courtesy of Pinyo Gulashart (Dark Realms proprietor)

If you are into 3D printing, take a look at it - and maybe also visit the Dark Realms store on MyMiniFactory. Lots of interesting stuff, there!

Frodo's Quest: Hobbiton 101, WIP

As mentioned yesterday, I am painting some 3D printed smials for my 'Frodo's Quest' project. I am making progress, albeit a slow one, and I thought an update would be in place.

Yes, there are visible layer lines. No, I am not going to do anything about them; it is a terrain piece, and once the war horn is sounded, nobody will notice, anyway. Besides, I printed this quite a while ago, and I am achieving better quality these days, but that is no reason to let this go to waste, methinks.

I am going to acquire a static grass applicator just after this year's summer holidays (I wouldn't risk it being returned to the seller because it arrived while I was away and unable to pick it up), and put a nice lawn on the roof.

Frodo's Quest: 3D Printed Smials - and then Some!

I have been printing some copies of one of the 'Small Entrances' for Modular Gaming Hills, as well as some hill pieces to go with them, by Terrain4Print on Thingiverse, and I have now prepped and primed the first pieces for painting. I shall need some flower tufts for this, methinks.

I have also slabbed some more Contrast Paint on Frodo and Sam. My experience so far is that this kind of painting is probably best reserved for plastics, as they have fewer small surface imperfections to disrupt the paint - but I shall see this little project through, as the minis are spares I thought I could just as well experiment on.

The rangers are also getting a little attention, now and then, and I have removed the excess sand after taking this photo. I may find time to treat them to a coat of Wraithbone Contrast Undercoat, so that I can try out the effects on that, too.

3D Printed: Stone Buildings

I finally got the Ulvheim stone buildings cleaned up and ready for painting. I have printed second storeys and roofs for both the 100% building and the 110% building, and I also printed trapdoors and ladders. This version is the 100% building.

Here you see the ruined second storey. I really like how it is designed so that the stairs still leads to the remains of the upper level.

This is the 110% version.

And here it is with another ruined upper level. The stairs still work!

I expect Ulolkish to take them home with him tomorrow and then soonish give a shout whether he considers the 110% print fitting, or if I should print an even bigger version before going completely to town printing ruins.

3D-Printed: Insert for Pallet Tank Top Inlet Spigot

My wife recently purchased a second hand pallet tank (1000 l) for collecting and storing rain water and use it for watering the garden.

However, it seems impossible to find some kind of 'adapter' for drain pipes to fit the top spigot. The only thing close to it has exactly the same diameter as the spigot, and thus does not fit either on the outside or the inside of the spigot.

Argonor and 123D Design to the rescue, and after a couple of tests, I have now printed an insert that will allow us to have the drainpipe going straight into the pallet tank without risk of getting leaves and other filth into the tank, cluttering the tap.

The pallet tank spigot

With the insert... inserted.

And with the piece of drainpipe inserted - in the background you can see the downspout which is to be connected to the tank

Operation Cleansweep - the Next Level!

My prepping station has been cluttering up again, lately, and I think my 3D printing is now offering me a solution: I found files for printing parts to turn empty filament spools into a drawer storage organizing box, and it struck me that without the drawers, it becomes a stacked series of turning shelves instead.

So when I had two identical empty spools, I printed the base, one spacer and two center pieces, as well as one cover for the top (I Think I shall source some other files for drawers when I want to make an actual storage box).

After assembling it, I started organizing some of the clutter, and I already have much more workspace on the prepping station - and when I add a third spool, I think that I can actually get the cutting mat and the newspaper off the surface and get it cleaned properly, for once!

I may ad magnetic sheeting to the shelves to keep washer-based minis firmly in place, but for now, I am more than happy to just get the prepping station tidied up (as it has not been for about half a decade)!

3D Printed: Four Tyranid Capillaries

Finished the fourth one yesterday, and as I am now on a two-day print of a Tyranid Spyre/Chimney (or what ever it is called), I think it is time for cleaning some of them up for painting (I am going to print at least one more, so that I may have enough for the highest number of Objectives it is possible to roll up in Grimdark Future: Firefight).

3D-Printed: Tyranid Capillary #3

This piece is 11cm high, and the third one successfully printed.

I am printing another piece of the first one with slightly different settings, to see if I can get rid of the stringing, and when that is finished, it is time for cleaning up all four for priming.

I intend to ink-paint them over white primer, to keep the production time as low as possible, as I also want time for painting a couple of character minis for Age of Fantasy Skirmish and Sellswords & Spellslingers, respectively (not that they are not both going to be used in both games, eventually, but, ya'know...).

The rest og the day, my printer will be churning out 3-man Mortal Gods sabot bases for use in Age of Fantasy Skirmish, as our games has reached a size where moving entire units in one go is nice and saving time.

3D-Printed: Tyranid Capillary #2

I printed the second capillary - also found on Thingiverse - yesterday, and the third one (somewhat taller) should be ready later this morning.

I really like how these turn out, and I cannot wait to have enough to slap some paint on and get them ready for the table.

I cannot emphasize enough how much I enjoy being able to make low-cost themed terrain like this for my games, and I heartily recommend getting a printer for gaming and other hobby purposes!

3D-Printed: Tyranid Capillary

Printed this today, the file kan be found on Thingiverse.

Although not extremely apparent, I still have an issue with stringing (I have had that since I changed my settings to try avoiding the clogging problem I had for a while), I hope to get Cura dialed in again, soon.

I am printing some of these to use as Objective Markers in One Page Rules Grimdark Firefight, for when my Tyranids are on the table.

I have another one printing at the moment, and it should be done this evening, when I shall start a larger version to print over night.

As soon as I have four or five I shall prep and paint them, so that I can get them on the table.

3D-Printed: Rohan Settlement WIP

120%

I have not done much hobby stuff over the weekend - it was work weekend, and the garden allotted most of my spare time.

But the printer has been busy, as I am experimenting with upscaling Terrain4Print's Small Fantasy Viking House.

As you may recall (otherwise you can check below), I did not find the inherent size of the model convincing for 28mm miniatures, as the doorway stands below  the height of the shoulders of most minis.

Thus, I did a 120% upscaled version, which you can see to the left. It is better, but if that Royal Guard were to enter, he would still have to crouch quite a lot!

I would like the (most of) my buildings to actually look like something the minis could be living in, so I had to make another test. Luckily, my printer had nothing better to do this weekend, so as long as there was PLA on the spool, I could just knock myself out.

The 100% Version

130%

My third print was scaled up by 130% instead, and although I am almost there with that, I think that I shall print a 140% version, before deciding on the size for printing the larger house offered by Terrain4Print.

I am also printing some palisades, and the platform above the gate is printing as I write this.

The palisades are modular, and the files include a pin for assembling the pieces, but I had to scale it up to 105% to get a snug fit, so you may want to print a test or two if you start printing the palisades.

I am waiting for my filament pusher to get a re-stock (should happen next week), as I am running out of some of the filaments I am using (I prefer the light grey PLA for gaming models, as the details pop better than with other colours), but I shall be printing some more palisade pieces (including some 90 degree corners), until I run out of brown and grey stuff - then I shall allow myself to let the printer be employed for non-gaming purposes for a while.

3D Printed: Stone Townhouse

 Another design by Terrain4Print is the Ulvheim series A building and ruins on Thingiverse.

My first print of the intact version (with remixed upper storey and roof by Talismancer ) was at 100%, but I think it is a tiny bit too small for 'heroic' 28mm minis.

Thus, I am now printing another one at 110%, and you can see the first result at the bottom of this post (I am almost out of that Slate Grey PLA, and it is out of stock at my filament pusher's webstore, so I am taking a break from these buildings).

As can be seen below, both storeys have a nice level of interior details, and I plan to print some furniture to add to the gaming experience of having this kind of housing populating a town/city table.

Ulolkish and I have agreed to do 3D printed city/town/ruins scenery as a joint project; I print and clean up the pieces, and he paints at least half of them, and we can then have a large set of the stuff to use between us (we live only 11 kilometers apart, so it is a matter of less than ½ hour to fetch a big box by car).

I recently had some trouble with my CR10S, and as a consequence I have been printing with a bit too little retaction, causing some stringing. While this can be easily removed, I am going to play around with the settings to see if I can avoid it completely - like I am now again returning to use a skirt for bed adhesion instead of a brim, as the latter means more cleaning up to do before the pieces can be painted.

I have not yet printed the trap door for the roof, but I guess I may be doing that later today in some dark brown filament I have running on the printer at the moment.

Here are all the pieces of the first building.

To the right and below you can see the ground floor printed at 110%.

I think it fits the GW Skelly better, as it looks like he could actually pass under the door arch without banging his skull against it.

I shall, of course, still use the first one, but I am certain that I shall print further buildings at the slightly larger size!

Over the next couple of days, I am going to print a larger version of the 'Fantasy Viking' Rohan house, and also some palisades for protecting those Rohan settlements from Wild Men and Uruk-Hai raiders! And, of course, as mentined, a roof trapdoor for the Ulvheim building.

3D-Printed: Dragon Egg

The last week, I have been printing a couple of gift boxes in the shape of dragon eggs as seen in the Game of Thrones TV show, as I wanted to use them for delivering our presents to the two youngsters whose confirmations we attended this weekend (one Saturday, one Sunday).

Of course, my printer had to act up, causing me a lot of grief and wasted filament, until I figured out what exactly was wrong and could mend it.

But I managed to finish the last bottom just in time for today, and we could fill up the egg with Magic the Gathering booster packs for the son of one of my old friends (yesterday was the daughter of an even older friend who wished for funds for buying a parrot).

Both parties well finished, my printer is now building mortal Gods style bases I am planning to use for One Page Rules Age of Fantasy Skirmish (as well as Mortal Gods/Mythic), as it also uses 3-man groups of many troop types.

Some 3-Man Sabots

The relatively new 'Mortal Gods' game is using some special 3-man bases, and of course, somebody has made 3D-printable versions. Mortal Gods use minis based on 25 mm bases, and as I base most of my minis on 20 mm washers, I had to re-scale the file to 80% to make it work.

As you can see below, the re-scaled sabot base fits like a glove for my 20 mm based minis.

I am probably going to get Mortal Gods, or the fantasy version 'Mythic' at some point, but I am printing the bases for One Page Rules Age of Fantasy Skirmish, where most bread-and-butter troop types come in groups/units of three, so these are actually perfect for that game, too.

I am going to print some round 'light troop' 3-man bases, too, but right now I focus on the triangular 'formed up' bases, as I need six or seven of those for my first test games of OPRAoFS, the first hopefully occurring Monday afternoon. Well, 'need' is probably an exaggeration, as the minis in a group just have to stay within a certain distance, and moving three minis at a time is not that big a deal, but printing some bases fitting for the game is just too big a temptation, as it instantly means some extra geek points! 😆