More 3D-printing adventures (A Billion Suns edition)

After a rather severe setback (and a fortuitous rescue by the store that sold me my 3D-printer) I'm back on track 3D-printing more wargaming 'stuff'. I'm also actually painting some of it. Lets start there. Here's a shot of the first ships I finished. Only a few more to go (and some extra scenery) and I can actually start playing A Billion Suns.

Painting small scale spaceships is an art form unto itself

Classic Warhammer Dwarf Mine ready to be fought over (SITCBH - part 3)

My Dwarf Mine, inspired by the classic one in White Dwarf 132, is finished. That makes me a rather early finisher in the SITCBH I entered with The Periodic Painting Table and The War Crow blogs. With still about five weeks on the clock #humblebrag ;). Perhaps I should make something else as well, I must say its quite a treat to build non-human stuff. Well before I get into that, let's start out with a picture of the finished piece accompanied by a bunch of gloriously happy Dwarves.

Why would we build a mine soundly lad, no member of the engineer's guild will show up in these parts...

Steady progress on the Dwarven Mine (SITCBH - part 2)

This weekend I made a steady bit of progress on my dwarven mine set. I added sand, a small railway and detailed the accompanying sheds. Without a lot of further ado. Here's a group shot that doesn't quite cover all the work that's been done. The pictures with the buildings as they are now can be found lower in this post.

My Dwarven mine is slowly coming together. 

Dwarven Mine blast off the Second International Townscape Challenge - Beyond Human (SITCBH)

Back in August Chris from the Periodic Painting Table and Stuart from The War Crow contacted me to join in the First International Townscape Challenge. It was a lot of fun and we all earned a few self-applied pats on the back at the end of it. Reason enough for a second edition. After a bit of a break we launched the Second International Townscape Challenge - Beyond Human (STICBH) this month. The 'Beyond Human' part of the challenge refers to the fact that we're going to be building a non-human piece of scenery in the style of the Townscape. For my part, I'm going to be building a Dwarven mine.

I think we have the beginning of an interesting new building here...

What is the consistency of milk? (And other airbrushing questions for miniature painters)

A recent comment concerning airbrushing and miniatures triggered some pretty unpleasant memories from when I started out with the great clogging cash-eater (also known as an airbrush). As I painted mostly stand-alone miniatures the past few days I thought I might as well type a blog with some airbrushing answers I couldn’t find when I was starting out. Hell, let’s turn it into a semi-faq for when your spoken faq is spelled slightly differently (usually with paint on your face due to the umpteenth clog in your airbrush). Shall we start with the consistency of milk perhaps? 

Am I supposed to go for whole, semi-skimmed, skimmed or 1% milk? 

Tutorial: flock basing around buildings and painting rivers for Warhammer and Age of Sigmar

Building the Townscape gives me ample opportunity to make some pictures for tutorials. Let's start off with a double feature: Flock basing around buildings and painting rivers for Warhammer and Age of Sigmar (and any other wargame as well for that matter). Followed up with some bonus content about adding signs to buildings. To follow along you'll need some appropriate bases (I prefer MDF), a few colors of flock, grass tufts, instant filler and (optionally) plaster and molds. Let's get started.

We start with the end result, this is what I'm aiming for here.

A lone plastic orc

Not all painting projects need to be massive. This lone plastic orc orruk rolled off of a shelf as I was cleaning out the shed. I suspect it has been gathering grime and dust since 1993. I vaguely recall selling of a small lot of these, keeping this one because painting a single monopose orc is fun (while painting a regiment slightly less so).

I've got a new semi-photobooth set up at home, making it even easier to snap some pictures of my models. Now to add to my collection of terrain.

Making leaves out of leaves

After my previous post on shaking paints with a Nail Lacquer Shaker I thought I'd do another review/tutorial combo. In this case making leaves out of leaves. I'm planning to base a future army on autumn style bases. That would require leaves and these can really cripple your bank account if bought to scale. Luckily you can just press your own with the same tools scrapbookers use.

The pink and purple punches where cheap, the yellow punch works. 

Shaking paint pots like a pro (or maybe a lazy person)

My soft spot for new paints is almost as bad as the one that makes me buy silly stuff on Aliexpress. This made my purchase of a Nail Lacker Shaker inevitable. But does it actually work?

I think I should paint this machine, add some decals and a purity seal.

The Mighty Fortress is ready for battle

After the epoxy resin disaster last week I decided to redouble my efforts to complete the Mighty Fortress. It paid off as the old polystyrene model now stands ready for battle. Lets start off with a few pictures of the completed set.

The Mighty Fortress is an epic piece of scenery to put on a gaming table.

Disaster strikes the Mighty Fortress

Let's start this post with a quote from the latest AoS rulebook: "One of the greatest joys of collecting Citadel Miniatures can be found in the modelling and painting of your collection as you assemble and recreate all of the great heroes, terrifying monsters and amazing landscapes of the Age of Sigmar." I'll be keeping that in mind as I continue posting on the Mighty Fortress project. It took a slight turn this week and ended up in 'horror show county'.

I still think it's a fine looking moat.

Building and painting my Mighty Fortress (and about time too)

Way back in 1988 (when people still yelled at me to get off their lawn instead of vice versa) the Warhammer Siege expansion appeared for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. This 140 page book has rules for everything you'd ever want to do to take or hold fortifications. Alongside the book GW released a new terrain kit called Mighty Fortress. This is a polystyrene set of towers and walls to use in games of siege (and general battles of course). I got my hands on one almost thirty years ago. As it (often) goes with miniature (related) purchases it did not get painted as quick as I imagined when I got it. Long story short: just before Christmas last year (2018) I got this box out of the to-do pile and started planning.

The Mighty Fortress came in a big pretty box that has been sitting around looking big and pretty for long enough now.

Grom the Paunch arrives in the Mortal Realms

The Made To Order service Games Workshop has been running for the past year is both insidious and incredible. On the one hand it eats cash I should've kept in my account on the other it gives access to models I've always wanted at prices below e-bay crazy. An example of this is Grom the Paunch, the model I just finished painting.

Grom the Paunch is one portly psychopath.

Making The Unquiet Dead markers for AoS

With the launch of Legions of Nagash Games Workshop has given Death a new lease on life (har har). It also brings us the best hint of what Slaanesh has been up to so far. Good times (maybe too good) are to be had by all. In Legions of Nagash the rather wonky Age of Sigmar summoning system is replaced with something more workable and fun. An ability called The Unquiet Dead is part of this. Every army that belongs to one of the Legions of Nagash has it. It gives the player four gravesite markers that help reinforce and regenerate certain units in his army. More important than game mechanics (as far as I'm concerned): it gives you an excuse to get creative with hobby materials. In short I made these for use in my games.

As a Legion of Nagash general I get to slam down my own graveyards on every battlefield.

Well the weather outside is frightful, but the Bloodbound are delightful....

Did I mention being short on time? Sorry for going on about that one, but selling ones house as an avid kitchen table painter adds an extra layer of trauma. Apparently real estate agents don't like selling houses that smell like a chemical dump and look like someone's thrown a handgrenade in a box of plastic sprues and stones. Anyway with the house most likely sold I could go back to my painters ways. First off was tackling the Bloodbound in Shadespire. I have yet to play a game (or read the rules). With the small amount of miniatures in the box I decided it was about time to reinstate my 'no unpainted miniatures' rule for a bit.

The snow throws of all the automatic balance thingies in the camera, making the blood rather hard to see.

Back to the Greenskins: a Megaboss enters the fray

Yesterday I finished my Ironjawz Megaboss model. And even though I foolishly glued the head in place and picked a paint scheme that didn't seem to work while painting, I'm rather pleased with the end result. The rusted metal plate was inspired by the incredible work the various AoS28 (Dark Age of Sigmar) people have been showing off over the past few years. For those of you who missed this I think Ex Profundis is a perfect starting point and the Aos28 Facebook group features some nice work as well. Basically it mixes (attempts at) John Blanche's style of painting, Sigmar models and the gothic horror theme of the Old World. It turns Sigmar's high fantasy setting into a Hieronymus Bosch like hellscape. It's awesome :)

I'm here to swing axe and chew squig, and I'm all out of squig....

Tutorial: building a ruined bridge base

Yesterday I completed my Orruk Warboss on Wyvern that included the fancy base you can see below. It is supposed to look like a ruined bridge or highway (or something similar). As it was rather easy and fun to build I thought people might like a tutorial on this. Luckily I actually remembered to take some pictures while scratch-building.

Never mind true line of sight and hiding behind terrain: a big model needs a big base, it just looks right.

Painting myself out of my painting slump

As you may have seen by the lack of updates, I've hit a painting slump. Well, real life got a bit busy as well with a possible move in the near future and work, work, work (use Warcraft Peon voice here). I did finish the Genestealer part of my cult, but that was about it.

Sometimes you just lose the joy of working on a project. The best remedy (IMHO) is temporarily storing the models and moving on.

Day of the living Death Guard

My final four models from Nurgle's side of the Dark Imperium box have been painted. It took a day longer than planned as I completely forgot to sand the bases. In the caes of the Blight Drone I also cut a plastic barrel in half to make it a little more interesting. Anyway the command group featuring (from left to right) a Noxious Blightbringer, Lord of Contagion and Malignant Plaguecaster.

You to can get the full Nurgle treatment! Just call 555-Death-Guard and the nice men and women of our promotion team will be around!

Night of the Living Death Guard

Adhering to my schedule I've finished the unit of seven Death Guard from the Dark Imperium box set over the weekend. As with the Poxwalkers these models are beautifully modeled although to my taste some bits are too fragile for gaming. I'm not Atilla the Hun of painters but still two grenade tops broke off during painting and the green smoking incense stencher (center on the picture below) broke off during photography. That said I still think the unit looks fantastic and I can't wait to bring some plague and disease to the corrupt imperium and its corpse god.

"Death to the false...cough hack urgh blegh....emperor!" Perhaps I should call this unit the Charmers....oh dear I should've converted one into a banner bearer.