News from Elsewhere

Posted on June 24, 2021 by grumpyoldtin

My customer, Nick Wilker, sent me some photos of his Polystyrene Castle adorned with parts from me.

I am very pleased to see this but also sad because it reminds me to remove my digit and make a set for myself. AND paint it!

Infodump

Posted on April 23, 2021 by grumpyoldtin

This is a continuation of “Direction?” and as the title suggests it is an infodump.

Not everything here will be of interest to everybody, these are things that I have discovered that have interested or informed me.

Being a silver surfer I tend to use Facebook as my main social media window. Here are some of the pages I am a member of:

Oldhammer

The Inquisitorium The Beating heart of INQ28

Warmaster (GW)

Battlefleet Gothic

Heroquest

‘Eavier Metal

2021 Painting Challenge

Middlehammer

The Terrain Tutor

3D Printing for Warmaster

3D Printing for WH40K – Facist Free Zone

40.000 Reasons to 3D Print

Titan Printers Society

I Love 3D Printing Miniatures and Terrain

You might find me if you look for Brian Weninger

Next up are the Patreons

www.patreon.com

Starting with the ones I support

One Gold Piece

The Makers Cult

Knucklebones Miniatures

Soul Forge Studio

Others of note

Forest Dragon

Lord of the Print

Warploque Miniatures

ThatEvilOne

BigMrTong

onepagerules

Geargut’s Mekshop

Bestiarum Miniatures

Anvil Digital Forge

Lost Kingdom Miniatures

Other social media platforms worth exploring

Instagram

Twitter

You can find me on these last three, just search for grumpyoldtin

Discord – you will need an invite to join the various groups. Usually if you have a subscribed to a Patreon they will have a Discord channel linked to it.

Twitch – I have not explored this as yet

Websites with paid for, and sometimes free, digital files

My Mini Factory

Cults 3D

Thingiverse – for free models

Yeggi is a useful search engine to find models, paid for and free

For Heroquest resources I recommend

https://www.yeoldeinn.com/

For SpaceHulk visit

http://spacehulk.barsoom.cc/

Warmaster Revolution

https://www.wm-revolution.com/

If Grimdark is your thang then I cannot recommend enough

https://28-mag.com/

Youtube: who not to include? Here is a list of contributors who have interested me:

52 Miniatures

Tabletop Minions

Teaching Tech

Colin Furze

Angel Giraldez

Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy

Geek Gaming Scenics

The Terrain Tutor

Tabletop Workshop

Vince Venturella

All these suggestions are far from exhaustive and are a matter of personal taste.

I would love to hear from you with recommendations for things that I may have overlooked.

Tool making

Posted on January 6, 2020 by grumpyoldtin

One project I backed on Kickstarter last year was; Tabletop terrain from XPS foam: Buildings. This is a book detailing the construction of buildings from, yeah you guessed it, XPS foam. I’ve been looking at upping my game on terrain modelling and this book might just help. Laser cutting is good for some things, but you just can’t do curves and organic shapes. But a mixture of both should be the killer combination.

Looking at the images online pecils and pens have been used to form some of the detailing. Being the horder that I am I have loads of bits of metal lying around underemployed. A bit of cutting, a bit of cutting, some dowel rod, a bit of two part epoxy glue and a splash of paint I ended up with these.

Four different sized scribing tools. Slightly wonky (technical term) as I didn’t drill quite perpendicular to the dowel.

Here is a link to the book which will describe it far more eloquently than I could.

Tabletop terrain from XPS foam: Buildings

If this tempts you there still is the option to be a late backer.

Gifts

Posted on October 23, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

On my trip to London I was planning to stay with my old gaming buddy Seb. https://mugodice.wordpress.com/

I really wanted to make something really nice for him to say thankyou for putting me up and for all the wonderful birthday presents he has given me. For some reason I am never organised enough to get a present to him in time for his birthday.

We had both backed the Kickstarter for Open Combat, a skirmish wargame. https://www.secondthunder.com/ But neither of us had played it. I know that for Seb space is at a premium so I decided to make him a portable version. The rules are written for 28mm but the author also suggests that it can be played in 15mm and convert the measurements from inches to centimeters. This means the suggested playing area would be 24 centimeters.

Here I am measuring some canvas to be used for the play area. Obligatory kitten for scale.

Long suffering Wife hemming the edge for me.

Spreading on a mixture of silicon and paint.

I had instructions about how to make the playmat from The Terrain Tutor’s Youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx_aro8CTHw7ZD5H661hC6Q

The flock instructions came from Luke’s APS Youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsmD5774MOQhjYBkXqu3Jdw

The finished box, roughly shoe box sized.

Hills. I went with a stylistic approach which is easier to place figures.

Dice tray removed to reveal figure storage.

The figures came from Alternative Armies. There were some nice ones and a couple of ropey ones. That’s what comes of buying blind I suppose. https://www.alternative-armies.com/

I hope Seb is pleased with this and gets a chance to play.

What I did in my holidays

Posted on August 22, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

Every summer my Wife and the Boys drive down to Croatia for a holiday. Well somebody has to stay and tend to the chickens and cats. My chance to have a bit of time to myself and spread out and finish any projects that have been on hold for a while. I was a bit ill with a virus that made me very tired and demotivated so I didn’t do as much as I wanted.

Way back in 2011 I was approaching my redundancy at St. Martins and I used the time wisely. I made a whole load of these.

A plastic base, wire looped and glued into position, sand and PVA applied and primed in black. I didn’t do anything with them until now. This was the base build for some hedges. Following Mel’s videos on his YouTube channel I made a load of foam clump foliage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN16RxVNrvc Then following Luke’s videos on his YouTube channel I hade some flock. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsmD5774MOQhjYBkXqu3Jdw Using Luke’s videos I purchased some Tacky Glue, I must find somewhere here in Austria that stocks it because the postage was a killer. At my local DIY store I purchased some spray adhesive.

Stage One: paint base brown. Stage Two: drybrush base. Stage Three: apply Tacky Glue to wire and press on clump foliage. Stage Four: spray on adhesive and sprinkle with flock. I didn’t bother photographing these stages as you will get a better idea from the videos.

What I managed to do. There are some still to do but I had run out of clump foliage and the blender used for making it was awaiting a part from the UK.

Figure for scale, available from Heresy Miniatures

I must mention that Mel has been hard at work and recently had a Kickstarter to promote a book all about making wargaming terrain. If you missed it, or like me don’t have a form of money that Kickstarter recognises…. you can get on board herehttps://terrain-essentials.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders