Gone?

This is the first post of three regarding the Tabletop Knights show in Germany.

This will be about the first display board, Gone?

I saw this image, credit to whoever did this (if you let me know I will credit that person here) and thought, “I want this!” If you are interested I have a Pinterest page devoted to scenery. Look for Nik Green. I highly recommend Pinterest as a resource for keeping ideas from all over the interweb neat and tidy and in one place.

I got the dimensions of a Kill Team board, thirty by twenty two inches, and got two sheets of chipboard cut.

Clamping the sides

Burning the splinters off the cheap wood frame

Trimming the foam for the inserts with my Proxxon

Foam inserts fitted

Playing around with ideas

Track chopped out and starting to detail the edges with strips of cork tile

A Lego wheel being used for detailing

Gravel from Walersee and fine river silt used for detailing

Building before and after painting

Starting to build up the layers

I made a pipeline out of some scrap pipe from a skip and some laser cut supports. I magnetised the feet so it could be removed for transportation.

Everything in situ

Silt! Silt everywhere!

Paint and weathering applied

Tuft mania

And then scatter

I think the scatter needs to be more yellow to match the tufts. Added to this was some water effects. Overall I am very happy with this board. Some minor tweeks as noted are required.

February

As a reward to myself, I am not a fan of batch painting, for finishing the Gnomes I painted this fellow.

I couldn”t get the figure I was after (see previous posting) so I got this guy. Originally from Forgeworld, I got him second hand from The Troll Trader. He’s allright for a Truro Boy. https://thetrolltrader.com/ He will be the squad leader in a unit of Beastmen in my Not Imperial Guard 40K army.

Obviously I got distracted after that. So rather than finishing the Dwarf Skiers from Old School Miniatures, sorry Jamie. I found these really cute Elementals on Thingiverse. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3388214 I wasted (no) time in printing off a load and here is a test paint of one.

These are going to be based up for use in Dragon Rampant. Not that I am ever going to play it, more’s the pity. At the moment in the queue I have a: Renaissance Army from a recent Kickstarter, Undead Army mostly comprised of Bob Olley Essex Miniatures (gorgeous sculpts, I ended up buying some more to fill the gaps in my collection), Orcs and Goblins from my spares box and now an Elemental Army.

And then a couple of weeks ago I got a box of bits from Jamie. https://www.oldschoolminiatures.co.uk/ I got more distractions in the shape of more Gnomes. I’d asked for a unit of Undead Gnomes to go with my Undead Army and in the package was this guy.

I had to paint him immediately. I made a totally impracticle 20mm base for him to go on.

Now I need to crack on with two Kill Team display boards which need to be finished in about six weeks time for a show in Germany.

Maybe learning to play the game might be useful?

That was 2018

Another year done and dusted.

This year hasn’t been terribly productive for me. May comes along terribly quickly and then for three months I’m tied down with Electric Love which takes all my energies then the end of the year seems to arrive before I know it.

My Mighty Fortress addons have been popular, but not enough to retire on. But apart from that I haven’t made anything of note. This has been partly a lack of confidence/laziness and intimidation from seeing other company’s work. And partly due to depression.

I got myself a new toy.

My set up

It is the Ender 3 from Creality, It seems to be taking the 3D printing world by storm, a combination of price and quality. It is still not good enough for miniatures, for that I’ll need a resin printer, but for scenery and vehicles it’ll do. If you apply the “Three foot rule”. I’ll post results next year. I’ve made some modifications, fan covers, LEDs, stepper motor dampers and bed handle. Next up will be TL Smoothers. I’ve been hitting Thingiverse, there’s a lot of interesting bits there for free. I’ve been printing some APCs for my Not Imperial Guard Army.

I have just been given a Laptop and I am getting to grips with it (PC 😦 ) because I’d like to get back into 3D modelling, something I used to do twenty years ago. I think the future is 3D modelling and digital distribution. For me a combination of laser cut, 3D and vac forming will make some very interesting models.

I don’t have a product of the year this year. I have invested in Kill Team and Blackstone Fortress (gorgeous models) from GeeDub. But painting or playing them hasn’t happened. I do plan to make a Kill Team demo game for Austrian Salute. I have played a couple of games of Tanks with Number One Son and they have been fun. My big time sponge has been a Playstation 4 gifted to me by my Daughter. I have been playing Destiny 2 but have been getting frustrated as there seems to be no story to it and you have to be online to play. The downloads for it are huge and I can’t play them unless I pay. The Nessus world is gorgeous and I’ll be copying the style for my Kill Team Board.

I have been resisting buying figures (ok ignoring Kill Team and Blackstone Fortress) because I am so behind on my painting. The Dragon didn’t get touched and I have Alpine Dwarfs and a Gnome army to finish. I have been sooo tempted by an Athurian army from Footsore miniatures but I don’t have anyone to play against and I’ll never paint it.

Best wishes for the New Year to my regular readers, my lurkers (Hello Ruth!), my randoms (WTF do you have in common with me?), anyone else who stumbled across this and the one follower who I am sure is a dog.

Peace out!