I got my Ender 3 in 2016 and although it has produced satisfactory results it needed constant tinkering and I had to deal with bed levelling and clogs.
My Neighbours asked me what I wanted for my Birthday and Christmas. I had been looking at a lot of YouTube videos and they were all pointing me towards the BambuLabs A1. And with Black Friday it was too good a deal to pass up.
All I can say is, believe the hype.
It is easy to set up and the print results are amazing. With the 0.2 hotend and highest print quality you are looking at a near resin quality. And if you apply the Three Foot Rule you would never know.
For very fine details resin is King. But dealing with the clean-up and the toxic waste is a right pain.
It’s been a while and still a long road ahead in terms of health, physical and mental. One day at a time. I kept up my painting. It has been a chore at times and I don’t take the same pleasure in it as I used to do. One change I did make was to move my painting area upstairs. I used to paint in the cellar and that time was used to escape the clamour of daily life. Now I find it too isolated. Whereas upstairs I can hear voices and not feel so lonely. Plus I have cats sleeping in the window, drinking my tea and I have a view. Having a view is nice. I didn’t realise I missed having a window until now. I used to have a view in London and it is good for the eyes to change focus every so often. My lighting set up is still downstairs as it would be a mammoth task to unwire it all.
I didn’t realise that it had been over a year since I last posted. There are going to be posts covering this period. Yes with photos! One thing that did throw me a bit was my computer giving up the ghost. Yes I know one can still post on a mobile, but it isn’t the same.
I can’t honestly say that 2023 was amazing. Firstly dealing with the side effects of medication and the my Wife’s life changing announcement.
2024 looks like more of the same, a hostile uncommunicative environment.
The last half of 2023 wasn’t very productive. Any little pleasures that I used to have were stripped away. I barely picked up a paintbrush.
What I did manage to do was to get a new laser tube and have started cutting and designing again.
There are four big projects that I would like to bring to completion if only to get boxes of odds and sods out of the way.
Bloodbowl – everything is printed. It just needs assembly, painting and most importantly storage.
Heroquest – this need the characters and furniture painting. This one is almost there.
Then I have two big modular terrain projects.
The ruined city, all made apart from a few pieces which need laser cut tiles. And obviously painting.
Modular trenches. This has been made with pink insulation foam. It is about three quarters done. I have been laser cutting walkways and wall retainers. There are still some more tiles to make but before I do I need storage. A trip to Ikea beckons.
There has, understandably, been no product of the year for me.
I’ll sign off and wish all three of you a Happier, Healthier and more Productive 2024.
Work on Weasel Town has been plodding along slowly and now that the nice weather has started I can work outside. Originally the floor ducking (correct word?) was laser cut card but since I no longer have access to a good laser machine I have started 3D printing them. Work had stalled because of a lack of them. The home laser I have lack power because it is a cheap Chinese tube and it’s life has expired. My Blender skills and confidence have improved a tiny bit so I used it to created the ducking which I then printed out on my Ender 3.
One regret is that I didn’t look at my original card tiles as they are slightly more elegant. Mind you once they are coated in mud and grime and observed from three feet away I don’t thing anyone will be criticising the design aesthetic.
I had started designing modular tiles as way to to have a flexible tabletop. One lesson I have learnt, is to to be consistent. That way I could have integrated my ruined desert city tiles with the trench system. Possibly the way to go is to make a series of risers so the tile heights match up.
The reason I had started going modular was because of this Kickstarter.
However by the time I actually get the book I probably will have moved on to something else, rendering it redundant.
Anyway, grumbling aside, The author Michael Martin has a Youtube channel. TWS Tabletop Workshop. One of the videos was about making a diy crackle paste.
The ingredients were diatomaceous earth. This looked interesting as I want parched earth for my terrain tiles. Amazon had some but it was a touch out of my budget. Which let’s politely say is near zero.
Owning pets sometimes has an upside. We needed cat litter for our seventeen year old cat. She spends her days curled up on our bed and doesn’t venture out much. We had got a new brand which looked soil like. After she had used it, she is a prolific pisser, the litter started to crackle when dried. Interesting. Are you pondering what I’m pondering? I took some clean litter mixed a bit with PVA and stuck it on a piece of MDF. The result was really good. I then mixed up some more and applied it to one of my terrain tiles.
Rookie mistake! Make sure you put an under colour down first.
I have to experiment now and work out proportions so that consistency is maintained.
This is a link to the product and for eight litres I think that is a pretty good price. The only ingredient is Bentonite which is an absorbent swelling clay consisting mostly of montmorillonite (a type of smectite).
I’ve been hankering after making some modular trenches for a while. I started but when I laid them out earlier this week it seems that I do not have nearly enough. Plus I did not have any “kinks” (not sure of the correct terminology) to stop a gunner standing at one end of a trench and taking aim down the entire length.
One of the rule-sets I was reading, “The Last War” talks about a settlement in the wastelands. For some reason it caught my fancy. A tidying up job at the beginning of the year was sorting out my movement trays and I had a whole lot of crude plasticard ones that I had made about twenty years ago. This has left me with a big bag of plasticard. I also have some big sheets of pink insulation foam recovered from some building work nearby.
I wonder…….
Weasel Town surrounded by trenches
The finished group
I added detailing with resin parts from Ramshackle Games and 3D printed parts from Knucklebones Miniatures. The tin roofs were made from Red Bull cans run through a corrugator from Green Stuff World. I found out later that this is just a toothpaste squeezer rebranded for twice the price. Painted with household emulsion paint. The rust was done with Green Stuff World Rust paint, which is frankly rubbish and I wanted to use it up.
I thought I had documented the making process, but when I stuck the memory card into the computer there was nothing to be seen.
It has only taken five years to get to this stage. I have painted it, mostly, with household emulsion paint. I am still deciding on the finish. High gloss for toughness or semi matt for realism?
Here is an original board to give an indication of of scale. Each square on the new board is 40mm. Something I didn’t notice is that the central left/right corridor should only be one tile wide.
Part of this year’s aim is to finish off any half done projects. There are quite a few. One I had started about four (or more) years ago was to make a Heroquest board. I had acquired the components eight years ago from EBay. Four years I laser etched the board double size. That took about seven hours. Then over the years I made doors and 3D printed the player characters.
Here is a progress report.
Base paints applied with a little sponge work. It was a bit dispiriting in this stage because it looked a bit crap.But I persevered. This is with black between the tiles and edge highlighting. Much better. After this I will airbrush shadows around the room edges.I have printed two versions of the player characters, classic for the purists. These came from Thingiverse complete with mold lines. The second is from StoneKing. Chibi stylee. Behind them you can see the various enemies our brave questers will have to face. They are wooden flats with some Oldhammer illustrations.The doors ready for some paint.
I will keep you updated with further progress reports.
There will be updates on my: SpaceHulk, Bloodbowl and Battlefleet Gothic. One day.
Finally it is here. Last year was a bit of a blur, nothing really of note stood out and it really did go quickly. I did hit a significant number complete with upcoming health checks. Nothing major to worry about, slightly high cholesterol and low thyroid function. I don’t have occult blood which is really not as interesting as one would think.
One thing which I do regret is that Grumpy Old Tin laser cutting is no longer a thing. The makerspace I was using changed hands and the new owners, Pioniergarage- Salzburg, have a difference in opinion about accommodating the less abled. Long covid means that it it is impossible for me to stand for two or three hours beside the laser machine and the computer is placed so you cannot sit and operate it.
More tomorrow as I had a bit of a painting blitz this last week.
Finally my Product of the Year is Vallejo’s Model Colour Vermillion. A really good punchy highlight red. I did get on the cool kids bandwagon and bought some Dirty Down Rust. I only tried it once and I realise I need a bit more practice with it.
Here are a couple of Kickstarters which might be worth considering.
I was lucky enough to receive some as a Birthday present from OS Miniatures so I couldn’t resist slapping some paint on them. I’ll post some pictures when they are finished.
The second Kickstarter is from Keta Minies. I backed a previous KS campaign and the quality was outstanding.
I have a few more pictures to add, since May. May? Where did the time go?
This is some armoured centaur legs, from the Makers Cult, scaled up from AT scale to 40K scale. The top half is an Armiger. This was a test of the livery I am using on my Titan, sat in a box awaiting paint. The lesson wot I did lern is to not apply gloss varnish until all the armour is painted. The gold was very problematic because of this. My next big print project is a Reaver Titan mounted on the Makers Cult 40K scale centaur legs. Warlord might be a bit much.
This is from the Tesseract Tomb Patreon. I have wanted a train set for ages and he is going to be producing parts over the next few months.
This is the Marauder Giant which is now starting to fetch eye watering prices on Fleabay. Many thanks to the Delta Squad who made this possible. First rule etc.
Finally a Spaash Mareen. Number One Son and I have been taking advantage of the 9Euro German rail tickets and have been travelling to Munich for lunch, As you do. I thought I would pop into WARHAMMER! and try out this newfangled Contrast paint that all the cool kids are using these days. The Red Shirt gave me a figure to try it on. While I was slappinig paint on he was inanely chatting to me in English, but in German was really (like really) pushing the hobby onto Number One Son.
One of our lunches. Nothing too extravagant, just a pork knuckle, potato dumpling, dark beer gravy and sauerkraut.
BUT as a result of the trip to WARHAMMER! Number One Son has expressed an interest in gaming. So now the modular table is getting some use, perhaps I need to get on and paint it? We are using our own version of One Hour Skirmish.
A system which utilises playing cards instead of dice which can make the turn system chaotic and fun. Highly recommended.
I also have been distracted by kittens, we are helping a neighbour rehouse kittens. Her farm is used as a dumping ground for unwanted kittens and she finds it a bit too much at times.
Here is a picture heavy painting round up. Still struggling with fatigue and concentration. This is why I made this the first job of the day so it would get done.
These are walking troop transports for my Traitor Guard. There are 3D printed parts from Knucklebones patreon, resin parts from Ramshackle Games and laser cut parts.
I am not quite sure what these are. 3D printed, laser cut, resin parts and physical modelling.
This is from Redgozfasta Patreon. The guy doing this wants to work his way through the Epic Orks collection, scaling them up to 40k size. This month (May) is the Battlewagon. One of the variations is the Weirdboy Tower which I am very much looking forwards to. Entirely printed on my Ender 3 FDM printer. My genius neighbour took my printer apart and rebuilt it totally square. The results are amazing, not resin quality but pretty damn good.
This is a gun crew for my Traitor Guard. This is all from Knucklebones patreon.
These last few weeks have been a bit of a struggle. Covid has left me suffering with fatigue, lack of focus, demotivation and shortness of breath. I have been doing small stabs at hobby, but I haven’t had the enthusiasm to really get stuck in with the painting.
I have been making progress with Blender, 3d modelling software. And I am attempting to rig, basically putting a skeleton inside the figure, my model which will make posing a lot easier.
I have been making some tools for my workshop. I always need clamps for glueing and I have been eyeing up some right angle aids on that fabulous far eastern trader. My aim was to avoid plastic and as I had a lot of spare wood scavenged from the Happylab bins I thought I would attempt to make my own.
I am now working on a bigger version of this now.
The weather has been going from snow to sunshine and back again in a day.
I have had some nice walks when the weather has been clement. My mood improves after being out.
I have finished building the modular tiles for my 4 x 4 modular ruined city table. Now to slap some paint on them.
My neighbour, who is a bit of a perfectionist, took ten hours to deconstruct my Ender3 3D printer and rebuild it totally square. The difference is amazing and I will be posting some pictures soon.
There you have it. A brief catch up on what has been happening.
Primed and ready to goThis was my original idea for colours. Sadly a bit bland so I went my own way.First colours blocked outWash. Horrible! Make it go away!Stop staringFlesh doneHair todayAlmost there
Reddit is my default opening page on my interwebs browser. When I opened it yesterday at the top of the feed was an interesting post. One of the feeds I am subbed into r/PrintedMinis had a post from u/PrintedEncounter. They had been challenged to speed sculpt. Printed Encounter took it on and produced a sculpt of Bilbo Baggins in two and a half hour.
A link was posted to it on Thingiverse. And a challenge was posted that if someone wanted to paint and post it they could suggest the next sculpt.
Model printed outNot enough supportsMilliput to the rescueWorking on the base
I will post in a couple of hours when I have applied some paint. I aim to have this finished by the end of today. First I have to help my youngest in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey while I wait for the milliput to dry.
Like most of us, I imagine, I make little stories about the project I am painting and I try and picture the piece in an imaginary world, how it would look and why it was there.
Somehow I stumbled across this model railway enthusiast and the way he writes is so eloquently beautiful.
The way he talks about when he came across articles in magazines that were light years out of his league as a beginner but we’re so inspirational. This reminds me of looking at figures and dioramas in White Dwarf as a yoof.
genuine grumpy old tin 