Weasel Town

Posted on February 14, 2023 by grumpyoldtin

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…….

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.

The Heroquest update

Posted on February 5, 2023 by grumpyoldtin

I have finished painting the board.

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.

Ooops!

Now to paint the doors.

Why Heroquest is so great

Posted on January 13, 2023 by grumpyoldtin

Before you read any further please watch this instructional video.

https://youtu.be/Cx8sl2uC46A

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.

I will keep you updated with further progress reports.

There will be updates on my: SpaceHulk, Bloodbowl and Battlefleet Gothic. One day.

Starting off 2023

Posted on January 10, 2023 by grumpyoldtin

As promised here are some photos of this years painting progress. One plan for this year is to have a dedicated space for photography. At the moment I am taking them in a variety of places with different light sources. No consistency in quality or standardisation. One I have everything set up I can work on fine tuning white balance and depth of field. Ideally I want to revamp my gallery, maybe trying to look a little more professional….. just an idea.

The first few were half-done figures that had been sat on my desk for over a year and just after Christmas I emptied my desk and finished them off.

3D printed dice cup for my Orc Bloodbowl team

A Grot tank, cobbled together from stuff from the bits box. My first attempt with the Dirty Down Rust.

From Crooked Dice Colony 87 range. I started this on New Year’s Eve and almost finished it that day.

This comes from EM4 Miniatures (I think) I really enjoyed painting this one.

I am building up a collection of scifi NPCs which I rather enjoy painting.

2023

Posted on January 9, 2023 by grumpyoldtin

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.

You snooze you loose

Posted on December 6, 2022 by grumpyoldtin

Or rather gurgle unpleasantly for three weeks with a chest infection. An update from yesterday’s post.

The Old School Miniatures Kickstarter has finished and the figures are now available for pre order.

Thanks Jamie

https://www.oldschoolminiatures.co.uk/tim-prow-space-adventures-102-c.asp

A couple of Kickstarters to consider

Posted on December 5, 2022 by grumpyoldtin

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.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/keta-minies/alternatives-heads-and-helms-stl-for-tabletop-and-wargames?ref=profile_created

Adventures in 3D printing and some paint

Posted on October 4, 2022 by grumpyoldtin

I’ve been using filament from GST3D for the last year or so. Mainly because it is dirt cheap, if you wait for the sales, and because the quality has been good. That is until recently. My last batch of ten has had three rolls fail. One badly tangled and the other two damp resulting in clogs. Social media has been filling up with complaints about GST3D recently and they have promised to improve. We shall see.

I have started printing some “Vase Mode” models. Specially designed to only print the outside surface.

This is from the Sinister Cities Kickstarter. A free model so you could appraise the results. It is printed with a thicker nozzle, 0.8 rather than the usual 0.4, so the layer lines are noticeable. At arms length not really. This seems to be a good method for bashing out terrain.

https://www.sinistercities.com/the-citybuilder

This little Gnome Spellsinger is from Old School Miniatures, part of their Alpine Gnome range. Have I mentioned how much I love this range?

https://www.oldschoolminiatures.co.uk/alpine-gnomes-3-c.asp

Finally a squad of ten Terminators for the Space Hulk game I am 3D printing. I have printed all the corridors need for the Second Edition, just have to get on and paint them. Batch painting from hell. Starting with a black basecoat, then a zenithal highlight, a colour wash over that, detailing and finally rust and grime. Can’t wait.

A little update on the painting

Posted on September 6, 2022 by grumpyoldtin

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.

https://penandswordbooks.com/subject-categories/collecting-games-hobbies/wargaming/one-hour-skirmish-wargames.html

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.

We also have been having family days out.

Artistic Intelligence: but is it art?

Posted on August 31, 2022 by grumpyoldtin

I have been fooling around with some AI art generators, mostly Midjourney and Wombo, and I thought I might put some of the results here.

The Wombo pictures are more painterly and looser and the Midjourney are very nightmarish. I would invite you to play around for inspiration.

There is also the whole can of worms of: Is it art?

Resolved morals

Posted on August 19, 2022 by grumpyoldtin

Disclaimer: the blog post has been brought to you by the generosity and patience of Chitu Systems.

Remember in my last post I said that I had a moral dilemma about fitting the 3D printer screen sent by Chitu Systems? Well they actually read my post (imagine?) and to paraphrase, “Why didn’t you say? Here’s some resin, go and play!”

Shortly after they contacted me there was knock on the door and there was an Amazon package with this resin.

The only thing I could do was to fit the screen and do some test prints.

Fitting the screen was an absolute doddle and the online tutorial is a great help.

The firmware update was slightly problematic but some gentle prodding from the online support got me there quickly.

I was a bit of a numpty when it came to the exposure and kept going to high. Once I dialled it back (a lot) I was good to go.

Talking about the resin this gave a little more detail than my my usual Nova3D (cheap as chips) and what I did like was that the models were slightly springy before curing. And that made removing the supports a lot easier. This is now going to be my preferred resin for printing.

This new iteration of mono screen gives a larger print area than the previous one and with a faster print speed it makes it a no-brainer replacement. If you are lucky you can pick up a Mars Pro pretty cheaply, probably second hand, and with this screen upgrade you’ve got a pretty serviceable machine. Roughly for the price of three spash mareen squads. Think on that.

My first proper prints were of various Treefolk for a Warmaster (10mm) Wood Elf Army. Files are from Forest Dragon.

https://forestdragon.gumroad.com/l/QtcwE

Thumbs up from me.

Paint progress

Posted on May 30, 2022 by grumpyoldtin

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.

https://www.patreon.com/knucklebonesminis/posts

This was from the paintpotchallenge (my elderly computer doesn’t have a hashtag) that was running on Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/grumpyoldtin/?hl=en

Did I mention that I occasionally lurk on Instagram?

Finally on the painting is Khonshu imprisoned. Printed and painted in 24 hours for my youngest.

There is something big on the horizon. It has finished printing, now to assembly and painting.

An unexpected painting behind the scenes

Posted on February 21, 2022 by grumpyoldtin

This was my original idea for colours. Sadly a bit bland so I went my own way.

An unexpected painting challenge

Posted on February 20, 2022 by grumpyoldtin

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.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5253332

Well game on! Challenge accepted.

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.

Display cases

Posted on February 3, 2022 by grumpyoldtin

Dagger and Brush wanted to know what my display setup was. Here is my response.

You will have to excuse the poor lighting, a project for this year. This is the current state of my hobby room. it tends to be used as an overspill while we organise the house.

This was my first display case, from Ikea about twenty five years ago. I thought that I would never fill it. Little did I know.

After moving over here i got these two from a second hand store.

I have recently just got these two. I should really have been a bit more patient because the shelves are only just bigger than A4. Holes have been drilled to add more shelves. The cabinet on the left has nine shelves from its original four and the cabinet on the right has (or will have) twelve shelves. As the bottom shelf was directly sat on the floor and I have built a plinth to raise them up. I have to admit to some pleasure in being able to go to my workshop, cut some wood on my circular saw and make it there and then. Trips to the local recycling are called for to get glass for the shelves. Again (thanks to my Post Grad in Glass) I have the tools and experience to cut the glass to size and linish the edges to make them safe. Illuminating the shelves will be another project for this year.