From the Shed: Afghan hill village.

I’ve been rather busy of late and have got a backlog of completed items to photograph and blog about. Painting for 20 mins a day is working out well and is getting quite a bit done so I am working through things. The 3D printer is out of commission at the moment sadly as it all need recalibrating (if that doesn’t work something more drastic may be required) but I’ve plenty to paint that I’ve already printed.

The basic building came from a thingiverse file here and was shrunk down to roughly fit in with my 6mm scale stuff. I made up a base with an old CD, the basic hill was made with scraps of foamcard and them a couple of plaster rock castings were added in, the whole lot was blended in with celluclay and then painted. The final touch was to add some grit for extra texture.

It should make for a nice objective in my 6mm Afghan games, I’m thinking it would be ideal for heliborne troops to assault.

Cheers,

Pete.

From the Shed: A couple of quick bits of scatter terrain.

From the 3D printer we have a 28mm figure sized junk pile and 20mm scaled abandonded car. Quick little prints that I did ages ago when I was getting the hang of my machine. Thought I’d get some paint on them as they will add a bit of character to a table top, not much else to say about them.

Cheers,

Pete.

From the Shed: German house.

I picked up a rather battered HO (1/87th) scale German house in a job lot from ebay a while back. It has been knocking about my work bench for ages so I’ve taken the oppertunity to give it a spruce up and finish it off.

It is a little small but mixed in at the edge of the board I’m sure it will be fine, sods law means that the battle will be focused around in in all likleihood.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.

From the Shed: More bits of scatter terrain… a cache and more tank traps.

Another quick post today. Been working on more bits of scatter terrain which will probably end up being mostly used for Zone Alfa. They are enjoable to paint and are ‘quick wins’ in terms of getting things finished. All of these bits were printed on my 3D printer.

First up we have an ammo cache… abandoned some where in the Zone it will make a nice objective marker.

I printed out some more of the tank traps too but this time I based them up and made them a little more over grown. It should make for a bit of  hard cover in the game.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.

From the Shed: Scatter Terrain.

I’ve used my 3D printer to run off some useful modern bits of scatter terrain. Not the most exciting bits, definately not in colour terms, but they should be good for set dressing on the table. All of them were printed from free stl files from either Wargaming3D or thingiverse.

First up we have a set of 6 sewer entrances. As I’ve already got a sewer system, the resin one from Ainsty, these should prove very useful.

Secondly I ran off a load of Jersey barriers. Great for modern games.

Finally I did some anti- tank obstacles… well not quite. The eagle eye amongst you might recognise these as concrete beach anti- erosion defences. Whilst they have been popularised in the alt WW2 game DUST Tactics they have also been used in the real world too. The Ukrainians used them successfuly as road blocks to stop an armoured thrust towards Mariopol by Russian/ Sepratist forces.

Once lockdown is over I’ll be able to add these to some games.

Cheers,

 

Pete.

From the Shed: nuke marker and Pripyat sign.

I have managed to get some paint on the first bits of my 3D printed terrain and am really pleased with how it looks.

 

First up is the nuked city marker. Can see this getting some use in megagames as given half a chance most players in those games get rather homicidal if they have any nukes in their arsenals.

I also pained up the famous Pripyat sign for some games of Zone Alfa, when the club reopens. A simple grey scheme and plenty of weathering seems to set the tone right for the game.

Cheers,

 

Pete.

3D printer- my initial foray.

As previously mentioned I recieved a 3D printer for xmas and the past couple of weeks I’ve been playing around with it. I have also been looking on various website for as many interesting looking free files that I could find to try out.

Assembly was a breeze with only one recalictrant cable proving to be difficult so I quickly printed off the test file to see how it turned out. I was rather pleased with the results. Fast and not too noisy (the cat is happy to sleep through it running)- generates a lot of heat though.

The next day was, however, less succesful due to what is best described as user generated errors. I tried printing out a different figure but that one failed when a support gave way.

 

I decided to get some simpler terrain bits printed, that is after all what I primarily want to use it for. I found some rather nice manhole covers/ sewer entrances so printed off a set of 6 for myself.

Given how pleased I was with these I tried my hand at rescalling some vehicles and printing them out. I found a 1:100 set of experimental/ prototype WW2 German designs and selected the smallest and resized it to 1:72. The first time I printed it I didn’t reorientate it so whilst one side printed out very nicely the other didn’t do well at all.

I asked about and it seems that the correct way to go is tracks down so I tried again. Much better this time, but when it cam to cleaning off the suppors I fear I may have lost some detail.

On person did suggest printing AFVs with them stood on their rear hull, I’m not really convinced but in the interests of experimentation I’ll give it a go.

 

I also resized some 1:200 WW1 tanks to 1:100 to use with the Great War board game I enjoy. It is a rather chunky print but once cleaned up I rather like it.

That is where I have got to so far. I want to try some more scenery before I go into full production to make myself a Necromunda set up.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.

From the Shed: A bit more terrain.

First up is the compound that I made with the parts from Maenoferren which he had 3D printed. I’m really pleased with how this one turned out. Should get lots of use from Colonial through to 21st century. A big thanks to him again.

I also got some paint on the last bits of Ainsty Casting‘s Sewer section that I had sat about undercoated for at least a couple of years.

It is a nice system don’t get me wrong but it has been a bit of a white elephant costs wise. Today, knowing what I now know I’d go for printed mats but there is still an tangible tactile fun manipulating the resin blocks, not dissimilar to Lego really.

 

For a couple of things I’ve done in the past with it see here and here.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.

Gifts from Gamers.

One of the best things about being a gamer is the real sense of community that there is, one of the best things about the internet is that it connects people together who share interests but otherwise wouldn’t meet due to geographical separation. Thanks to the generosity of two bloggers I’ve got some more goodies to play with.

 

Man of Tin was kind enough me a sheet of stickers that I was unable to locate in my home town. These will be turned into signs for Zombie apocalypse games as soon as I’ve stocked back up on plasticard.

Maenoferren generously gave me some bits that he has made with his 3D printer that he has no use for.

 

I had some spare foamcore and an MDF base lying around so knocked up this quick compound with the two houses.

I also put some paint on the Sci Fi terrain bits, specifically the chemical tank too.

These sorts of gestures really are the best and both brightened my day immeasurably when they arrived- many thanks to both bloggers, It is something I fully intend to pay forward.

 

As an aside the quality of the prints is really good, far better than the stuff I bought from Shapeways some years ago. So good in fact that I’m going to save up for my own printer- I really think it will be the future of the hobby (amongst other things) so it will be good to get in early for once I think.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.

From the Shed: bits and pieces (WW2, Science Fiction and Terrain).

Some more from my shed- some assorted bits that I had lying around finally finished, all in 20mm too…

 

Firstly:

 

A set of WW2 British Commandos, these are from Wartime Miniatures (seemingly defunct now). These ones are wearing the Denison camo jacket, a similar pattern to the airbourne one, making them emminently suitable for a game set on Walcheren Island as part of the operations to clear the Schelt esturary. Shame that it looks like more poses with different weapons won’t be forthcoming.

Sticking with WW2 we have these:

A small group of Honved (Hungarian Army) from this set of plastics. I did these as paint testers for a bigger Crossfire/ Megablitz project, more of which later. Not the best sculpts in the world but they paint up very nicely.

Staying with plastics I have done these:

A set of figures by Dark Alliance inspired by the popular S.T.A.L.K.E.R. PC games. I’ve got several of each pose in the box so for the first lot I picked out a few poses to do with a winter theme (I’ve a fondness for winter basing at the moment). Not sure what I’ll do with them but they make their way into a game some how.

 

Sticking with PC games I made this:

A set of firing range targets after seeing similar ones in the co-op shooter Insurgency that I played with friends a while back. Bits of foam, ground texture and scrap from the bits box went into making this. Should be good to suggest a camp or base somewhere in MENA.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.