Weekly Round-up #011

Another week is over, and with the weather warming up a bit, some successes on the painting and printing fronts.  What were they?  Read-on ...

A)    Games Workshop 5th / 6th Ed Mounted Yeomen::

Mount up chaps - it's time to ride!

So I've finished the first mounted unit for my Bretonnians, and it's not even a unit of knights!  These came together quite quickly once the horses were done.  However, they look great, have full command in the unit, and are magnetised onto the horses so they can / will be stored as mount and rider separately in order to fit them efficiently into my KR storage cases.  I might go back and add shields to the unit later (or just do shields on the second unit of 10 so I have the choice of fielding units with or without shields), but they're going into the tally ... 15 models painted (5 horses were already claimed last week).

B)    Bretonnian Lord on Hippogryph:

Available in Lance or Sword version ...

Spiked ready for an undercoat

Second item this week goes into the printed column.  I've actually got a game organised for once the UK starts to make it's way slowly out of lockdown, of the Ninth Age!  It's going to be in mid-April, and of course I'll be reporting on it here!  However, in looking at an Army list for that battle (which I will almost certainly create an specific post for!), I realised I needed a Duke on a Hippogryph (to lead the army!).  Thankfully Tartessos Miniatures provided a suitable solution, and he's even going to be modular.  In fact, the bodies in the pictures printed are of the King from their kickstarters.  I have also printed a third body to be a generic Duke, who will also be magnetised, as well as a Barded Warhorse mount.  It's a bit of an odd one, but I reckon it is in-effect 5 models printed (3 riders, and 2 mounts - with one of each not shown in these photos), so that's what will be going on the tally ...

C)    Marshall's Quarters:

He's a busy chap the Marshall, but at least he has a short commute!

A total of 11 pieces and close to 72 hours solid printing ...

The other printer has also been busy this week, with the Marshall's Quarters from the Oar's Rest Kickstarter by August McDaniel.  Must say I'm super impressed with the detail on this, especially the "toothpick doors & window shutters", which have been added to this.  It's made up of a cottage, and stable, the smithy and a whole bunch of divider, roofs and steps!   But it will make a nice central terrain piece for a fantasy battlefield!  Just must try to get it painted before that battle happens next month!  So, what are the scores on the doors ... ?

D)    Year-to-date:

Painted : = 126 + 15 = 141 (an occasion worthy of note - my painted tally had grown larger than my purchased pile again ... if I can ever get round to selling some more stuff on the "to-go" pile, the delta in painted vs. unpainted would look very nice indeed!)

Printed = 31 + 5 + 11 = 47 (rather a whack on the total here this week ... however I'm going to do terrain and scenery painting in the couple of weeks, so at least some of them will transfer pretty quickly

Purchased = 128 + 0 = 128

So another week, and more progress.  And for the first time in ages, a battle to look forwards too!  It doesn't get much more positive than that at the moment, so ...

Until next time ...

-    Bsking

Weekly Round-up #010

 Unfortunately, it's been another busy week on the work front, so rather than painting etc ... I ended up spending lots of hours at my desk doing nothing useful!  I guess some weeks are just busier than others, but at least some progress was made:

A)    Games Workshop 5th / 6th Ed Mounted Yeomen:

Hang back chaps, what happened to the front rank?!

Not managed to get as far as I had hoped, but I have at least created all the bases, and finished the 5 mounts for the yeomen shown in the picture.  I've been trying to get back towards painting properly, so for the first time in a while it wasn't just a contrast paint job, and instead I followed the steps from here, and I must say I'm very happy with how they came out.  However, unfortunately that was the only progress made on the painting front this week.  So what else happened?

B)    Lovecraft Desert Adventures Watchtower

It's a big piece of impassable terrain!

I managed to finally content myself that I had dialled in the new FDM printer, my Ender 3 v2.  This was confirmed by the above print, which took 52 hours for the lower part of the watchtower, and another approximately 8 hours for the crow's nest type bit on the top.  However, I have to say I am massively impressed by this, and really pleased with my investment.  So there we go! 

C)    Monstrous Encounters Yeomen

2 yeomen (champion and musician), and the mounted damsel

As well as the FDM printer, I also fired up the Elegoo Mars 2 Pro SLA printer, in order to round out my 2nd unit of yeomen to a round 10, with full command.  In order to do this I needed to add a champion and a musician, which I did.  I was also really pleased to find that they are for all intents and purposes interchangeable with the GW yeomen, as they each fit the others horses!  As I had enough space on the build plate, I also ran off a mounted damsel, just because I could ... !  So where does that leave me on the tallies?

D)    Year-to-date:

Painted : = 121 + 5 = 126 (as I mentioned last week, I'm going to count cavalry as 2 models for the rider and mount, so I can add a full 5 models to the tally this week)

Printed = 24 + 7 = 31 (of course, I then have to count cavalry as two items printed - it's only fair!  So 7 things this week)

Purchased = 128 + 0 = 128

So, the pile grew by 1.  Given that it was another crazy busy week, and I still managed to get some stuff done was almost entirely down to my desire to keep doing stuff for this blog (it gave me the motivation to get them over the line!) so it's fulfilling it's brief.  Now if only I could work out why it won't index on google ...

Until next time ...

-    Bsking

Weekly Round-up #009

So, Real Life™ has caused a significantly reduced opportunity for progress this week.  So much in-fact that the hasn't been the chance to complete any new models.  To make up for this, I shall just have to complete a whole bunch by next week! Which shouldn't be too hard, as there a few that are close:

A)    Highlands Miniatures Pegasus Knight WIP

Pegasus Knight #1

and from head-on!

Although there hasn't been the opportunity to finish anything, I have managed to make very good progress on my first noble for the Bretonnians - a Bretonnian Pegasus knight.  He's one of a unit of 3 I printed from the excellent Highlands Miniatures Patreon, which has been alternating Bretonnians and Undead since it started last year.  They have made some very nice models, and I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing this guy on the field sometime soon!

B)    Games Workshop 5th / 6th Ed Mounted Yeomen

Yeomen and their Mounts ... unless they want to ride to battle on cocktail sticks!

The other unit that I've made good progress on last week is these mounted yeomen.  This is a unit of 10 with full command, all of the original GW metals.  I picked these up a few years ago from a combination of ebay and GW as they stopped selling them.  I'm glad I did so when I had the chance, as the prices these fetch now are nothing short of ridiculous.  This picture only covers 8 riders and 6 horses. but all 10 are now at least undercoated (a couple had to lag behind, as they required a dip in Biostrip 20 first!), and hopefully will be ready by next week.  On which note, I have decided that cavalry units will count as 2 figures in the tally below, as they are by very definition 2 models each (plus otherwise I feel that I will lose all motivation to do cavalry, especially when infantry paint up so quickly!)

C)    FDM printing scatter terrain

Alongside the real-life issues, the other reason there's been less progress on the whole painting side of things is that I've been playing with trying to get the Ender 3 dialled in - with greater and lesser success:

Successes ...

... and failures!

So I've printed out a few little bits and pieces that will probably appear as fillers / decorative bases ... I also tried printing out a cottage a couple of times, but both times the extruder decided to fall apart.  I've ordered a replacement metal extruder to see if that improves the printing ... fingers crossed!  So with that, onto the tallies:

D)    Year-to-date:

Painted : = 121 + 0 - No change this week, progress made but nothing finished ... yet!

Printed = 17 + 7 = 24 - only counting the successful prints ... I might do 'something' with the failures, but they're probably consigned to the "learning" pile...

Purchased = 128 + 0 - No movement this week ... I had intended to put a few things on eBay, but ran out of time, so it'll have to wait for the next £1 max selling fees weekend!

So, given the challenges this week that have stolen hobby time away, I still feel that good progress was made, and preparation for future success is there.  Just need to get a few good sessions in this week, and hopefully the numbers can make another leap forwards.

Until next time ...

-    Bsking

Weekly Round-up #008

So, in a change from previous weeks, I'm going to start with the purchases as I'm super excited about this one:

A)    What's this ... 3D printing first?

So, as seen in previous weeks, I took the leap into 3D printing last October, and it's been a revelation!  I started off with a resin printer, because they are by far the best for miniatures.  However, the limitations of resin printing do make it expensive to do big pieces, and what you're doing is limited by the size of the build plate:

My Elegoo Mars 2 Pro - owned since November

Results are excellent (quality is amazing!), but prints are limited by the size of the bed

In order to improve capabilities, and allow the printing of bigger items, I've obtained a new Ender 3 v2 printer, funded out of the proceed's from letting go those projects I was never going to get to!

It arrived on Friday, but had to wait till Sunday till I built it!

First test printing -  #3D benchy 

There hasn't been any 3d printing this week of miniatures, but look for some new projects coming out of this thing over the course of the next week.  But it hasn't just been printing, I've still been making progress on the painting:

B)    Games Workshop 6th Ed Men-at-Arms

Second unit of 20 Men-at-Arms, with the heraldry of Mousillion

Some 5th Edition Spearmen at the back, with 3d printed extra shields

More peasant Men-at-Arms for the force.  I'm beginning to get to a point where I've got a decent amount of rank-and-file infantry.  Need to start getting some Knights painted up next ... however, before I get to that, a rare-option choice! 

C)    Games Workshop 6th Ed Trebuchet Crew:

Crew complete, need to print a 75mm round base for the trebuchet itself through ...

So also managed to finish off these 4.  Still got the trebuchet itself on the painting table, and urchin with the slingshot sat on the wheelbarrow, so still 2 more items to get painted, but it does bring my total up by another 4.  So where does that leave me on the tallies?

D)    Year-to-date:

Painted : = 97 + 24 = 121 - Even though I haven't managed to get to evens yet on the year (more in's than out's still!), this is still a massive amount of miniatures that I can say I've painted this year, and it's only the end of February.  Realistically, there is no way I can keep this up across the course of the whole year, but even if I can keep it at say 1 thing painted per day, this is going to be an awesome year! 

Printed = 17 + 0 (#3d benchy doesn't count!) - The new printer is unlikely to be used for miniatures (though it will be doing terrain).  Might need to work out how to count that in the future ...

Purchased = 128 + 0 - No change this week.  Might have to try to improve this number with another week of selling stuff as I've been told to reduce the pile of shame by the wife.  To be fair I do have some other projects I'm never getting to that can go ...

Well, that's it for another week.  Hoping to get the Trebuchet properly sorted by next week, let's see how that works out!

Until next time ...

-    Bsking