3D Printed boat, WiP Gold Smoke Knight and Executrix unit

 I've a bit of a backlog (as usual) to clear up before we start packing for the next move so I took a few minutes to knock out a row boat that I printed a couple of months ago. 

Standard wood process for the boat and oars and a quick blue dry-brush on a great little accessory that can be added to make the boat appear to be moving.

I like the indicator of intent... is the boat moving or just sitting.  Handy!

I've added Varsheesh the Venomous from Raging Heroes  for scale.  The boat is quite roomy and can easily accommodate the average RPG party or small squad.  The boat file came from the Lost Islands Kickstarter by Rampage Printable Scenery.  They do great work and frequently have files sized for small print areas... especially welcome given the tiny print area the my Snapmaker sports!

 Speaking of Raging Heroes.. a WiP of an Executrix Troop... who said green was only for good guys!  These are likely to be used initially as the  Emerald Execution for my Ynnari.

Kingdom Death Monster bad guy Gold Smoke Knight...

I decided against gold smoke and for gold/brass armor and some ectoplasmic smokiness... early days on this one but I'm getting color areas blocked and some textures applied.  The cloak will be from a White Lion... one of the more common Monsters in the World of Kingdom Death.

Finally another gaggle of Vampire Hunters gets their denim on...

Time to get back to the brushes and see what happens next.

The Order of Vampire Hunters Kickstarter exclusives

 A big batch of KickStarter exclusives for The Order of Vampire Hunters.

The vampires of this game are along the lines of the vampires from "Blade" rather than the more common Anne Rice-esque sexy modern vampires. I've done these in a very cartoony style and relied on big recognizable color areas rather than going for hyper detail. 

First up is Theyr, a vampire Elder who summons guardian hounds... kind of a shaman. With skin of these being basically dark blue I decided to go with red or yellow as the basic color of clothing... black would have been too low of a contrast for the intended use of the models as board game pieces.

 Evaki is also an Elder with a fear causing scream.  Evaki is much more overtly monstrous than Theyr.

 The blue base being thinned Nightmare Black (Reaper) over a Khaki (Craft) base dry-brushed with White (Craft).  Reds are the Reaper Gorey Red Triad.  The Skin was washed with thinned Strong Tone (Army Painter) and the whole thing washed with thinned Soft Tone (Army Painter).  This process was used throughout today's models.

 Baba Yaga is one of my favorite characters.  She's in a yellow robe woked up from the standard Khaki base with Palomino Gold (Reaper) Highlights with Buckskin Pale (Reaper) and a final wash of Soft Tone (Army Painter) thinned with Glaze Medium (Vallejo).  Like the reds, whites, and blues, the same basic process was used for all the yellows in this batch.  In keeping it cartoony I wanted these to be easily identifiable as belonging to the same "Bad Guy" team for players who encounter this game for the first time.

 Lord Kurivan is the largest model of the batch.  A vampire Lord with an AoE attack and enormous wings.

I did one layer of wings red to avoid a huge blue wall of a model on the board.  The red of his collar is much darker than the others as it was painted over the blue base instead of the Khaki.

 Sneaking in Sister Veridyan for a scale check!
















Grelrok is an Elder with a bit of self healing.  He is powered up by the presence of Upyrs in his area.. which seems kinda odd since I sorta thought he would have been the Elder of the Burrowers...  The variations on blue are varying amounts of Strong Tone being added to the Nightmare Black before being further thinned with Glaze Medium.

 Canoness Veridyan returns for a scale check with the mists.  The mists are a swarm creature done here with Hexwraith Flame (GW) over the Khaki/white base and Splintered Bone (Reaper) for final highlights.  Hexwraith Flame is a quick and effective paint for ghosts and spooks of all sorts... I also use it a lot for power weapon effects and energy source bleed.

 Above the whole day's batch shown as a group... very cartoony!

Henry is a Vampire Hunting Vampire... mechanically he's a hunter and can be turned like any of them... but... he's already a vampire.... anyway... done with a white lab coat instead of a black thing... making him look a little more like he is one of the good guys!

 Lord Kophas... a fast and fearsome vampire Lord.

Big wing/cloak

 A couple more thralls. 
The dress was fun on his one with a 60's inspired mod sunshine pattern... not so busy that its a distraction but breaking up a color block a bit.

Lord Marku really digs being vampire royalty.  His wings are fleshy instead of red to make him stand out from the others as a "Big Deal" while still sporting the red, blue, and yellow colors of his team... albeit in a less unwashed kinda way!


The remainder of the Kickstarter excluseives set is additional hunters.  They'll likely be up next week along with a Raging Heroes executrix squad... unless things go sideways... as they so often do!

Back to the desk!

Avatars of War Dwarf Slayer Statue 3D print

 I'm back from a holiday bout with bronchitis and thought I'd start with Avatars of War.  The Dwarf Slayer statue is the first of their 3D printfile offerings.

The website is a little unusual in the way it handles this sort of product and it took me a few days to figure it out... they handle it mostly like their physical products in that they check product availability etc via several emails instead of just having it in a cart for instant download.  I'm sure they'll sort that if they continue down the file sales road.

 The model printed well on the Snapmaker at high resolution.  It printed in three sections which fit together very well.  Printing it in three sections means that its easily handled by even the most petite of print beds... which, as a Snapmker user, I'm particulary happy about.

I printed in PLA this time without supports and did zero cleanup before assembling and painting.  As the temperatures here have been hovering around -4 F I was unable to spray primer it and used a brush on of thinned craft paint.  Sealing will have to wait for a warmer day.










Here is a scale comparison with reliable Canoness Verydian.

The work up was Thinned craft paint gray base, dry-brush with Concrete (Reaper), dry-brush with white craft paint, wash the dragon with Green-Black (Secret Weapon), wash the rest of the model with Steel Wash (Reaper) dry- brush all with white craft paint.  Reds are Forge World Weathering Powders: Dark Rust, Light Rust, Orange Rust.












Here are a couple of shots of the raw print.  I've become a fan of painting the black PLA for fast paints and bulk because it holds paint well and doesn't really require primer for paint adherence.  The material is a bit shiny so I like to hit it with a thin coat of primer or paint just to take the sheen off the high spots... the crevices tend to get covered during the paint process and are not shiny if a spot is missed.

 Some other things from the table... more bats from a recently rediscovered Kickstarter bonus pack for The Order of Vampire Hunters.  There is a hug pile of models just wrapping up from this pack for the next post.

Lastly an updated Lady of Destiny from the first Heresy Girls Kickstarter.  After looking at the photos I thought she was a little too Ultra Marine so I went back to extend the yellow trim to make her a bit more chaos ornate.

Heresy Girls Lady of Decay and Lady of Destiny, plus a Gothic Baptismal Font from the 3D printer

 A couple of female Space Marine proxies from the Heresy Girls Kickstarter.  I know... the fluff has no female Space Marines but what could be more heretical, and more thematic, than the Traitor Legions adding some women to the ranks?

First up is the Lady of Decay.  I went with the helmet head but there is a very cool helmet-free head included with the kit. This is the resin version and although I have the .stl files for these models I've proven that my printer isn't really up to it so I'll be skipping those for the time being.

The casting was clean and the resin accepted glue and paint easily.  The pose, as it tends to be for all the models in this project, is utilitarian and a tiny bit like it stepped out of a recruiting poster.

This will make a great proxy in my Death Guard.








Painting was the usual khaki undercoat with sand and then white dry-bushed over it followed by a coat of Secret Weapon Sewer Water mixed with a drop of Vallejo Glaze Medium. Weathering made use of the Secret Weapon Weathering paints with Brown Rust being the primary and a spot of Citadel Ryza Rust and Typhus Corrosion technicals. The base is green-stuff brushed a couple of shades of white and washed with Secret Weapon Ruby.

 The Order of Vampire Hunters Guardians are basically low budget Hell Hounds.  The detail is quite low but hey, they are part of a horde of zombie dogs... 

Based Khaki, brushed up with whited, washed with Drying Blood (SW) drybrushed with Buckskin Pale (Reaper) spot washed with Seraphim Sepia (GW) washed with Strong Tone (Army Painter Ink) bases are Agrellan Badlands (GW texture) washed with 50-50 Sewer Water (SW) and Glaze Medium (V) dry-brushed with Buckskin Pale (R)







 Here you see the guardians with Lady of Decay for scale.














The Lady of Destiny is essentially a Thousand Suns Icon Bearer. At least She'll perform that function in my Thousand Sons based Warband. 

Paint is Khaki with sand then white dry-brush followed by a wash of Sapphire (SW) and some spot paints of Voidshield Blue (AP)/Sapphire (SW) mix to get that almost Ultramarine Blue look in places.  Yellows are the Reaper Yellow Triad.

The base is greenstuff painted to resemble a magic activation circle.













Lastly there is the Gothic Baptismal Font which I printed from files from the Rampage Gothic Kickstarter.  Its printed in Black PLA and was painted with my Current yellow metal treatment of Brass Casings (SW), Flesh Wash (SW), rebrush with Brass Casings and then highlight with Shining Gold (GW).  White is the reaper Bone Triad plush a thin wash of Stormcloud (SW) re-layered with Splintered Bone (R) and Glaze Medium (V).  Reds are Phoenix Red (V), Ruby (SW) and a thin Gory Red (R) for texture.











I haven't seen many actual Baptismal Fonts and the size/layout of this one seems a little odd... almost like its missing some steps or an access platform.  Its pretty large as you can see here with the Lady of Destiny.  Its a great size for a terrain piece as its big enough to block LoS or provide a good bit of cover but I might scale it down and do a smaller version as well... one of the cool things about 3D printing is I can re-scale for another go if I feel like it.

Back to the desk!

Raging Heroes Build Day and Star Saga wave 2 arrives

 This unit or Raging Heroes Void Elf Executrix Troops took most of my day to assemble.  They look great but the arm system took a lot of fidgeting to get in place.  Once the first set got done and I understood the process better the rest came along a lot more willingly.  These should function as Ynnari Incubi.

I have a Command Unit of these still waiting assembly but I've run out of greenstuff for the bases so they'll have to wait a few days on the post.

Speaking of the Post!  Star Saga wave 2 showed up.  Everything looks great except that one of the models has the wrong arms on... but Mantic have included the correct par of arms and it looks to be an easy swap.  The minis come assembled so there should be painted Star Saga goodness in short order!

Wave 2 also included the MDF tile set and conversion rules to make the Warpath/Deadzone material compatible.

I like the expansion package format with each being in a unique box with a storage tray and additional components.

I somehow ended up with three sets of the Star Saga Screen.  I think failed to notice that one was included with the KickStarter Freebies Bundle and maybe one with the all-in pledge... thaen I must have added an extra one making it three... oops!  No worries! A few extra game screens aren't really a bad thing!

I'm hoping to get some more 3D printed terrain, The Order of Vampire Hunters Wave 2, and couple of Heresy Girls knocked out this week so I'd better get back to the desk!

Twisted! Guild of Harmony and some other things...

The Guild of Harmony is the mysterious fourth faction in Twisted!  It seems largely to be composed of miniatures that predated the game and had been available for a while.  They are wonderfully Steampunk and fit in very well with the other factions.

Trevor the Rat is a Kickstarter/Tradeshow Exclusive and I'm not entirely sure where he fits into the game but the miniature is fun.









I had a really hard time getting him to sit well and ultimately decided to depict him as having had an accident that severed his tail... oops!  Ouch! Now known as Trevor the Rat with no tail....

This pair of Special Edition Dickensian Urkins game along separately from the box set and I had forgotten about them while I was doing the faction... happily re-discovered they can now join their fellows!

I love the Urkin Shooter covered in books!  Appropriately named Library... its a super cool vibe... he even has books for armor~!










The Urkin Slasher is called Bedtime and was a little challenging but I was pretty happy with the tartan muffler and pink... or really faded red.. bath robe... the teddy bear turned out to be a gold color... possibly a clockwork version.

 Probably my favorite pair of the set Ariel and Bastion the Crab!  lots of fun painting cool colors.

I think they end up in the Guild of Harmony Faction but I have't located the cards yet so its hard to be sure!  Turns out I seem to have forgotten to order the Monkey King so I'll have to remedy that!

 Who wouldn't love a Steampunk Tinkerbelle!

She is a member of the Guild of Harmony and an accomplished mechanic in this incarnation.

She's very sweet but has a bad side... don't get on it!

 Striped corsets bright colors... the fairy herself is a bit sooty but in a celebratory way!

Finally the day/night tracker for The Order of Vampire Hunters. 

Back to the desk!

Raging Heroes Ash Tank Gunner and some Heresy Girl Assassins 3D printer experiments with the Snapmaker

 Raging Heroes' Ash Tank Gunner was initially thought of as a torso only sculpt for use in a vehicle hatch but had the lower body included pretty early on in the TGG1 Kickstarter process.  As a result she became useful in a Forward Observer or scout role.  I have a few iterations of her so its possible I'll do a tank crew version of her but I really like having her in stand alone form.

She's painted like the Veteran Jailbirds in a signature prison color scheme.  The orange is Reaper Lemon Yellow a wash of Secret Weapon Orange and Highlights of Reaper Marigold Yellow.

 Ash also sports the Blood Red Rags of Rebellion that were popularized by the Jailbird Freedom Fighter Raven the Chainbreaker.

 Next up are the remaining four proxy Assassins from the Heresy Girls Kickstarter 1.  The Deathshadow was examined here although I think I forgot to mention the name of it.  In a similar vein I've done one each of the factory resin model and a 3D print from my Snapmaker on hi resolution.  The elements of failure are painted blue for clarity and also because I'll use these as active camo/ecm versions.

 First is Black Phoenix which seems like a Vindicare proxy.  The Snapmaker had a hard time with this one and I was unable to get the waist region of the torso to fill in so there is a big hole at the join.  With glue its stable but the poor girl looks kind of undead.

The factory resin, as all of them are in this set, was cleanly cast with little flash and practically no cleanup required.  The bases here are also from the 3D printer and the Snapmaker does good quality on them.

 Ghost is next and was the most successful of the 3D prints.  I used the alternate factory resin head and the 3D print version was not good.  Even on this more successful print there is a lot of printer error and lost detail.

 Ghost look like a Callidus Proxy and its passable in that role.  Its also useful for any sci-fi assassin or operative.

Last up is Jade Devil.  A clear proxy for Culexis psi-hunters.

This one was the most trouble for the Snapmaker and I got zero percent clear print.  Nice stealth field effect but a complete failure as a model print.

Bottom line is that the Snapmaker can't produce acceptable resolution in 28mm humanoid models.  I'm generally happy with its performance for buildings, bases, vehicles,  terrain, and accessories like dice boxes etc... but I'll have to move into SLA printing to make .stl files of 28mm soldiers viable.

Not all 3D printers, or 3D printer formats, are good for all printing projects so don't expect nozzle extruded 3D prints to fill the ranks of your toy soldier armies at this time.  SLA has much higher resolution and I'll get round to it eventually but for now I'll be relying on the printer for the more coarse applications where its pretty reliable.  The right tool for the right job!

Back to the desk!