Smaug

 Big Red finally got a base coat 

Smaug

 I've been enjoying painting Necromunda models, so no surprise  I caved in and went and purchased the new Necromunda rule book and the House of Blades book. Hopefully I will be able to get some of the lads at the club to play at some point. Either the new or old rules.

In the mean time I have finally got some more green stuff so I've been putting together Smaug. He didn't fit together very well with the expansion of the resin during curing, so I had to do do alot of filing in to make the parts all work after sanding them back. I think the end result will be ok, if I get my painting right it should hide most of  the lines. He's definitely a big beasty

Them Trolls

 I managed to get in some painting time today. So to start with and to do something different from Necromunda models I started on my three trolls for LOTR. Using alternative models I had printed up last week. 

I'd been having issue gluing the resin models together, so after some advice from a Mark the other week, I ordered some accelerator for super glue, which turned up on Friday. It works really really well, and I've been able to glue the resin parts together really easily. It's awesome stuff. The Zap Zip Kicker is well worth it, saves time and frustration.

I've got the first few colors down on the trolls along with the first skin wash.

While I wait for the troll wash to dry I moved onto a few more Necromunda models and got the base colors down....man I'm so looking forward to actually playing some games...soon I hope, once we get out of lockdown.

Assembling Smaug

 

The resin printer cabinet got some more work done on it yesterday, added in a centre flange to cover the join when the doors are closed and also some internal flanges along the sides behind each of the hinges to block any major light leaks. I've still got some clearance at the bottom so I can remove the spill tray should I have any disasters. Also bolted on the handles to the cover now that I'm happy with the setup as the valcro just wasn't cutting it.

I finally got around to start working on the Smaug print and putting him together. I discovered how much the print was out. That is the parts not fitting together and were well out. Which will be my printing settings and the expansion of the resin, something I hadn’t counted on. (I’ll need to learn more about that in the future)

So I got the good old Dremel out and found some sanding stone bits for it from the kit I had been given and tested them out on a block of resin I had kept from earlier mistakes. Once I had the right bits, I cleaned up the connection points on the model with some effort. Not having much experience with resin and sanding I took my time so not to break anything (including me). I discovered that it's a dusty process and a quick alteration to my spray booth cabinet had the dust going outside instantly. I just stappled up an old towel over the front of the spray booth with a slit up the middle so I could see and work. This was enough to create much better vacuum inside the box and I could see the dust rising off the model as I grinded it back.  Full breathing mask was mandatory of course, with resin dust you can’t be ignorant. So super stoked with the spay booth. All the effort I had gone to install the LED’s has really paid off. So, I’ve now got a sanding booth and spray booth.

With the joints in the model now a little out after the sanding, I’ll have to fill them in with green stuff and make a few alterations to the base to make it work. (All part of the fun)

This evening I’m trying out a resin mix of the last bit of green resin with some clear resin. It will be my first resin cocktail. I dont expect any issues as they are both from Anycubic standard resin range. More cyberpunks for Necromania, 6 models and a motorbike all at once.

Smaug print

 So I've now completed the Smaug print and and it's cost me $50.81 in resin. Which is just awesome, if you consider you need to pay $650 NZ dollars to by the Games Workshop version.

Now I just have to sand down the joints a little as they are a bit tight before assembling and painting.

I also spent some time and worked out the costs so far and put everything into a spreadsheet.
At this point having printed 68 miniatures, that's counting Smaug as one, and a little hovercraft for BattleTech which is tiny as one. Just keeping it simple, so  I'm at $33.03 per model, after two and half bottles of resin. I should half that by the time I get through my next two bottle which are included in that price.

Safe to say its not going to take long to justify the costs... not that I have to, but tis good to keep track of costs and see what the models I'm making are actually costing. The running costs are definitely more expensive than filament printing, but the results are just awesome.

I've just cleaned the vat again after printing Smaug's and his huge bases, along with 30 plus models, and its holding up really well now that I have the exposure time correct for the resin. 

These two cyberpunks are off my last print, the quality is awesome, and I'm sure I can actually get it better with more time and tweaking the settings..

Smaug

 There is absolutely no way in the world that I would pass up the chance to print a red dragon, I mean I have one tattooed over my entire back, so of course I'm gonna print Smaug. And now I have the rule books and have committed to play LoTR …One must print a friendly red dragon.

 

So far, he’s coming out great. I even learnt how to put holes in the models and print them hollow which saves a lot of resin.  I’ve still got the legs (currently printing) and the very large base to go…. So I’ve extremely happy with the printer at this point of its early life.

And for scale, a standard hero model I printed and started painting for Necromunda at 32mm.

Hobby day - Upgrade part two.

 So today has been another full on hobby day, this time I built a small shelf so I could stack my paint holders on top of each other to give myself more painting space. My new room layout is starting to work well. Just need to build a cabnet with extraction for the resin printer... whcih is my next large project once the wood arrives next week. 

 

Once that was complete, I got stuck into printing and also some painting. I’ve now printed enough for two gangs for Necromunda. Although I’ll probably need more models with different weapon options.

Completed printing, green stuffing and undercoat the Gorgoroth for Lord of the Rings. I printed it on my FDM printer so a little warping on the print bed meant it needed a little green stuff to fill in the gaps. Overall I'm pretty pleased with it. 

The Good, The Bad and the rather Drinkable drop

 Now that I'm over the shock of the flooding (The Bad), we spent this morning clearing the debris off all the fencing. From cupboard doors, tries and all sorts of trash, mostly plastic all mixed in with the copious amounts of weeds and grass. We also managed to untangle our log swing seat and cart it back to our section in bits using the ride-on lawn mower and trailer. It ended up about 100 meters away from its original location in the neighbours oppoiste boundry fence. How the hell it went over the fence inbetween our sections without destroying the fence I have no idea. The power of mother nature is truly amazing... if not a little scary. 

My hand on the tree below indicates the water level , and where I'm standing at ground level is about two meters above the normal level of the river. So its came up about 4 meters ... 150mm of rain in less than 12 hours is a hell of alot of rain. So glad the house is higher.

Onto more fun topics (The Good), my order of water washable resin turned up and I'm currnetly trying that out. Already the smell from the raw resin is way less moxious. So hopfully with some tips I've picked up online I'll get past the problem of the printes sticking to the FEP... or leaving small layers on the FEP in the vat. Even when I'm getting good prints.

Currently printing some Uraki  Orc's for Lord of the Rings, 

The local liquor store is still doing lockdown contactless deliveries, which is keep me in good spirts with a couple of very drinkable drops. One of my favourites of recent times, being the Suntory Whisky makes for very easy drinking and goes with choclate very very well.

Lord of the Rings- Gorogoth

 Found this great model of a Gorogoth to print for my LoTR army I'm planning on building entirely from printed miniatures. 

My first attempt at printing something larger in resin, will be interesting to see how it turns out in the morning.

Fail!

 Well last night the print failed, or more accurately the printer failed. For some reason it stalled during the print. Nothing in the logs, so not sure what happened, hopefully its not an issue with the STL file. The one good thing is that I can tell using what was printed it is a little to small for my face. So second attempt I've upscaled by 115%.... 23 hr print, fingers crossed this one works.

Also managed to find the tracking site from my resin printer and its in Auckland .. whaoo.. hopefully I'll get it this week. It will be a good distraction for me while we are in full lockdown.

I'm already planning to make a LOTR army, entirely from printed mini's. Well that's the plan anyway, now that I finally caved in and got the rule books. Which I must say are very nice hardback volumes.

Big stompy things

 Almost a month since my last post.. crazy how time fly's'.  Last weekend at the South Auckland Club we had a huge game of Lord of the Rings. Thanks to the guys having supplying the armies. We ended up with 3 plyers each side. 

Glen, Steven and Jason playing the good side and Bryan, Kaven and myself on the evil side.

Since i dont have any models for this game I got to use Glens finely crafted beast of trampling with a horde of Orc's. (Rhino type things which I cant recall what they were called)  Squashed Dwarfs everywhere, as I rolled really really well) It was alot of fun even if I did get wiped out to right down to the last orc. A really fun game, which I defiantly don't need to get into as I have way to many games already.  (Never say Never ) The good side prevailed in a blood bath of mayhem. Great day of gaming.