A Nice Little Extra - Part 2

For a change I have not been progressing at my usual glacial pace and have actually got somewhere with my 3D printed gifts.  I've based everything on card and built up the ruined buildings a little more to offer some differentiation and to fill in the holes the printing process leaves when it is interrupted mid print.

I've also started to create some generic rubble which will be stuck around the collapsed walls.

Normal house filler applied to the walls and the half printed stairs

A blast of undercoat and the filler merges in to the rest of the walls quite nicely

After a liberal undercoat to the complete adobe house I've slapped on a quick coat of emulsion house paint, in this case Natural Twine from Wilkos.  For a quid it should see this project out.  A single coat doesn't seem to cover very well so it'll have to have a second after the one pictured below.

3D print next to homespun scratch build.  They don't size too badly next to each other

So with a second coat and 24 hours drying it's looking a lot better, so it can come back in to the house to have some details and aging/weathering applied.  Plans include nice tiled floor and window shutters made form coffee stirrers, the 3D pinted ones looked a bit rubbish so have been broken up and added to the rubble box.

All ready to be brought back in to the house

First coat of paint and they're looking good.  Rubble should give then each their own character

I've always enjoyed playing with fire a bit too much so making burnt beams for the rubble piles was a perfect opportunity to indulge my pyromaniac tendencies, all be it in a very controlled and limited way.

Look out for part 3 coming soon as the pressure rises to have something to show Mr M who kindly did the printing.

Afghan/North African Compound - Part 1

I hinted some time ago about turning an old phone headset box in to an Afghan/North Africa/Mexican adobe compound (link) and I promised a more detailed entry about how I made it.  So here it is.

Inspired by the work of the chaps over at Irrational Number Line Games who posted their exploits on TMP I recognised the box as one I'd seen lying around in the old office before it was closed down.  So with the box recovered I had the basis for my own adobe complex.  So whilst SWMBO was watching her soaps or drooling over Poldark I was cutting and sticking on a little table in the lounge, that way I was being sociable by being in the same room (even if she was roll her eyes at my antics).

Top of the box cut away with a flap left to tuck in to form a thicker compound wall

Foamcore inserts for the front and back walls of the house

Internal supports added for the roof, bit OTT really

The roof in place along with the door and windows cut out

A couple of views of the rear 'windows', these were a bit of a challenge to cut out as I had stupidly fixed the wall in place already, doh!

Adding the little details of the roof struts.  I spent far too long doing these really, trying to shape each one to have a nice angle at the end - uneccessary.

A quick bit of slap on it all.  Filler paint (the sort that will cover hairline cracks in your walls) and sand mixture, but I think the sand was a bit coarse for this though it looks okay in the pictures it's quite pronounce in the flesh.

Next up in Part 2 some toning down of the brilliant white to make it look a little more lived in, adding the tiled floor, the door, windows and gates and some stables.
Oh, and a comparison with the 3D printed house.

A Nice Little Extra

So there was an interesting news article the other day over on TMP for a range of Arabic buildings to print yourself from Terrain4Print (article here).  Now the file is only $10 and the instructions looked pretty interesting, only problem is... I don't have a 3D printer.  Nor do I know anything about 3D printers, how they work, how much they cost or cost to run, etc etc.  But I do have a colleague who's into all that sort of stuff.

So started to bend the ear of Mr M at work and he pointed me to a very interesting site called Thingiverse and what a revelation it was, all these free to use 3D print files.  Mr M offered to print me a test if I could find something like the building I was describing to him.  So I had a poke about and stumbled upon a free sample of the very files I had seen on TMP (here), Bingo.

So a couple of days later I get the call that I have a present waiting for me...  A lovely little adobe building in sturdy ABS, minus a roof, doors or windows/shutters but they should be with me on Monday, apparently this 3D printing lark takes quite some time.  Now the scaling is a little out, we went for 80%, but perhaps 66% would be closer to 1/72 now I've had chance to measure things properly.

A quick base and a sprinkle of sand and it's ready to hit with some undercoat

Now Mr M is a bit of a perfectionist and wasn't happy with the first attempt as it hadn't adhered to the print bed in one corner, the second attempt there was a power problem and it stopped and there was another issue with the third.  But rather than just bin them all I sense a ruined hamlet coming on...

So a massive thank you to Mr M and watch this space for progress on this quick little project.

GR III - The Final Shelf of Discovery - Part 2

So we left our hero wading through his booty from the Final Shelf of Discovery in his nice and tidy garage.  He had reached the final box, the box which he hoped would hold all the treasures he thought.

Goodies a plenty

I would certainly hope I could make a better job of painting this up now a days

Airfix poly tanks on the right, not sure what make the kit on the left is

More Airfix poly goodness with a mix of other bits and pieces.  The cannons we used to fire matchsticks from and that was our to hits rather than rolling dice

Technically labelled a ferry but it always doubled up as a beach assault craft in our childhood games

Beer mat basing from the days before laser cut mdf.  Mostly Citadel from the early/mid 80s

A real mix of fantasy figures including Citadels first generation of Lord of The Rings figures (Gandalf riding Shadowfax, Ithilian Rangers and wood elves), Lone Wolf fighting fantasy novel figures and assorted warriors and such.

I spy with my little eye boxes of figures and other goodies.  Packed really well as you can see, but looking complete the Airfix Coastal Defence set along with some spare bits (from somewhere) and I think the landing craft is from a Matchbox set, Beach Assault maybe.

Already hording figures at that early stage, still on sprue Germans are a beautiful sight

Airfix and Matchbox mix of US Infantry, there might even be some marines in there

Plastic Allsorts.  Think these might have come from a friend many many years ago.  I can spot Airfix NATO ground crew for sure and some gloss enamelled German infantry, plus various others

The final box of our odyssey, is this the one that would this hold the fabled motherload of figures?  Well judging by the scrawl in the corner (in my Mum's writing I think), YES!

Ooooo what mystery posters are these????

Well that helps date all this a little more

Barely a single day of peace since the end of WWII, and that was back in the mid eighties, hasn't improved much since either!

Gnasher badge complete with googlie eyes

Well this really is a blast from the past, my Beano - Dennis The Menace Fan Club membership card and badges (and my elder sisters as well I think), wonder if they are still valid?

Here we go, just look at that wonderful box art Matchbox had

My dad used to save old tobacco tins for me and my sister and fill them with coppers (1p & 2p coins) when he used to be away for weeks and months with work.  They certainly came in handy for me after the cash was spent

Didn't think I had so many plastic Napoleonics
Shame they aren't the RHA sets

No recollection of ever even having WWII French

A snapshot of my childhood

So there we go, my figures all found, the garage horde all sorted and a mammoth painting project born.  I guess I will have to catalogue them all in more detail at some point and perhaps decide what I am going to do with them all.  For instance I'm not too interested in Nappies so the boxes of them might go on evil bay at some point.