…and June’s…

…and May’s.

Crikey, I’ve been a bit lax recently on the blog. Life has simply got in the way a bit. I’m still working from home – unbelievably it might be May 2022 before I’m back in the office – and my hobby area has been overtaken by my office. After sitting at ‘work’ all day the last thing I feel like doing is sitting in the same place to do some ‘hobby’. That’s not to say I don’t want to do any hobbying, its just that I can’t face sitting in same place any longer. Working from home has its advantages, but i’m now sick of it. The other thing is that I’m a dad again, we recently adopted a 1 year old daughter, this certainly makes life busy lol.

3D Printing

So what have I been doing? Well, although I don’t seem to find the time to write articles for the blog but I have spent a lot of time on the computer. Downloading STLs, remixing models digitally, supporting models and preparing things to print. I seem to have substituted physical models for digital models. I’ve signed up to a number of model creators.

• Apyhrion Miniatures – link – awesome knights/titans/tanks/infantry, knights & titans are why I’m here.
• Grim Dark Terrain – link – terrain for Adeptus Titanicus, and it too is awesome!
• Soul Forge Studios – link – Battlefleet Gothic style spaceships, not really sure why I’m here but they are cool looking.
• Myth Bowl by RN estudio – link – fantasy football teams, for my Love/Hate relationship with Blood Bowl.
• One Page Rules – link – some cool looking models, but also rules and stuff too, just having a nosey at the moment.

Typing that all out has made me realise I should really cut back – eek!

I was subbed to Punga Miniatures but I was a little disappointed with the style of the teams after the Pi-Rat team. I swapped to Myth Bowl for their teams instead. They have some Dark Elf and Chaos Dwarf teams lined up, which I’m interested in.

Then of course there are the paid & free sources of models, Thingiverse, CGTrader, Cults3D, MyMiniFactory etc. All this means I’m rapidly filling up my hard drive – need more storage lol! I have substituted the ‘pile of shame’ for a ‘hard-drive of shame’ !

Ok so what have printed in the last 3 months?

Aphyrion Miniatures

Work continues on the 40k scale Nephilim Titan, I have started painting the legs. Got a bit of cleaning up on armour plates, and I’m thinking or reprinting the head at 110% as it looks a little small at the moment. I remixed an alternative weapon arm out of the Nephilim’s thermal lance and an Aikaos’ gatling cannon. Just to prove something has been painted, here’s the first of this post’s rushed photos.

I have also started to print an Adeptus Titanicus scaled Matriarch titan – an imperator sized titan – more on that later. Yes, the original scale is at 40k scale, and its been scaled down to 25%.

I also printed some Hastaxii heavy infantry from Aphyrion’s Covenants of Mars range. Again I remixed these models, by adding scaled down heads from Aphyrion’s other Knights and Titans.

Grim Dark Terrain

I have been printing the Walls of Mytilene on and off for a bit now. I have used a mix of FDM and MSLA printing, using my Ender 3 and my Mars2Pro printers. I have also digitally assembled some of the parts before printing to allow easier assembly and faster printing (well I’m not so sure about faster printing, but it does feel like it). I am now getting there though, I have about 2ft of wall. Here is a box of walls waiting for me to do some more printing.

I also started printing the GDT Forge Fane recently too. I couldn’t help it after seeing the instructions on the GDT blog. There is a lot of printing involved, and I have used a mix of FDM and MSLA too. I also digitally assembled the base corners too. I think I should have done a bit more digital assembly again for a faster build. Again another box of bits, although this time I think I have just completed all the parts, they just need assembly.

Soul Forge Studios

I have test printed a Doubtless Light Cruiser from Soul Forge Studios to see what it would come out like. I’ll be honest I have no real idea why I have collected these STLs. They just looked cool.

Myth Bowl

This is actually the most recent print, being cured while writing this post. They are part of RN Estudio’s Ancestrals Team an Egyptian themed undead team. I was rushing to get these assembled for a picture, but was running out of time, so some are armless at the moment. I have also just noticed some Egyptian styled bases in the OnePageRules download, so I think these guys may even end up with printed bases.

Adeptus Titanicus

Adeptus Titanicus is a game I have been quite taken with since its release but I have not had chance to get many games in of it to be honest. So of course I have been printing AT related things.
I mentioned the Aphyrion Matriarch titan earlier. This is being released over a number of months, and the next part should drop on August 4th, possibly final part – I can’t remember. Here is my build so far, with out any of the armour plates in place though. It’s big! A warlord is about as high as it’s waist.

I saw a cool conversion idea using Slaangor Fiendbloods (EG, GG, TO affiliate links) as the Slaanesh greater deamon, the Keeper of Secrets, proxying a banner of Questoris Knights with melee weapons – I will try and find the image to link to.

This gave me the idea of creating a Slaanesh corrupted titan battlegroup. Back in the day there were a number of Slaanesh Titans and Knights; Subjugator Scout Titan, Questor Scout Titan, Hell Strider, Hell Knight, and Hell Scourge. Check out the heavy metal page from WD190 below.

There are some nice looking Slaanesh titans by Andi Gordon on Thingiverse and CGTrader. So I’ve printed one of those at AT scale. I am thinking of using it as a Warhound proxy with shock lance and mega bolter. Of course there is only one printed, which is a little short of a battle group 😉

It also seems I can barely print anything without tinkering with it first. So I remixed one of her Sonic guns into the tail weapon design. The remixed tail weapon is top; with the original tail weapon below it.

Artisans-of-Vaul on CGTrader have a good selection of extra weapons and parts for Titans. I’ve printed the Mammoth Assault Pod, below, and I’m eyeing up the nice missile launchers next too.

The above AoV models are also available via Battlebling for those with out printers. I’ve got a few things form Battlebling even though I do print things myself. Mostly because I have not found a STL I like to print myself. For example I haven’t found a good arm substitute for the Warlord titan yet. So I’ve got some of their Warlord arm mounts to allow me to have a number Warlord weapons (i would link, but they appear to be out of stock). What I have received from them has been top notch printing, and I’d highly recommend their products.

Now if you like AT and watching AT battle reports on you tube, then you can get 10% off Battlebling by supporting Tabletop_Standard on their Patreon. I like what Tabletop_Standard do on their channel, definitely worth having a watch if you haven’t seen them already.

I have mentioned that I can barely print a model without having a little attempt at tweaking it here or there. Its just like a physical model, I just can’t help myself and have to convert it or modify it, or do something to it just to make it mine. This is my very first attempt at remixing a digital model before printing. Now it looks like it has worked in the picture, but it is actually just slightly too big. I remixed a plasma cannon model to sit on a Warbringer’s carapace mount. Once I’ve got it working I’ll put it up on Thingiverse or somewhere crediting the original model designers.

Painting

I haven’t painted anything in ages so I’ve been trying to paint quickly (I can’t bring myself to call it speed painting) one of the Blood Bowl teams I have built towards the start of the year. I picked Skaven to tray and ‘quick paint’ but I’ll cover more on them in a separate post.

There we are, all up to date. Fingers crossed for some regular article writing.