Chaos Renegade Militia - Infantry Build Redux 5b

Small update following on from the last post.

I've not touched a Militia model since then (which is a relief), instead I've been removing Scions from their sprues and having a play with the 3D models I need to redo the HW teams.

These are not 100% finished yet, I may need to refine things once I plan out how they will be cast up, also need to mount them all on a sprue. I also need to check with Shapeways what minimum sizes etc are needed for the details - been a while since I have had to have any printing done.

Missile...

It is 14mm long, as opposed to the 29mm of the standard GW missile. I've kept the same basic design and size just tweaked a few lengths at the end.

And to carry them around in a new box:

Smaller and more detailed than my old version. The two holes you can see will act as locators to drill holes to fit a handle made out of brass rod.

As you can see the box can fit three missiles in.

Similarly we have a new carry case for the Mortar shells.

As before I want one tube to be open, I will fit a cap on those I don't want to be open when assembled on a base (or in terrain pieces/as vehicle stowage).

As before the two holes are there to fit a handle.

Once I have decided on how I will cast them I'll get them finished off and sent to be printed.

At that point I'll also do some larger, better renders to show the pieces off better.

Shipping Container 1

I am slowly getting over whatever crap I have had for the last 'x' weeks.

Hopefully this weekend I will actually be in a state of touching a model (shocking I know).

In the meantime I managed to spend a couple of hours doing some quick mock ups of something I have been looking to do for a while.

Mainly for use on a Zone Mortalis board I have wanted some large shipping containers to give some cover in large rooms big enough to block LOS easily.

So with some card and foamboard we have the mock up for the size:

 

Big enough for an Ogryn to stand up.

The standard size will be 150mm long.

From here I did some very quick 3D models to show how I plan to build this thing.

Basically the main body would be made up out of 'rings' which join up to make the full length, I want to do it this way to allow me to vary the length but also to keep costs down and make it easier to cast the pieces up. At each end would be an end plate incorporating a door.

Keep in mind no details have been done yet - this is just basic shapes, I'll be starting from a clean slate when I come to do the proper model.

The interior will be detailed up and the door will be removable (hinged possibly?) to give the option of having the container open.

This won't be a quick turnaround (due to not having the time to throw at it) and it won't be cheap to get it off the ground due to the 3D printing costs.

However if people are interested in maybe picking up some casts it is more likely to happen sooner rather than later.

If your interest has been peaked let me know below.

Scatter Terrain 17

Quick update on the pallets.

I've cast more pallets and started to add the stores to them all. Now the cast quality of the stores isn't perfect because as they will all be covered in tarps it wasn't important, hence I did quick and easy casts without using the pressure tank.

I also added some scale model pieces to add variety.

As you can see above I have some casts of the now no longer available Chimera/Russ & Baneblade road wheels. I did these just for this purpose.

I plan to keep casting pallets this weekend as I have loads more store casts and scale model bits to use up. I also want to make some larger crates to add to them and start mixing in some Guard bits.

Once I have more cast up I'll start adding the tarps.

As a reminder this is one of the test pieces I did when I started experimenting with tarps:

Should have another update up this weekend.

Scatter Terrain 16

Well after six straight posts on the Junka I thought it would be good to have a post which is completely different.

I've been doing some casting recently due to getting some new equipment (I'll cover that in another post on it's own later) and I decided to return to a project I last looked at way back in July 2012 - I can't believe it has been that long...- namely some pallets for scatter terrain, especially for games of Zone Mortalis.

Due to it being so long it is probably best if I start from the beginning.

I did some 3D models...

You can make out in the pics that one hole was skull shaped, just for fun.

Each pallet was in two parts, namely a base and a top. These were then 3D printed, and after cleaning up (the ID plates didn't come out at all) and a coat of grey spray they looked like this:

So going with the large pallet I decided to finally get some moulds done and pieces cast.

The base went off without a hitch and I've now got seven cast up, I say without a hitch I made a cock up with two of them and amazingly managed to not put enough resin in, but I just carved a bit of battle damage into the one corner and it'll be fine.

 

When I opened up the mould for the top I hit a problem. I can without worry of being contradicted say that this it the worse mould I have done. Due to me rushing it and trying to recycle old rubber I found there was a number of air bubbles (more than a dozen), but those can be worked round easy enough - it just means more clean up of the casts will be required. However the worst thing is that a small area of rubber had 'lifted away' (I can't think of a better way to describe it) from the master. It's not an air bubble as the 'lifted' area has the detail moulded in it...

 

Weird.

So I am in split mind as to what to do, I could do a new mould but that would take a couple of days and even recycling the old mould would still cause some waste and I need what unused rubber I have left for other things. I think I can get away with it. It's in an area where stores can always cover it, plus I will be adding tarps to most of the finished pieces so I think I can always cover up what isn't covered by stores. Certainly for now I am going to use this mould to knock out some pallets.

Once cleaned up the assembled pallet looks like this:

And with some quicky cast barrels...

As mentioned above the plan will eventually have tarps over these things, as shown in my earlier experiments...

So that's that for now, I will knock out some more pallets and start getting stores on them and tarps added. I'm not sure if I want to do the small pallet, I think it is a bit redundant to be honest. But I may come back to it in the future.

Gun Turret 7

It's been a while since I did a post regarding the Gun Turret design I was working on. The last post was basically putting the whole thing on hold with little chance of it being printed and cast as a physical finished model.

Well things change...in this case I was approached by a friendly chap who was looking for items to add to his product range for the store he was about to launch, he was most interested in the gun turret.

So where are we now?

I decided to start from scratch with the design, moving further away from the basic square design. I plumped for a six sided structure, with a entrance to the rear with the other five walls identical - thus cutting down on the number of prints required...

Pretty straight forward so far...

But I wanted something a bit more. My cunning plan was to make it a dual design that could either be a gun turret or a bunker. At first I thought a full bunker that could take a full 10 man squad, but that would of meant it being far too big. So instead we decided on a command bunker.

For this the top plate flips over...

On the other side of the top plate we have a comms unit which will have holes for brass rod to be added as aerials while at the front we have a radar dish.

Detail above shows the 'other side' of the top plate, while below shows the entrance better.

Now the radar dish isn't fixed in place. As you can see in the detail shot above of the top plate there is a hole in the radar mounting point. This is for a magnet to be fitted which can allow the radar to be swapped out for a searchlight...

So that brings you up to date on what is happening with the Gun Turret.

At the moment various printing and production methods are being investigated but hopefully it won't be too long before the above goes on offer to people.

As for the friendly chap who approached me and who will be selling this he goes by the name of Col Gravis and you can see his Blog here while his store can be found here.

Recalcitrant Daze - Pre Holiday Post

One final post before I leave for holiday...

6^th Edition.

So yesterday I got to play 6^th edition for the first time. Overall out impression was positive. It was very much a non-competitive game as the two of us were trying out as many rules as possible. With that in mind I took as many different types of unit I could. Likewise in the game itself we took decisions that we probably wouldn’t do in a regular game just so we could try something else out. Though I should point out for completeness sake I did lose...

As I said overall our impression of the new edition was good. Obviously we need to play far more games to really get a hang of it. New rules such as Warlord Traits and secondary missions passed us by somewhat due to what we rolled and not really keeping them in mind. The new vehicle rules seem a nice balance and no problems spring to mind regarding movement, shooting or assault. Hard to judge the flyer rules though on one flyer in one game.

Stores.

As mentioned previously my re-prints of the crates and drums have arrived from Shapeways. Unfortunately they are just not good enough to use. When I return from my holiday I will be ordering prints of them from another supplier.

Some pictures of the latest prints...

Don't think I need to point out what lets these prints down.

Generator.

Do you remember the generator I was working on a while back...?

Well if you do you may also remember me saying I wasn’t going to get the generator and control unit printed due to the quality of prints not being good enough (as highlighted with the pieces above), or rather the quality of prints I could afford to get done.

Circumstances change though...

Those screen shots are taken from Secret Weapon Miniatures latest video live broadcast, which can be found here.

Now I don’t know when the generators will be hitting the Secret Weapon Miniatures webstore but I doubt it will be long. I am quite looking forward to getting my hands on some personally.

And as Justin mentions in the broadcast expect more pieces from me coming from me and Secret Weapon Miniatures in the future.

Post-Hols.

Once I return I have on my to do list has the following four priorities (in no particular order, and 50/50 chance this list will change):

Tank Traps – damaged versions to be done and cast.

Stores – to be ordered from a different 3D printer company.

Kopta Karrier – continuing to defeat the beast.

Pallets – moulds and casts to do.

From The Spring Offensive

So that is that for now. All being well there should be an update in less than a fortnight.


In the meantime why not check out some blogs...

The Spring Offensive

The Painting Bunker
Col Gravis

Gun Emplacement Mk.II 8 & Scatter Terrain 10

A brief hiatus from the Karrier to work on a couple of my own ongoing projects.

Gun Emplacement Mk. II 8

After many hours sanding, filling, spraying, filling, sanding etc the modified gun mounting plate was ready for casting.

I removed the plate I had previously added to the gun mounting plate so that the area where the crew raise and lower the gun was free of trip hazards (health & safety...), the hole underneath along with the circular hole at the rear had then to be filled and sanded flat (too ages and many goings over). The modified Basilisk plate was then added before going round filling in, sanding and so on...

Anyway. I did a mould and knocked out some casts...

The first perfect cast.

As you can see two of the three had an imperfection on the edge.
Bloody annoying.

I drilled out the two holes where the Earthshaker pieces fit into and assembled the Earthshaker. Blu-tac only for now:

And then in the fully raised position...

'Bang Bang' said Militiaman Bob as he smugly looked over the wall.

Sort of tempted to actually paint it...long shot but it may happen.


Next up...

Scatter Terrain 10

The Dragons Toof got a mould done and I knocked a few casts out.

I did a few in plaster and a few in resin to see the difference in them.

Rather than just take some pictures of some casts I based four of them (two plaster and two resin) and added some sand. Keep in mind this was a very quick and rough basing job, just wanted to see how the parts looked in context.

Militiaman Bob gets around.

Undercoated you can't tell the difference between the two materials.

Shock, horror I actually painted them - again just a quick and rough job.

I went with a brass top plate just to highlight them, I doubt I would go with brass eventually.

The plan is to do a few casts in resin incorporating rebar, i'll carve them up and add damage etc before using them as master for a set of moulds.

Quite pleased how they turned out, was a bit worried if the skulls would show up well enough originally but they show up easily without being too in your face.