Night Goblin Conversions

I managed to do a little sculpting last week to move these Night Goblins along.  I am trying to strike while the iron is hot, so to speak, before I inevitably drift into thinking about other projects.

Converted Boss, Banner Boss, Shaman, and another Boss

Since I took this picture I finished prepping a 30 member regiment of spear gobbos, and now I am just waiting for a warmer weekend afternoon to get to priming.

Of course, given the time of year I may be waiting a while (and I spent the last one doing work on the house).

3d Printing II

In the midst of my extremely busy week last week, I managed to get a bit of time to head down to the downtown branch of the local library and try out their new maker lab.

The lab just opened less than a month ago, and aside from open hours, they also will set up appointments to meet with people anytime during the day.  They have two Makerbot Replicator +, machines which are fairly large, and faster than the older models at the other 3d lab in the library system.  Both of the labs allow you to print without cost, although they do recommend that users donate filament if they are using the labs frequently.

After a bit of an adventure finding parking, I met with the assistant librarian in charge of the lab, and loaded up a model I created in TinkerCAD.  This model is a building facade, designed to fit three buildings wide on a 8 inch frontage.  In actual terrain building, I would probably cast these in plaster, and attach them to a carcass for strength. As the model is not very large, it printed in approximately three hours, most of which time I was absent reading a book.

First layers of the raft being laid out

About an hour later

Final product, still with raft

Detached from raft, and compared to my usual test figure

Some numbers:
   Time to print ~3 hours (and about 10 minutes to set up)
   Material used (with raft) 43g
   Material used (without raft) 26g
   Cost of a 1kg spool of PLA ~$22
   Cost to print this model (if I paid for material) $0.95
   Actual cost: $20 for parking
  Comparative Shapeways cost: $21.89

Now I want to finish this model with some sanding and filling, and ultimately see how well it casts.  As I have another dozen or so models already finished in TinkerCAD, I am already trying to figure out when to go down to the library again...

3d Printing

A while back, I got on a Star Trek kick, and built a bunch of ships from Micromachines and home cast resin parts.  At the time, I was thinking about what the Cardassians would look like in the TOS era, and kicked around some ideas with the folks on the StarShipModeler forums.  My idea was that the Cardassians would be a cruiser heavy force, with their cruisers relatively scaled to the Enterprise of the era (small). As with the Enterprise to Enterprise D transition, the over all shape would be similar. Unfortunately, I did not have the time or skill to make anything of my ideas.

Fast forward 10+ years, and I started to play around with TinkerCAD (since that is what the local library's 3D printer lab recommends).  After quite a few building facades, I started to think about those TOS Era Cardassians again, and after mulling it over a bit, went ahead and sketched out a design, which gradually grew into a finished model.

I uploaded the model to Shapeways, and used their tools to figure out where the model needed additional support or filling.  I then ordered it in "white strong and flexible" material, which is very light and grainy (but very cheap).

A week or so later, a very light box turned up in the mail with this inside:

As provided from Shapeways

On a standard GW flight base

3D model for comparison

As compared to a Micromachine Connie

Quite pleased with how this turned out, both in terms of the reproduction of my design, and in terms
of meeting my design goals.

I think I could paint this pretty much as is, or finish it with putty etc and cast a few copies... although considering the ease and relatively low cost of this process, I am not sure how much sense casting would make as compared to ordering higher quality prints (or just more of these)

It is possible that I may have gone a bit overboard with making more designs.

Sculpting at work

Similar to my earlier post about painting at work, I have been sculpting at work lately.  mostly this is gap filling and the like for my various Inq28 figures, but I have added straps, fur, pistol holsters and a few more ambitious items.

The box is one of those old Games Workshop bitz boxes that I seem to have a few of, and it suffices for this use.  I carry a file, a needle pointer, a spearhead sculpting tool, and a custom made "lifter" tool I made from some sprue.  I use Apoxie sculpt exclusively these days, partly because it is water soluble (meaning easy cleanup) and partly because it is in the little plastic containers and thus has not dried up.  A bottom of a water bottle holds a bit of water for me to dip my tools in, piece of tape to hold figures and bitz during transit, and we are done.

Today I finished these three Steel Legionaries, two of whom have been converted to carry flamers, and one who has a single shot anti tank missile strapped to his back (for use in SGII battles).

The reason I have been converting these fine fellows?  The family is out of town, and like last year, I plan to get some serious army painting in...