Printing some AoS Terrain

I am now preparing some minis photos for my Netherforge battletome, so I needed some terrain for use at home. Then I realized "Hey! I have a 3D printer!"

I printed these designs because they make for quick prints that uses very little filament. Everything on the table there (except my Lord-Celestant of course) was printed on less than a single spool of $20 filament. I liked the original painting he did on his designs, and wanted to duplicate that, luckily good ol' Duncan did something similar.

However I did my painting a little different:

• Prime matte black
• heavy drybrush Kabalite Green
• drybrush Sybarite Green
• base Balthasar Gold on metal parts
• wash Agrax Earthshade on metal parts
• light drybrush allover with Screaming Skull
• finally wash and a wipe off with the watered down Mournfang brown method (see video)

How to make a display board in 7 days

Or alternate title:

How to not freak out when your brother asks you to make him a display board at the last week before the event!

As the alternate title suggests, my brother and I are getting ready for this weekend's Harvester of Souls 40k tournament in Spokane Valley, WA. I already have my display board and army prepared.  My brother, however, is running a little behind on getting his army ready. So about a week before the event, he calls me up and asks me to make him a display board, nothing too fancy, but something to center his army. I agreed because his birthday is coming up soon, and this can be part of it.

I thought about it a little. Jarom's ork army is pretty much 100% vehicles and bikes. Going for a Mad Max Fury Road theme. So I wanted to tribute a little to that movie (being one of my favorites), and rather than just doing a flat board with desert, I figured the mountain pass scene would be a cool scene to base it off of, especially since that scene employs bikes. I sketched it out and this is what I sent to him:

He liked the idea, so I began working on it. I had just recently watched this excellent video by one of my favorite YouTubers, and I was anxious to try the method out, so this gave me an excuse to do so. From here on out I pretty much just followed the video's instructions.

I start off by building up the layers using broken 1/4" insulation foam. It's thicker than the video, but it works for a board this size, which is about 18"x36". Much larger than I normally do a display board, but it makes sense considering the next step...

Before I continued, I wanted to make sure everything would fit on it, so he came over with his army and did a test fit. I found I had a little extra room to put some stuff on the ground level to break up the transition from the cliff to the ground. But this is a big army that needs a big board.

After adding some rock and debris, I sanded off the rough edges and blended the levels a little bit.

Next with a new tub of spackle, I got my hands dirty and filled in all the gaps, being sure to keep the striations visible in the rock face, but blend the top levels and rocks into the ground. This took a lot of spackle.

After the spackle dried, I went on to apply the sand, using a common construction sand. I did my usual procedure with this. First all purpose elmer's glue, then sand. Let it dry. Then did the coat of watered down glue over top to seal the sand in.

Now on to the coloring, because I am almost done. I am using cheap craft paints for this (Apple Barrel brand that you get at your common Walmart). I did the base coat in Burnt Umber which was tricky because the sand and rocks had a lot of nooks and crannies. I found the best way of doing it was taking a mug filled with the paint, add some water and some sort of flow aid (I just used a dishwasher rinse agent), this allowed the paint to flow easier into the tight spots the brushes have a hard time getting into while keeping most of the opacity of the paints. I was careful to not make a wash, though, I just wanted to thin the paint some and improve its flow.

Next I did a couple heavy drybrush coats of Golden Sunset. It took a few coats because I didn't want it to be too brown, but liked keeping the brown underneath and in all the cracks.

 

Finally I did a selective highlight drybrush of Lite Mocha to knock down some of the yellow and give it a final sandy look.

And that's it! A lot simpler and quicker than I feared, and I now love this construction method to make high cliffs. Today I'm prepping for the tourney this weekend so unfortunately I wont have a chance to show you the final board with Jarom's army on it until I take some photos at the event, so I look forward to that.

On another note, I realized I forgot to do a post on my army and display! So you will see that too at the event.

Canwalks - 3D printed sci-fi terrain system

Onto some cool scifi terrain.

I found these files on Thingiverse and gave them a go. The original designs are credited to Prometheum Forge which makes MDF terrain, and then some 3D printed equivalents were uploaded. Liking this a lot, because the prints used little filament and were fairly quick to do, I started to design some of my own walkways and platforms to go along with them, so I can get a table full of Necromunda/forgeword/factory scifi terrain.

First I designed these little catwalks to connect the can-tanks. They are meant to reach the height to the tops of the tanks that lay on their sides, and are about 50mm wide to give players plenty of room for minis. 25/32/40mm bases should fit comfortably on them.

Next I made some platforms with ladders for more features. The idea is to get these to stack high, making the Necromunda type effect, but I am struggling with that concept right now. Needs further tinkering with the files.

I tried making a big quad-vertical tank system that could stack, but this patter was fairly finicky. I may need to alter the patterns further.

Here is all of it put together for a view of what I have so far. More to come of course. This type of terrain favors skirmish gaming over the mass battles, but I think without the catwalks it could be versatile.

I am still working on the file designs at the moment, but when I think I have them down pretty good, I will upload them to my account on Thingiverse.

That's still not all I have been doing with my printer, the big project I have been printing is an entire AoS army. That's right, I have printed a whole army. And I will get some more into that in a later post. Here's a preview image:

My journey into 3D printing, a second time

If any of you have seen or followed my old blog, of which I rarely do anything on nowadays, back in 2014 I had a few posts of excitement over accruing a 3D printer. It was purely intended for my hobby, with the intent of mostly making terrain and some other useful things. I had some plans for some simple minis, but knew I wasn't going to get any real good detail out of it.

That experience was a disaster. I constantly tinkered on it, multiple calibrations, etc. What started at first as an exciting foray into a potentially cool venture, turned into a disappointing discouraging experience. I got maybe one decent print out of all of it and a lot of failures. With a little bit of anger, I decided to cut my losses and sell the printer a few months after I got it.

That was back in 2014, and I decided to retry it a month ago. After much research, mostly on YouTube and various other review sites I got some encouragement. I had looked into a lot of models, but finally decided on the Creality Ender 3, and the big reason was because of this video.

So I got mine, and with a little assembly, I had it running and giving me a near perfect first print. I was ecstatic. So for the last month or so I have been running this thing constantly, with little to no issues and very few failed prints. This is like a dream.

So a couple things, I did a lot of research. I watched hours of videos, mostly on using and maintaining a 3D printer. I recognize now several things I did wrong back in 2014 with that printer, and I could have probably gotten it working with what I know now. But the other big factor is it has been 4 years, and the technology only got cheaper and better. Newer printers, even the chinese ones, are much better than those old machines. And that printer back then was about $800 when I got it, and this Ender 3 cost me about $240 on Amazon.

So on to some prints, shall we?

I designed this using a simple online 3D design program called Tinkercad. I consider it the MSPaint of 3D modeling software, which is perfect for me, and it's good enough for my use. I found a rock pile file on Thingiverse.com, which is a great repository for free models for printing. Definitely a recommend resource for anyone wanting to get into 3D printing. So I found the rock pile, and using Tinkercad I cut in the recesses and added the 2 little dice trays. The big dice I can use for tracking the turn in 40k, the big bowl I mainly used for command points which I track with beads, the small dice I can use for victory points, or even tracking the turns in AoS. Whatever, I want really. It's a useful command tray for holding whatever I need in games. And it fits in my game tools bag, along with the dice, tape measure, etc.

Here it is painted up. I tried to go for a similar paint style that GW uses on their Warscryer Citadel, I really like that Azyrite meteor look, but after it was all done, it just looks like a stained wood, which works good too. I finished it off with a couple coats of a spray on gloss coat to give it some toughness.

I recently got the Castle Panic board game from a friend. Wonderful game, a great time for any boardgamer. Then I thought I would add some 3D printing flair to it:

I went ahead and printed a wizard tower for use as I plan on picking that expansion up anyway.

Now that is not all I have been printing. I also printed a couple toys for my girls, some parts for the printer itself, and Jarom had me commission him some preliminary parts for some projects he has planned. I have a couple more posts coming with cool stuff I have made.

2017 Year in Review

This was another good hobby-filled year. So here is a summary of 2016 for me.

T'au Empire (Warhammer 40,000)
I took my T'au to the Harvester this year. While my Index army didn't have too much success, it was fun. Let's hope they get a good codex in 2018. At least I have some newly painted battlesuits.

James' Necrons (Warhammer 40,000)
I guess you could call this a commission. Something I did for my brother so he could attend the Harvester of Souls with us. We will see what kind of codex will come out for it in 2018.

Censers & Tocsins (Nurgle Mortals - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
This is an army I have been trying to keep up on with painting. Compared to last year's summary, I only had some built, and none painted. My goal with this army is if I build something for it, I paint it, before building the next thing. There will definitely be more to come for this AoS force.

Forthammer Clan Throng (Dispossessed - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
I have had a ton of fun with this army. I took them to the Las Vegas Open, added some cool conversions, and am running them in a campaign, which is still ongoing. I have more on the painting table for these guys, so I am not done with them yet.

The Klad Barag (Dispossessed - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
This deserves its own entry here because I consider it quite the achievement. Still not 100% sure what I will use him as, but he will be a proxy for any big dude I want to run in friendly games. Perhaps not tournament legal due to being a proxy and all. I do plan on taking some better photos of this guy and sending them to White Dwarf. Let's hope something comes from that.

Forgesworn Eternals (Stormcast Eternals - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
I haven't really added anything to this army, just got completely caught up on painting. Lately nothing has really stood out for the line to get me to want to add here. At least with being completely painted, if I do add anything, I will be inclined to immediately paint it. Like my plans for my Nurgle dudes.

Tempest's Eye Rangers (Grand Alliance: Order - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
I only have a couple things here for the army, for now. They are only really ever intended to be for some Grand Alliance army, rather than a start of Freeguild. I would like to paint them this coming year.

Song of Blades and Heroes Stuff
For my favorite non-Warhammer fantasy skirmish game, I have added a lot of Reaper BONES minis to it here and there. And I made some nifty ruins for it as well. But most of all I am still slowly working on the Song of the Deep Empire campaign supplement for it. More on that in the coming year.

And that sums up the year. Lot's of fun projects, and of course, lot's of plans for 2018. Stay tuned.

The Farsetter Holds - Terrain Interlude

Game 2 is happening this weekend, but before that I got some special terrain made for it. Jarom and I decided that the next game should take place within one of the great holds of the mountain range. So I went out with the goal of making enough terrain to fill a 6'x4' table and simulate one of the great halls or interior of a grand dwarven hold. If you remember the Mines of Moria from Lord of the Rings, and Orzammar from Dragon Age: Origins, you get the idea.

One caveat to this, is I had to make it as cheap as possible, and as fast as possible. So I am not making any sort of award winning terrain here. The main build source material here is the really cheap dollar store foamcore. I have already given my review of sorts on dollar store foamcore, but it works here because this terrain really isn't meant to last very long.

I didn't chronicle the exact process and steps I went into for building this, but it really starts with something like this sketch I made in Publisher, then with some simple maths, and ideas sketched and penciled down on it. It becomes a work in progress as you make the terrain pieces.

Going for the build it fast theme, everything is pretty much held together with hot glue. This all took me a couple days to build. The blue stairs are made of course with 1/4" extruded foam board. What took a couple more days was the painting.

All the white foam in the foamcore had to be painted over with a thick layer of cheap black craft paint. Then I spray painted with my trusty Rustoleum grey primer, but in a splotchy pattern, I wanted to create some texture. After that I sprayed with a texture paint, which didn't really do much, honestly. This was a test to see if texture paint could work for terrain, and it really only adds a touch texture, not much of a visual one. I could have gone without it completely. Finally I did edge highlighting with a light gray cheap craft paint. That really brought it all together and proudly showed the details. Another note is I drybrushed a bronze craft paint within the doorways to help them stand out slightly.

The nice thing about these pieces is how modular they can be to represent different layouts with the holds. This is an alternate layout, still for the 4'x6' table.

We look forward to Game 2 this weekend, so stay tuned for that.

Song of the Deep Empire - Encroaching Waters

I have been doing some preliminary writing for a set of scenarios and campaign for Song of Blades and Heroes. The idea is about an ancient evil from the deeps of the oceans rise up to flood the surface, destroy civilization, and recede again. The mortal races of the surface are tenacious, and always rebuild. Prompting this to happen every thousand years or so.

It is a campaign, minimum 2 players, and each player builds a warband that grows as the campaign goes along. But one player takes the role of the Deep Empire, trying to ensure the Rise happens. Other players make groups of adventurers (trying to stop it), treasure hunters (the Deep Empire is ancient, and bring a lot of relics of the past with them), or mercenaries, among other ideas. It's really up to the players how they would involve themselves in this.

I am still working out the campaign paths, scenarios, and story, but I have one idea I really do like that gives the Deep Empire an edge over the other warbands.

Encroaching Waters
All models in a Deep Empire force has the Aquatic special rule and have to pay for it, no exceptions. While this can make Deep Empire models a little more expensive, it works out because every time a Deep Empire Personality activates, water features begin to appear and spread across the game board. These water features generally may be about 3" to 4" square, and of course they will have no effect on Deep Empire models, but for the surface dwellers, it can be quite a drawback to have to move and fight through them.

So let's make some encroaching water tiles for use during a game.

I started with a display pocket. These are thick flexible pieces of clear plastic used to mount signs. So one of these provides 2 sheets when you cut off the edges.

Next I taped one of the sheets to a wooden board to hold the sheet tight. I also put a paper underneath with the basic 3"x4" squares drawn so all my water pieces are sorta around the same size.

Using my trusty hot glue gun, I write out the outlines of some water pieces.

Then I continue to work on filling the pools in with hot glue, doing an inner boarder on one, then moving on to the next while it sets, and so on.

Continue until all pieces are filled in completely.

Once the sheet has cooled, cut them out with a decent pair of scissors.

I think they work well enough to convey shallow waters. They are small enough to fit in or around most pieces of terrain. Usually water features are more elaborate, but these are designed to be put down during gameplay.

I first tried making them and painting them blue, but I decided they looked too fake and stood out too much. I realized the clear option was better so you could see the colors underneath and they would blend in with the map better. Besides, shallow waters are not blue.

As you could also see I have a selection of aquatic themed BONES minis for this project. That was intentional. I will do infrequent updates as this project comes along. Maybe even a battle report!