A Busy Night at the Workbench

For the last two weeks, I've had this urge/need/desire to get as much done as possible. Is the Universe trying to warn me about something? Or, maybe its a subtle panic of old age coming on. I found out at a recent eye exam that I am starting to get cataracts. This could explain why I needed a stronger prescription of both reading glasses and distance glasses. I tried bifocals awhile ago and didn't like them. I have going back and forth between various projects.

Last night I completed a couple of things, which I happened to post on various Facebook groups.

3D Printed Fantasy Figures
Except for basing, I finished up my last two 15mm fantasy figures from the Shapeways shop, Small Ox Miniatures. They are 15mm versions of the sculptor's 30mm figures. I am glad I got them when I did because for some reason he recently pulled them from his shop. They are not as detailed as their larger versions, but still not bad. He printed them in some sort of black plastic that is has a very smooth finish. I wish more Shapeways sculptors used this material. First up is the High Elf Dragon Maiden:

Blue armor spoke to me when I saw her. I painted her armor silver and then brushed on a blue glaze. I then went back over some of the raised parts with a light dry-brushing of silver. I am not too happy with the highlighting of the face, however, this is a shot before I applied a coat of clear flat. When I put it on the face, the clear flat rubbed off most of the highlights! This is the first time that this has happened. I reapplied the highlights and I think it looked better.

Next Vampire Lord:

Sorry about the crappy picture. I usually manage better shots than this but I wanted to put it up on one of the Facebook groups and was in a rush to take it before my phone battery went dead. I think he turned out a little better than the Elf warrior. For the armor, I mixed black and a touch of blue with silver. Once dry, I lightly dry brushed it with silver. The face and hands were painted with a mixture of light flesh and gray, which was the same colors I used for that Necromancer I posted back in October. I gave everything a wash of Vallejo dark gray wash. I then went back over some of the skin with a diluted version of the original skin color. He and the Elf will be mounted on metal fender washers rather than my usual thin sheet steel bases. They are so light that they need a little more weight to keep them on the battle field.

1/600 Terrain
I also managed to finish off a bunch of trees and a little house for my Bovatopia campaign. I think the trees are a little more suited for 1/300. They are blobs of polymer clay stuck on some wooden rods that I bought at a craft store. In turn, they are mounted on washers with more clay globbed on to make the base. They are then flocked and sprayed to hold the flock in place. I probably spent more time on them than I planned.

The house was a test piece, proof of concept, so to speak. My goal is not to spend lots of time on 1/600 terrain...its quantity over quality here. The house is a block of balsa wood with a rod of styrene plastic for the chimney. Windows and doors painted on. The roof looks like crap, but again, don't care.

Another quick photo for the 1/300 Facebook group

I had planned on knocking out more little houses last night but I couldn't seem to find my mitre box.

BeeSPutty

Today's mail-order purchase, BeeSPutty:

It's a polymer clay, but sculpts more like a wax than a clay. What does that mean? According to those in the know, you do more carving rather than with regular sculpting clay. It has more "memory" than other modelling materials like Greenstuff. It is also sticky, which means you can affix pieces onto each other better than with conventional clay.

There are some guys on the Facebook 15mm fantasy group who are using it to make figures. Awhile back, I started sculpting faces onto Splintered Light Miniatures' armored ogres. I thought this might do a more detailed job than polymer clay.

Its a lot more expensive ($10 for a 3.5 oz. container) than a comparable amount of polymer clay, and so far the only place in the US where you can buy it is from Bombshell Miniatures.

I bought two containers, one for me, and one for my daughter who has really gotten into making charms out of polymer clay. She has pretty much absconded with my polymer clay. I thought this would be fun for her to try out.

1/285 Scale Saab 105 and Scratch-Built Gun Pods

It took over a month for me to get it, but I finally got my Shapeways order. I'm not going into the ugly details on how many trips it took to the post office, the time spent both on the internet and on the phone to track down the correct shipping number, but for the price you have to pay, you would think express mail would be faster and smoother than good old US mail. 

Among my purchases were two Saab 105 trainers, one of which is shown below:

Saab 105

They were a pain to separate as they have a pretty thick sprue attaching the two planes. Fortunately, the designer put the sprue at the two plane's bellies. I managed to saw them apart with a razor saw without any damage. As you can see, the plane is blue,but that is a superficial layer of plastic. When I cut the sprue off, the plastic below it is white. I'm not sure what the purpose of the outer blue layer is. The surface is pretty frosty, but I think using gesso or Vallejo's brush-on primer might smooth out some of the graininess. 

Why the Saab 105? If you have not figured it out by now, I like obscure weaponry. There were several variants that were modified for ground attack. Although I can't find the source again, I though I read somewhere that some were used during the various wars in the Congo. The model does have hard points. What the 105 doesn't have are built-in guns. Enter the gun pods....

Gun pods. Ruler is scaled for 1/285

These guys are probably the toughest scratch builds I've made so far...probably tougher than the light machine gun I made that cost me a drop of blood. They are made of styrene rods of 2.0mm diameter that I shaped using an emery board and my little chopper. The hardest part was the gun.  The gun is a very thin wire. I bore a hole in the front end of the pod using a small needle that I heated up with a candle flame (the soot is why parts are black and gray). The wire was glued in with CA-glue and it was very tricky trying to get the wire to be vertically and horizontally true. I'm not sure how successful I was. Once secure, I snipped off most of the wire with one of my older sprue cutters. 

They don't represent any specific, real life gun pods. They are definitely not perfect, but once glued to a hard point and painted, they will look ok. I have plenty other ordinance to mount on my Saab 105s like laser-guided bombs, and rocket pods are pretty easy to make.

I'll get pictures up of the planes when finished. 

More Federal Republic of Gambusia AFVs

I could have sworn I posted these, but I guess I have not.

The Federal Republic of Gambusia (FRG) has an infantry battalion of made up of more modern APCs than old Saracens. It consists of Canadian 6-wheeled Cougars and Grizzlies. The Cougars have been modified into fire support vehicles and ATGM carriers.

I used the turret from a Scotia-Grendel Stingray light tank for the FSV. The ATGM were scratch built. Unfortunately, they all came out a little different on those. This is the best of them. These were my first conversions that I made when I plunged into modern gaming and I am quite happy with them.

Bovatopia Campaign: Lavonian Units Painted and Based

I've had most of these done for awhile now. The most recent to be finished are the infantry, which for me, is the toughest to do in 1/600 scale. Lavonia is the main opponent to Bovatopia. Although it sounds like a small central European country, there is an actual Lavonia. Its a small town in northern Georgia (as in Georgia, USA; not the Georgia south of Russia) just over the border with South Carolina. We pass by it whenever we are going to my daughter's tennis tournaments in Atlanta.

Leopard M1A1

Polish Rosomak wheeled IVF

Brazilian EE-9 Cascavel AC

Lavonian infantry with supporting Milan ATGM teams