Shapeways Shops

There are a lot of folks at Shapeways who are pouring out minis. This includes those at the micro scale. Like others, I have not been overly impressed so far by the level of detail. Of course that has not stopped me from buying some. One thing that really bugs me about the Shapeways site is that their site really sinks in terms of navigation. I have yet to figure out how to get a list of shops that specialize in what I want. You have to search for a particular item. It just annoys me.

I came up with a list of various shops that offer micro scale miniatures. This list is rather biased toward my areas of interest. Furthermore, this is not meant to be a critique of the minis, nor do I compare prices.  I just complied this so you and I can more easily access the shops on Shapeways. If there any others that I've missed, please let me know.

New Aragon Mechanical Works
Designer: Carlos2k10 
Consists of 1/285 aircraft and mecha. Have a number of early interwar biplanes and jet fighters from the 50s and early 60s.

Dragoman's Depot
Designer: Dragoman
Has a variety of models including 1/600 and 1/300 (lists as 6mm). Aircraft ranges from the 1930s until now, with the majority being interwar. He has several interesting never-weres. His vehicles are an interesting mix, but the majority is 1980s Cold War. He seems to be starting a line of modern South Korean AFVs.

Objects May Appear... 
Designer: afrodri 
Large number of naval vessels in a variety of scales. If you want modern warships, this is the place to come! He has a smaller selection of aircraft, but some interesting ones such as the F7U Cutlass.

Tiny Thingamajigs
 Designer: matt_atknsn
Focuses WW2 naval ships. Has a few aircraft in 1/285 scale that include some modern jets and some interwar aircraft. He has a larger selection of aircraft in 1/600 scale, including helicopters.

 Masters of Military
Designer: masterofmilitary

Focuses mainly on 1/285 vehicles. A lot of WW2 never-weres and some modern civilian vehicles.

Arctic Skunk
 Designer: mpennock
A small selection of 1/285 early jet fighters.

Prairie Hawk Gamers
Designer: snowfox01
Very large selection of 1/285 aircraft with the bulk being early jets to modern. Some concept jets, too. Produces a lot of aircraft that can’t be found elsewhere. For example one of the few manufacturers that make a A-37 Dragonfly.

Kampfflieger models
Designer: kampffieger
He has a pretty large selection of aircraft at various scales. His microscale aircraft consist of early jet age, interwar, WW1, WW2 with a few WW2 experimentals thrown in.

panzergrey
Designer: panzergrey
1/350 scale WW1 buildings. I am not clear why he picked that scale, but says that his buildings should be compatible with 1/300. He is also willing to make them in other scales.

lukeuedasarson

Designer:lukeuedasarson
Big selection of Cold War 1/285 vehicles, but seems to be mostly minor WarPac nations, particularly engineering vehicles and trucks.

Fen Edge Wargaming
Designer: NickHawkins
Large selection of interwar and concept aircraft. The designer states that his aircraft are useful for Pulp and alternate-war kinds of games.Most that I see at his shop seem to be in that vein.

Federico's Shop 
 Designer: fgiunchi
A small shop, but has a bunch of terrain accessories that look very useful. For example, he has some storage drums in 1/285.

Three New Technicals

This is crazy! A new post a day after the previous one! More fun & games with my new phone and its camera!

New Kids on the Block

 I painted these guys back sometime in late summer/early fall. I think these are Scotia trucks, but I am not sure. The guns are by Heroics & Ros. Previous technicals were painted a sort of khaki green, but I've decided that from now on, technicals will be civilian colors. Though you can't tell, the front truck is armed with a WW2 German quad 20mm Flakvierling 38. These are pretty small trucks, especially the white one. Its about the same size as the GMC pickup truck that H & R makes.

Greetings 2014

There are a lot of blogger folks that have posted their gaming thoughts concerning last year and their plans for this year. I didn't really want to review 2013 because there wasn't a whole lot going on hobby-wise for me, particularly in the the second half of the year. I did do some gaming, but never got around to posting my adventures. Therefore, 2013 was not a great year for blog posts. Besides not a lot of hobby-related activities, I found that I had little time to post things. But this may change!

Welcome Chris to the 21st Century!

There was special on January 2nd for a Samsung Galaxy S4 phone at BestBuy. Up to this point, I've been using an old flip phone. I really wanted an iPhone, but the price was right for the Samsung: free. At least for the phone. I was told by many that the Samsung had a better camera than the iPhone. My wife has an iPhone and her camera is pretty darn good, so it was hard to imagine an even better camera.

Last night, I did a test drive of the camera's macro abilities. I had some 15mm Chariot Miniatures mounted lizardmen (LIZ010) on hand. Other than cropping them, no digital touch ups were made on the pictures.

Test shot 1: Samsung Camera only

Test shot 2: Using Magnifying App

The first shot was just using the camera itself. The second was using a magnifying app that I found. Both employed the phone's light. I am not really sure which is better, but either way, I am pretty impressed. Using my camera's phone is a lot faster than setting up my DSLR, so hopefully, I will be posting more than I have. In addition to fun & games, I do have a serious reason for having a phone with these capabilities. I take a lot of photographs of fossil specimens for my research. Many of the specimens are rather small, or I need close ups of certain features. This phone should be very useful in the field or at museum collections where I don't have access to a camera stand.

Let me know which one you think is better. I clearly need to avoid the harsh shadows.

Happy New Years! May you get in all the gaming that you hope for!

Some Day, I'll Build This

I have not posted in ages. In fact, I hadn't even thought much about my blog until Monday, when my friend and fellow gamer, Will, happened to mention it. I've been very busy with work and family since my last real project update post. Plus an unexpected and unpleasant incident occurred a month ago. It was in the form of the dismissal of one of the faculty members in my department. As department head, I've had to scramble to take up much of the slack. I am now teaching one more course, I had to find two last-minute adjuncts to fill the other two courses, and I now find my self have 20 more student advisees than I had before.  Let's just say I've had zero time for anything. Let's just say I am approaching major burn out. Fortunately, the semester is just about over!

I was cleaning up my office yesterday and found these plans I had made under a pile of papers:

It is for the Brazilian U-17 river monitor named the Parnaiba.

Source: Wikipedia

Its the oldest active warship, if you don't count some sailing ships that are still officially commissioned like the HMS Victory. Its undergone some modifications over its 75 years of service, including the addition of a helicopter landing pad.

I am not sure if my plans are 100% accurate. Its based on the few pictures I could find, plus a drawing from Shipbucket.com. Therefore, there was a lot of guessing going on.

I plan to use built one or maybe two for the Southern Chalupastan navy. One, I plan to build as is; the other, I will probably upgrade its main gun. Currently, its sporting a WWII vintage 3" gun, but I might try for a more modern rapid-fire weapon.

Big Improvement in Rapid Prototyping

The SteelonSand Blog recently reported that the War Times Journal website is now selling pre-dreadnought ships made from rapid prototyping. He has a good review and states that they are far superior than what you get from Shapeways. I am not sure what WTJ's process is for making them, but seems like a huge step above what I've purchased so far from Shapeways. I looked at the prices and they seem competitive compared to Shapeways. This being said, I don't blame the vendors who create the models at Shapeways. From the little correspondence I've had with some of the vendors, they don't seem to have a lot of input into the production of their work. For example, I've order some microarmor and was told that it couldn't printed. I contacted the vendor and he was more perplexed than I. Apparently, they go back and forth on whether or not a particular model can be printed or not.

These new minis make me VERY tempted to venture forth into the pre-dread waters!

Chinese/Asian Cucumber Pickles

Lately, I've been obsessed with canning and pickling things. To say that I love anything pickled is an understatement. I have yet to try pickled meats, but I have eaten pickled eggs, and I enjoy just about any vegetable that is pickled. I only recently inherited my mother's canning equipment, so I have not started on that, but I've been doing a lot of refrigerator pickles. They don't last as long, but they are simple to make and you don't have to worry so much about contamination if you can them improperly.

There are a lot of pickled veggies in Asian cuisine. The thing that makes Asian pickles stand out from most western pickles is that they tend to go beyond just sour or sweet of our pickles. They like to add stronger flavors to them.  So, I give you my recipe for Chinese pickled cucumbers. This is mishmash of various recipes I have found. They are pretty simple to make, and taste better the longer you leave them in the fridge. Remember, the measurements of ingredients are estimates.

Ingredients
•  5 to 8 pickling cucumbers also known as Gherkins (Cucumis anguria)
•  2 to 3 carrots
•  2 cloves garlic
•  1/2 Cup Vinegar
•  2 Tbs soy sauce
•  2 Tsp salt
•  1 Tbs sugar
•  1 Tsp pepper
•  1 Tsp sesame oil (optional)
•  1 Tsp red pepper flakes (optional)

Procedure
Preparation--
Clean your cucumbers and peel your carrots. Cut the cucs in half longways and gently scrape out the seeds with a small spoon. You probably can leave them in, but I just clean them out. Gherkin skins are so thin, I don't bother removing them. Slice the cucs into strips. If the cuc is rather long (>4"), cut in half. For the carrots, julienne them. There are a number of techniques of doing this that can be found on the internet, but I learned from my mother-in-law.

Cut the carrot obliquely, at a low an angle as possible (1).  This will give you thin, oval disks of carrot (2). Then using the oval disks of carrot, cut the carrot into strips (3). I have one of those mandolin cutters, but I found I waste a lot of carrot using it. I suppose you could shed it, but that is too thin.

Salting the veggies--
I have found that if you just dump the cucs and carrots into you vinegar mixture, they don't absorb the flavors much. So, I use a technique that I've seen used for making cole slaw with cabbage. Take your sliced cucs and carrots, mix with the 2 tsp of salt, and put them in a colander for about an hour or so. The water will come out of them and will more readily absorb the vinegar. They will also tend to be a little crunchier. I've never done this with the garlic, but it might work well with that. As a result of this, there is no need to add additional salt.

Making the vinegar mixture--
While waiting for the salting veggies, put all remaining ingredients, except for the garlic, into a small sauce pan and boil for a few minutes to dissolve the sugar.

Putting the whole thing together--
Gently press down on the veggies in the colander to squeeze out some of the water. Then put the veggies, including the garlic, and the vinegar mixture into a plastic container and seal. Once a day, I shake them up just to redistribute them. In about three days, they should be ready, as I said, they are even better if you let them sit a little longer.

Variations--
I've make some variations on them that give them slightly different flavors:
Vinegar: Normally, I used either the white or apple vinegar, but I've also used a 70/30 mixture of rice vinegar to white. Rice vinegar is not as strong and give a subtle sweet flavor to it.
Sugar: I've substituted light brown sugar to table sugar. Try it, to see if you like it.
Ginger: I've added minced fresh ginger and that gives it a nice kick to it.
Garlic: just throwing in the cloves does not give off much of a garlic flavor, so recently, I've added a third clove that I've pressed and thrown in to the mix.

Amazon Cavalry

I got a chance to do a little painting last night and finished these up. They are Lonegunman Games amazon cavalry mounted on Essex unarmored horses. Lonegunman bought up the Armies of Arcana line of fantasy miniatures. Originally, the mounted warriors had panthers for mounts. Panthers as mounts never appealed to me, so I was glad to find that Lonegunman sold the riders and the panthers separately. I have about a zillion Essex horses that I have collected over the years, so why not use them. A little modification was needed for a better fit between horse and rider, but it worked out fairly well. Also, I needed to bend the sword-bearing arms so that that all three could fit on the base. The rider on the far left has her arm in its original position. These were sort of a test paint. I have some more primed and am in the process of modifying one rider to hold a standard instead of her sword.