Major Omission, Contrast Paint & Printing

So, I won't bother with the usual excuses for why I haven't been blogging, work, garden, family, travel, etc.

I have managed to get a few games in, online and face to face. 

Back in February, I decided it was time to haul out the Warlord Games plastic ECW I have been stashing away whenever they were on sale at silly prices.. (£1 a sprue?).  So with the interruption of a couple of weeks overseas, I have been bashing out unts with contrast paints...

The guns are 3d prints.

Pretty pleased with these, the last picture shows everything that is left of the stash, two more pike and shot units to go.

As always, 3d printing continues.. these are some nice morale trackers from Paul at Sabotag3d 

And I have been experimenting with making my own files for printing.. a simple ACW coffee cart..

A Westland Scout - very simplified... but I'm very pleased with it.

And I wanted to buy some casualty markers from Warbases, but they were out of stock. So I printed my own. 

The other thing I wanted to do is tackle my stash of Perry plastic  ACW, so some early experiments with Contrast paints over a grey undercoat... 

But naturally, being me, I got distracted, a 3d print file for West German Cold War vehicles.

And some Italian Wars!

I blame Jonathan for his series of Fornovo games, 

And of course..  Face to Face - Sikh Wars games... 

And Hail Caesar - Punic Wars

Finally, I am trying to remedy an omission in my roster, I have forces for lots of WW2 Chain of Command games...  Soviets, |Japanese, French, Malayan Campaign British, Early War German, French and BEF, British Paras, DAK, 8th Army etc...  I even have US in Winter clothing, but the big omission is a force of US Infantry. I assembled some Perry US Infantry ages ago, but they have been lurking in a box ever since. By coincidence I ended up with an additional box, so I tested some contrast paints on these. I'm pretty happy with how they look. 

The 'recipe' is very simple. In sequence, Guilliman Flesh, Aggaros Dunes for jackets, Contrast Wyldwood for pants, Skeleton Horde for some equipment, gaiters etc, Militarum Green for waterbottle covers, Black Templar for boots and weapons, Fyreslayer Flesh for woodwork. Final touches are Vallejo 70.893 US Dark Green for the helmet, and 70.886 Green Grey for some other equipment (I did the straps and pouches in a mix of Skeleton Horde and the Green Grey.

 

Printing and all That

So apart from everything else, anyone who has looked at this blog will know I do a bit of 3d printing, and this year has been no exception. So just a selection of some of the things I have printed. 

I have a few companies I find produce really good quality STL files - Arvernes (through Wargaming3d), Fylde Armouries (Richard Humble on Wargaming3d), Night Sky Miniatures (Wargaming3d), Piano Wargames, and RKX Miniatures. I'm sure those aren't the only ones, I have some from 3dBreed, Kyourensko and others, but these are my go to vendors. 

In my experience, you (generally) get what you pay for, sure there are plenty of free files out there, and for example the 1/100 and 1/200 armoured vehicles by M Bergman on Thingiverse are excellent, but for 28mm stuff they need additional detail. So it's usually worth paying the relatively small costs for a good STL. Particularly for vehicles you need multiples of, the cost is really low, so Shermans, T34s etc...   

Panzer III - STL by Night Sky Miniatures

Interwar 'Turtle' Armoured Car - STL by Jimbo

WW1 German Armour - STL from a Kickstarter

Luchs - STL by Arvernes?

Challenger by Richard Humble, M16 my mix up.

M4A3E8 - STL by Arvernes

Tiger & Kubel by Arvernes, PzIIIN and Sdkfz251 by Night Sky

Halftracks by Night Sky, Grille is a mashup of Thingiverse & Pz38t

AEC Armoured Car - STL by Arvernes

Infantry 'plug' using 3d Breed? STL modified by me

T34 & Tankriders - T34 by Night Sky, Riders by 3d Breed?

'Buffalo' passengers - STL by RKX Miniatures

Sikh Infantry compared to a Perry - STL by Kyourensko

1/300 small naval vessels, I think mainly Thingiverse

Sample Sikh - by Kyourensko, painted in 2 minutes using Contrast paints

Sample 40mm Rifleman compared to Perry 40mm - STL by NapoleonicSTLFiles

Experiments in 40mm scaled up Piano Miniatures French and NapoleonicSTLFiles

Ships for Undaunted Battle of Britain - my mashup from Thingiverse

Adding Zimmerit to an Arvernes Tiger Hull

Various

Bavarian Officer - STL by Piano Miniatures

Bavarian Infantry - STL by Piano Miniatures

Austrian & Bavarian Artillery - STL by Piano Miniatures

Bavarian Infantry - STL by Piano Miniatures

Comparison - Rubicon kit and STL by Arvernes