House Moves, New Starts, New Cave

Finally, after quite some time, the house move is complete AND the garage has been converted into a room. To be more precise, my room, albeit shared with a tumble dryer and a fridge freezer.

Why is it my room? I have a wonderful other half who has decided that my stuff clutters up the rest of the house, especially taking up the dining table when painting and modelling.

I've only ever been into an Ikea store three times and one of those was in Oman. True.

I do like their stuff and having bought a four compartment Kallax previously, I used their 'design a room' feature to see what I could fit in. Well, that turned out to be a 25-comparrtment Kallax, three different size Billy bookcases and a decent size desk.

It's still a work in progress as I'm only home at weekends but that Kallax will allow me to display stuff that tickles me from 40K through Star Wars and Action Force. 

Best of all, thanks to a UK firm called Funserts, I can add different printed backgrounds to the Kallax. Some are already in there like the space themed one that the Roboskull is sitting in.

Unlike Ron Burgundy, I do not possess many leather-bound books but many, many Annuals. Hence my manly display of Warlord, Victor, 2000AD and Judge Dredd volumes. Better than living in a box in the loft anyway.

Finally, the work desk with different projects on the go. The 40K projects afre a weekday work in progress whilst at home will be catching up on the Airfix plastic soldiers.

 Life is good and, hopefully, all is set for retirement within the next six years or so.

Who'd have thought that I'd be looking forward to the phrase "Go to your room" at my age?

New Grim Dark Arrivals

Arriving fresh from the Kirton Games 3d printing service are a selection of characters and a Rifle squad printed up from the stls I purchased. Now in addition to what is shown here, I've also ordered a couple of the squad options from Redbeard's Forge shop on etsy.

RedbeardsForgeShop - Etsy UK

They purchased the retail stl option and have a fair selection that can be ordered as physical prints. Delivery is potentially slow with an estimated date of 30 Oct - 11 Dec  but for £17 for a squad, I can wait.

It wouldn't be a Victorian Grimdark campaign from Victoria Miniatures without a Captain Caine. New, improved and I've gone for the pith helmet option.

Note that this model and the next two haven't had glue applied yet. The plug and socket system allows some good dry fitting first.

An addition mid-campaign was some not-Sharpe's Rifles. Below we have Lt Sean Blackthorn and, again, I've gone for the headgear version.

At the bottom is a not-Harper with a six barrelled autogun or lasrifle, whichever one prefers.

Bits and bobs for the Rifles squad including Sergeant parts and the vox torso. I think I've ended up with more than I thought I ordered but I'm covered for some breakages.

Time is tight and I'm living in two places again (work and home) so I have no idea when gluing, undercoating and painting will take place but hopefully soon.



 

Col Kilmore

In advance of my first Grimdark print order arriving from Kirton Games, I painted the Adepticon print I ordered along with the physical Tannenburg models.

I've tried Talassar Blue for the trousers and that Mordian/ US Cavalry look.

I also have the stls for the non-Adepticon version but that's a future job.

Trial Bearskin Victorian Guard Squad Progress

Finally, now that I'm back at my weekday work-enforced home from home, I've been able to progress the first of the revamped Victoria Miniatures Victorian/ Tannenburg models from the Kickstarter.

The background is courtesy of my new A3 Jon Hodgson's SciFi Cityscapes book, also from a Kickstarter. 

Fantastic models. I just need to finish off the fine detail on some of the grand facial hair and chinstraps. Looking forward to receiving the stls.

Grimdark Empire - Paint Test

Doh!

My Contrast paints are 170 miles away. Oh the joys of living and working in two separate places.

One shopping trip and five colours later and the bedrock for these Guardsmen is laid out.

Ball Red, Black Templar, Ironjawz Yellow, Admistratum Grey and Guilliman Flesh.

I'll use white for the the webbing and some shade if green for the cuffs. Possibly black. I'm not sure yet. More to follow.
 

Grimdark Empire - Squad Complete

That's the squad glued and complete. Nice, crisp prints and fully modular. No single build like the current GW plastics.

The squad has a full set of options including comms and a variety of special weapons.

What's left over?

A fair few sets of arms and rifles. The plasma, melta and grenade launcher equivalent special weapons. Two standard torsoes as I've used the Sergeant and Vox operatorv torsoes. A swagger cane, various pistols and a power fist arm.

What does this mean going forward? I assume that once the stl files come out, gamers can choose to print individual parts rather than a snap tray. This could mean that printing the snap tray plus two sets of legs will give you twelve models going forward.

Because I used the separate Bearskin heads, I now have spare pith helmet and caps heads along with some bare and the very US military inspired 'Smokey Bear' cap.

Bits for the Bits God. 

 

Grimdark Empire - First Dry Fits

Once I was able to get the pieces off the frame, I was able to do the first dry fits of the models.

Of note, and it is one the points referred to in the Kickstarter, these models have not yet had glue applied. The socket arrangement of the parts allows for dry fitting before applying glue.

One of my favourite parts is the 'power indicating' hand. No pointing, this is full on 'pay attention that way' power of command. Nice for a Sergeant. 

 

Grimdark Empire Kickstarter - The First Physical Prints Arrive

Fortunately, I'm just starting three weeks off and this set of Bad Boys arrives.

I ordered a test squad of the Tannenburg Firing Line from Victoria Miniatures just to see what the eventual stls will look like.

Every part arrives as part of this snap tray so the box that contains them is quite small. For the UK types, it's Large Letter size.

First of all, some really good news. Although this is the Tannenburg set with dress uniforms, the snap tray comes with both peaked cap AND pith helmet heads. Personally, to grab the Praetorian vibe, I do want to put pith helmets on the dress uniform rather than the Victoria Miniatures' more utilitarian Victorian Guard torso. For me, this is very good news.

I will receive the stls as part of the core pledge but I also went for a pack of the bearskin heads to maybe go for more of a Guard Guardsman

Not sure where I will use this model but it also comes with the stl for an alternate Col Kilgore so that figure will not have to have the 7th Cavalry style stetson.

Finally, not sure if this was intentional but the snaptray comes with vertical supports which, as you can see in the photo below, presents us with I-beams for some scenic base kitbashing.

More once I've done some construction.

 

A Quick Dip Back Into 40K - Crimson Fist Chaplain

Also from the Armageddon box, I started on the Chaplain to administer to the Crimson Fists. Unlike the rest of the Battle Brothers, I have opted for Contrast paints for this character.

It didn't take too long as he's ready to deliver some from the skies beatdown on any Ork daft enough to be looking for bother.

 

Airfix 1/32 Scale - British and German Infantry

Like the 1/72 from the previous post, these are re-issues from a couple of years ago, not the 70s/80s originals.

The plastic is a bit more brittle.

I've started off with the British and German Infantry with some Commandos thrown in.

I am using the recommended Humbrol colours from the paint guides on the back of the boxes. I have a delivery coming from Hobbycraft with more colours so I can start work on the Australian, Gurkhas, Japanese and US Infantry as well as German and British Paratroopers. 

The Germans are using early war colours as per the box guide.

I've held off slightly with the US Paratroopers. The guide for them indicates an almost yellow colour so I may have to go more late than mid-War and use an olive green colour.

It will also be time to dig out the strongpoint building and Amera vacuform base that I featured years ago.

God bless the orphans, it was 12 years ago!

https://mypraetorians.blogspot.com/2014/02/airfix-and-amera-are-getting-my-money.html

 

Fun In A New Scale. For Me Anyway

Being a child of the, ahem!, 70s, I used to have loads of Airfix soldiers both 1/72 and 1/35 scale.

Fortunately, over the years, Airfix has seen fit to re-issue loads of my childhood favourites. These have mostly been sitting around as part of the nostalgia-but-I-will-paint-them-one-day pile.

What didn't help was Hobbycraft doing a 25% off the Airfix Overlord set. Tie that in with an upcoming house move and the removal from the loft of some kits I already had, I've diverted slightly to an Airfix stream.

Below is the Overlord set coastal battery along with the Amera produced base and two of the tanks.

This bottom pair of photos show the gun emplacement and the other coastal battery that my dad bought but never finished back in 1994 when these kits had a release as part of D-Day 50.

More to follow as I show progress with these kits, the old pontoon bridge set and my move into painting up the 1/35 scale re-issues. I've started on British and German infantry.