Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Gitsplitta wrote:
I've just got to tell you Egg... I've never seen Blood Angels better than yours. They ARE the BA as far as I'm concerned.

Thanks Gits! It's been a crazy 10 years of collecting and painting and surprisingly there's still no loss in interest so hoping to keep things going long into the future!

I think your commitment to it has been what is really the kicker. I've had a half dozen space marine armies in that time, and my knights and titans are a completely different thing.

 whalemusic360 wrote:
I think your commitment to it has been what is really the kicker. I've had a half dozen space marine armies in that time, and my knights and titans are a completely different thing.

I've bought and collected a few other armies over the years since starting the BA but quickly came to the realization that I can't paint fast enough to keep up with the pace of Space Marine and Blood Angel releases not to mention others. I'll be painting well after I'm retired at this point so I reluctantly sold off those armies.



Finished off a model that has been one of the biggest pain in the butt to assemble - the venerable thunderfire cannon. I've heard many complaints about the pewter version and can't imagine they'd be worse than the finecast one I got which had so many bubbles and miscasts - can't believe GW actually lets some of these go through their QC! Anyhow, here's the model done and finished so I won't have to build/paint another one again!


Also a sneek peek at something else on my desk that's in progress...my 3rd titan:

Squeee!

Nope, can't do it. I just don't squeee. Though I am looking forward to the titan coming together!


I've got two of the old metal ones and primarily it was their bulk and poor fit that made them so hard to deal with. Finecast was just a nightmare from start to finish though.

Your paint job however... is as beautiful as always.

You're assuming they have some form of QC, Eggroll - if they do, there are some definite questions about qualifications for the role.

Nice work on the Thunderfire Cannon, and looking forwards to Titan #3 - what weapons will this one be packing?

Love those last Kill Team Cassius conversions, the glow on the jump pack exhausts is amazing!

Gitsplitta wrote:Squeee!

Nope, can't do it. I just don't squeee. Though I am looking forward to the titan coming together!


I've got two of the old metal ones and primarily it was their bulk and poor fit that made them so hard to deal with. Finecast was just a nightmare from start to finish though.

Your paint job however... is as beautiful as always.

Thanks Gits! Will try and get more WiP shots of the Titan as it comes along.

Dysartes wrote:You're assuming they have some form of QC, Eggroll - if they do, there are some definite questions about qualifications for the role.

Nice work on the Thunderfire Cannon, and looking forwards to Titan #3 - what weapons will this one be packing?

Thanks Dysartes! Ha that is true...probably makes more sense to just throw it in and hope that most people don't complain enough to ask for replacements instead of paying someone to QC the models.
For the Mars, I'll just reuse two of the weapons from the 4 I painted for the Lucius years ago. I think there are small variations in the trim of the weapons between the Mars and Lucius but don't think it'll be enough to distract. They're all magnetized so should be easy swaps. The Lucius right now is sitting in my display case with the turbo laser and plasma cannon so the Mars will get the mega bolter and inferno cannon by default.

Viterbi wrote:Love those last Kill Team Cassius conversions, the glow on the jump pack exhausts is amazing!

Thanks Viterbi!


Quick update on the Titan...got the black trim done and some of the metallics. Still need to do the head and upper carapace before I start shading it all with the airbrush.

Boy that's coming together quickly!

Sweet i see you have the classic jackal pattern warhound in the case, always loved the look of the boxy armor over the rounded mars pattern.

Gitsplitta wrote:Boy that's coming together quickly!

Yes, I've been on a hobby tear recently so hoping to get this warhound done soon. Think once that's done I'll spend a weekend getting everything out of storage and my display cabinets to do a full army shot.

aphyon wrote:Sweet i see you have the classic jackal pattern warhound in the case, always loved the look of the boxy armor over the rounded mars pattern.

Yup! I feel the same way...I think the jackal lucius patterns fit the warhammer imperium design theme much better than the mars designs. I only wish they did a lucius pattern reaver. I've always wanted to design my own and print it out on a resin printer in parts later on...

Did you know nuclear shrimp does the classic boxy warlord titan in both full scale and epic scale?

and much cheaper than GW charges even if you splurge for the painting service.

hmm just checked they removed the full size ones from the store, not like i had $600 to spend on it








https://ns-games.com/product/warbringer-maximus-6mm-scale/

 aphyon wrote:
Did you know nuclear shrimp does the classic boxy warlord titan in both full scale and epic scale?

and much cheaper than GW charges even if you splurge for the painting service.

hmm just checked they removed the full size ones from the store, not like i had $600 to spend on it



https://ns-games.com/product/warbringer-maximus-6mm-scale/

Thanks for the tip! Just did a google search for it and came across some references to it from 4 years ago. That's very similar to what I want to do with mine so will definitely use that as reference. The video I saw mentioned the full sized version was made of foam core and seems a bit rough up close. 3D printing has come a long ways since then so I'm sure with resin printers these days, you can get close if not equivalent details as forgeworld models on a scale of this size.

That's it...i pulled the trigger and just ordered a Elegoo Mars 2 off Amazon. Will see how that goes and will have to dust off and brush up on my 3d modeling skills.

Made some further progress on the Warhound. Main colours are in along with the majority of the metallics.


Next step is shading of the metallics with airbrush and inks.

Also these turned up today from Amazon:


Ended up getting the Elegoo Mars 2 Mono, the Mercury Plus Wash & Cure and 500g of washable red resin and 500g of normal resin. Will be spending the weekend setting this up and doing some test prints!

 Eggroll wrote:
Made some further progress on the Warhound. Main colours are in along with the majority of the metallics.


Next step is shading of the metallics with airbrush and inks.

Also these turned up today from Amazon:


Ended up getting the Elegoo Mars 2 Mono, the Mercury Plus Wash & Cure and 500g of washable red resin and 500g of normal resin. Will be spending the weekend setting this up and doing some test prints!

Good luck with the printing!

Titan looks great! That yellow head is really going to jump.

Of course you get the "Mars pattern" printer, Mars patterns are always the best! (thank heavens you didn't get the Lucius pattern one)

Will be interested to see where you go with 3D printing!

Thanks for sharing

Warhound is coming along a treat, Eggroll.

Have you got anything specific in mind you're wanting to print?

Gitsplitta wrote:Titan looks great! That yellow head is really going to jump.

Of course you get the "Mars pattern" printer, Mars patterns are always the best! (thank heavens you didn't get the Lucius pattern one)

Thanks Git! Yup love doing the Blood Angel assault squad colour theme on giant robots
Hilarious you mentioned the Mars and Mars pattern...I honestly never connected those two dots but now that you have it's a nice coincidence. Actually the Elegoo Mars are quite round and fits the Mars pattern look while the AnyCubic Photo (other popular consumer resin printer) looks more like the Lucius pattern version.

IGtR= wrote:Will be interested to see where you go with 3D printing!

Thanks for sharing

Happy to share my 3d printing adventures. Hopefully it will turn out as well as my first airbrush journey started at the beginning of this plog. Will be sure to post more updates as things progress...check below for my latest update!

Dysartes wrote:Warhound is coming along a treat, Eggroll.

Have you got anything specific in mind you're wanting to print?

Thanks Dysartes! Nothing specific right now...mostly just tinkering and playing around with free online models. Hoping to get a shot at designing and printing my own eventually but that's a ways off.


So I had some time this Saturday to unpack the Mars 2 and run a test print. Here are the two machines: Mars 2 and Mercury Plus...


The most common first test print is a rook model that comes on the USB drive but I decided against that. Instead, I went full Blood Angel theme with my first print featuring a proxy for Dante (I think the author of the model made him a Primaris. Of course this model was printed in Clear Red resin. My first print came out fantastic but realized that since I haven't done any Primaris marines, this wouldn't work as well...I'm not done with my first born models yet. So then I decided to get the model back into Chitubox (3d modeling slicer software for resin printing) and scale down the model to 85% of the original. This resulted in a nicely sized first born Dante that is much more dynamic than the original pewter version.

Here's a picture of the print with black primer:

If you look closely, you'll see some layer lines, especially around the axe and leg armour. This print was done at 0.025mm layer height with no anti-aliasing. Might need to play around to see if I'm able to reduce these lines so the prints are smoother. I'm also using the default file with supports so I think I can make things print a bit better by tweaking the print orientation.

Anyway, here's a shot of the model with a quick airbrush of metallic golds next to the primaris sized version that's still in clear red resin:


Closeup of the amazing model details and what the printer was able to capture:


Overall I'm quite impressed with the print quality - don't think it'll be a suitable 1 to 1 replacement of current GW plastics but it's almost there! The Mars 2 is still a 2k printer so the newer 4k printer from Anycubic (Anycubic 4k Mini) might be better suited for minis. Anyhow, I've found many other models online such as the thunderfire cannon that I'll be queueing up to print later and comparing against my GW finecast version

 Eggroll wrote:

Gitsplitta wrote:Titan looks great! That yellow head is really going to jump.

Of course you get the "Mars pattern" printer, Mars patterns are always the best! (thank heavens you didn't get the Lucius pattern one)

Thanks Git! Yup love doing the Blood Angel assault squad colour theme on giant robots
Hilarious you mentioned the Mars and Mars pattern...I honestly never connected those two dots but now that you have it's a nice coincidence. Actually the Elegoo Mars are quite round and fits the Mars pattern look while the AnyCubic Photo (other popular consumer resin printer) looks more like the Lucius pattern version.

IGtR= wrote:Will be interested to see where you go with 3D printing!

Thanks for sharing

Happy to share my 3d printing adventures. Hopefully it will turn out as well as my first airbrush journey started at the beginning of this plog. Will be sure to post more updates as things progress...check below for my latest update!

Dysartes wrote:Warhound is coming along a treat, Eggroll.

Have you got anything specific in mind you're wanting to print?

Thanks Dysartes! Nothing specific right now...mostly just tinkering and playing around with free online models. Hoping to get a shot at designing and printing my own eventually but that's a ways off.


So I had some time this Saturday to unpack the Mars 2 and run a test print. Here are the two machines: Mars 2 and Mercury Plus...


The most common first test print is a rook model that comes on the USB drive but I decided against that. Instead, I went full Blood Angel theme with my first print featuring a proxy for Dante (I think the author of the model made him a Primaris. Of course this model was printed in Clear Red resin. My first print came out fantastic but realized that since I haven't done any Primaris marines, this wouldn't work as well...I'm not done with my first born models yet. So then I decided to get the model back into Chitubox (3d modeling slicer software for resin printing) and scale down the model to 85% of the original. This resulted in a nicely sized first born Dante that is much more dynamic than the original pewter version.

Here's a picture of the print with black primer:

If you look closely, you'll see some layer lines, especially around the axe and leg armour. This print was done at 0.025mm layer height with no anti-aliasing. Might need to play around to see if I'm able to reduce these lines so the prints are smoother. I'm also using the default file with supports so I think I can make things print a bit better by tweaking the print orientation.

Anyway, here's a shot of the model with a quick airbrush of metallic golds next to the primaris sized version that's still in clear red resin:


Closeup of the amazing model details and what the printer was able to capture:


Overall I'm quite impressed with the print quality - don't think it'll be a suitable 1 to 1 replacement of current GW plastics but it's almost there! The Mars 2 is still a 2k printer so the newer 4k printer from Anycubic (Anycubic 4k Mini) might be better suited for minis. Anyhow, I've found many other models online such as the thunderfire cannon that I'll be queueing up to print later and comparing against my GW finecast version

Yeah, I too have been thinking that a 4K printer with a small build plate is where things are getting very close to GW quality. Just waiting for the tech to mature a bit more, there aren't a lot of 4K printers with small plates on the market yet.

That's a fantastic print!

Well I have always loved Blood Angels, and admired tour work for a long time, so seeing 3D Dante is even a bigger plus. I’ll have to look for that print and try him in FDM as I have not gone to resin....yet. He looks amazing and will lead my new Primaris guys well.

Very fine quality print. Nice, crisp detail. Looking forward to seeing him finished.

Gitsplitta wrote:That's a fantastic print!

Thanks! I'm definitely blown away by the quality of the print from this 2k printer.

Theophony wrote:Well I have always loved Blood Angels, and admired tour work for a long time, so seeing 3D Dante is even a bigger plus. I’ll have to look for that print and try him in FDM as I have not gone to resin....yet. He looks amazing and will lead my new Primaris guys well.

Thanks Theophony! This Dante I actually had to buy from Cults3D. Great thing about it is it's pre-supported so it's pretty much a straight download and print.

Warboss_Waaazag wrote:Very fine quality print. Nice, crisp detail. Looking forward to seeing him finished.

Thanks Warboss! Will try and get some painting time with this one later in this week...need to not get so distracted and finish off my Warhound titan first!

With the resin 3d printer I've been exploring some other customization possibilities and one that I always wanted to try out was themed base nameplates. I know there are a few online companies/etsy shops that will do something like this with print to order but now that I have my own printer, I wanted to make my own. Dusted off my 3d modeling skills tonight and after a few hours I came up with the following:



Still need to do some tweaking and haven't decided on what to do with the iconography yet...planning on 3 blood drops for HQs, 2 for Elites and maybe 1 for Sergeants. Quite happy with how the side wings came out.
Made most of the model using standard blender modifiers so I'll be able to quickly swap out the text and update it for all my BA army characters. For named characters I might swap that out for the GW skull icons. Above picture is on a 40mm base so I'll need to still tweak it to fit on 32mm and 25mm sizes. Can't wait to do a test print of this!

That is nice!

 Gitsplitta wrote:
That is nice!

Thanks Gits!


Had the chance to finally do a quick print for my original HQs which are still on 25mm bases. After the print and process, did a quick gold paintjob and drybrush and here is the result:


Also some progress on the warhound with first stages of metallic shading done:

Those prints have turned out damn fine, and love the silver work on your big dog!

Man I really love those name plates. What a fantastic idea!

Wow, those prints look so cool. Wasn't sure after seeing only the 3d model of the base decoration, that it will work, but seeing them painted on the bases those are glorious!

Those name plates are brilliant!