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Just sharing my latest project. Let's see if I get anywhere with it

I bought a 3d printer. It is basically the best thing ever as it let's me make these guys. The files are from an Antenocitis Workshop kickstarter I backed.last year, but are now available normally from their store if anyone is interested.



And also this guy, but that's for another thread



Anyway, starting to get some paint on there and thought I would do a bit of a log.

Currently out of castellan green air, so a slight hiatus will.ensue, but hopefully progress with then be rapid. Because then I have about 20 or so tanks to print and then paint (and then move on to the opposing force).

With paint








Planning on using these things with the Horizon Wars rules. The scale is about 10mm, well... I scaled 28mm stuff by 35% which is about 10mm ish...

Of course after the tanks I'll need scenery as well...

very nice. love that raptor!!
I've seen 3D printed stuff before & it always has visible layers but these don't seem to. is there a different type of printer? thanks.

Thanks.

Obvious lines are a definite feature of FDM printing that uses spools of plastic filament that gets melted together, like below



This kind of printing tends to use layers of 0.1mm or 0.2mm so the eye can see the different layers.and the print head that squirts the plastic out is relatively large at 0.4mm.

The other type of printing uses a liquid resin and light to cure it. This can do much smaller layers and much finer detail. The tanks above were printed at 0.05mm layer height and a horizontal resolution of about 0.05mm as well. You can get machines that do finer resolution as well.

The down side to the finer detail though is that the printer needs stinky toxic chemicals, and there is a greater faff factor. However I personally think it's worth it for the results. I got my printer for £160 and with all the consumables, files and gubbins thenproject will.cost about £300 in total. basically, the printer will make its money back in this one project compared to buying into a.game. I can then print miniatures and scenery for any other board game.or.wargame as required.

cool. thank you for all that information

No probs.

Oy update today is a trial.drybrush of niblet green over the castellan base.





I think that works. Next step.happens when I can get time.and energy for getting the airbrush out again.

looking good!

Camo pattern test with a nuln oil.wash. I think that works, subject to picking the pattern out a touch with white and adding some details.like unit markings.



Otherwise, time to.get the airbrush armed for the rest of the first batch

I do want to toss in one bit of information on FDM printers: you can get smaller print nozzles that will allow you to get more details. A 0.2 nozzle with the right printer and slicer settings can get you surprisingly good quality on an FDM printer. It's not quite resin-quality, but it's better than you'd expect.

You can also get really good quality just from the default nozzle, but I don't recommend printing multiple objects at once if you have any fiddly bits. I tried printing a few hobbits this morning and one of them crumbled from the movements of the printer because it was bouncing back and forth between the two of them. Printing them one at a time seems to work better.

Progress! A bit at least.

Got the niblet green drybrush down. It's a little heavy in places, and it shows up that I do have some quite obvious layer lines going on... oh well, I think even with slight ridges the things looks awesomely sci fi.

Also in this shot are all 6 medium tanks, the tester light tank and one example each of the APC and IFV models. All relevant secondary weapons are now installed so I can get to undercoating the whole lot now.







Next up is to wait for the ulthuan grey air that should arrive monday to get the camo pattern down. Then a simple black wash and some black details. Getting there.

Also been printing some appropriately scaled scenery in the form of Ordus Outpost modules I got from Kickstarter.





Nicely detailed, and more importantly, modular

Next couple of layers of paint. Airbrushed on a grey disruptive pattern using some stencils. Slathered them in nuln oil and now just finished brightening up the grey with white. Ended up being half a highlight, half a third camo pattern colour and half just a general lightening of the pattern.

Is it perfect? Hell no, but I'm happy with it for a mass production job.









Next steps are to get some black on tracks and wheels and probably also on the AA guns as well. Might go for silver on the guns. We shall see. Also need to think about unit markings, but probably only some some.coloured shaped shapes for that.

they're coming along nicely.

These look great, keep it up!

Next step in the motor pool...

Drybrushing on the medium tanks and the tester light.





Goal for the weekend is to get either the tracks and details of the first batch down, or the camo pattern on this lot. Also waiting in the wings are the 9 troop carriers... and now I've been looking for appropriate infantry models... it's all rather getting out of hand...

I love those tanks. Great design and the prints obviously came out nicely. So much detail. Make me want to get one of these machines myself. Have fun painting them!

Very cool project. The tanks are coming out nicely.

Thanks guys.

First batch is now basically done.





Although now I have photographed them I realise i haven't done the headlights... i may also change the sensor colour to a.metallic blue rather than red. Unit markings will come at the end I think so I can keep momentum up on the basic scheme.

Also spent the past couple of days reacquainting myself with the Horizon Wars rules. I love the background in that book.

Batch 2 with the camo pattern on. I have also just finished dousing the little buggers in nuln oil, but pictures of that later.

Again, had some difficulty with getting the stencil close enough to the turrets to get a better defined pattern compared to the hull, but I think it looks ok. I debated painting it before adding the secondaries but I thought a slightly messy camo pattern better than difficulty painting the super tiny secondary mounts.

Impressive work! What model of printer are you using?

It's the new Anycubic Mono. I've been meaning to dip into the realm of resin printing for ages, and there was a launch sale, so I went for it. A build plate of these things comes out in 2 hours, so it's pretty fast.

Not really big enough for 40k scale vehicles, but anything smaller than that it's fantastic.

Progress!

Medium tanks almost there. Just need their tracks blacked up and drybrushed, but that really boring so I've been blocking in the main colours on some scenery as well.

Found some nice Starcraft STLs on Thingiverse that were basically the right size by default, so banged a bunch out on my Prusa, hence the obvious layer lines. They are so cute!

Finished the Hawkwood mediums and the test Marshall light tank, so here are some group shots of the battlegroup all together. I like to imagine that it is a major chunk of firepower wrapped up in cute teeny tiny tanks











But wait, what is this coming out of the mists? Oh no, it's the bad guys!





I guess it's time to lock, cock and get ready to rock

I will try to get a single player game in over the holidays after I get the other few tanks needed for the OPFOR printed off. Amd the supermech... oh yes, the supermech...

No game as.getting the supermech printed right took much longer than I thought. It might be a bit too big to be honest, but it is supposed to be a supermech after all!

The legs on that are drying so pics later.

Got the OPFOR tanks finished, and i also found the cutest little exploration transport thingy, so i printed 3 to use as parked vehicles in the advancing realm of 10mm stuffs i have coming out of my plastic stuff generation machines

Anyway, pics below.

Tanks.




Explorers






The first set of habs ae on the painting bench. Going for a Halley Antarctic research Base style of colour scheme with bright blue and orange for the habs. Using a vallejo light blue.with guilliman glaze. I tried zenithal highlighting, but I think the glaze probably does a better job at this scale.

Also tried zenithal highlighting on my OPFOR light vehicles. I I definately created.a gradient of grey from the edges into the centre... time.will.tell.if I can get the actual.base colour over the top of it delicately enough for it to matter...





Going to give zenithal highlights on the pelican as well. In this case I also tried washing the grey undercoat to give some further preshading before going in with the highlights and base coat. No idea.if this is wasted efforte or not. Thought I would.give it a shot. Planning to.use the green camo.scheme.on this baby.