Full Bodied

When I was building up my Ashigaru shooter box from Fireforge I noticed that each sprue had an extra three sets of legs (12 per box) and contained enough weapons and heads to make a complete model if only a torso could be added.

In the old days that would have been as far as the thought could be taken but in the new 3D printing age it just takes one file to allow you to make use of all those extra parts. So I set about looking and found a Hokusa 3D model that looked the correct size, unfortunately it was a complete body not a separate torso.

So I imported the file into Bambu Lab Studio and set about cutting and blanking out sections until I only had a torso left. I then swapped the 0.2mm nozzle onto my A1 and using a 0.10mm layer height printed out some bodies.

I stuck one onto a seated set of legs to check it all looked ok, which it did, and then printed out a load more.

This allowed me to make up a further 10 Ashigaru archers from the box set and I still have a few legs left over to make up some more. Once again the quality of the print has surpassed my expectations and from a wargaming distance you really won't be able to tell these aren't the original bodies.

I've also been busy making up some more movement trays for Never Mind the Naginatas and have one for skirmishers.

Another for a full unit. I've built 4 slots for 6mm dice into all of them to use as status markers.

And lastly one for six cavalry.

Token Effort

Despite the heat making any sort of hobbying a bit of a chore I have printed off a few bits for an upcoming Deadzone event we are attending next week.

The first two I picked up whilst looking for a smoke marker for my Nameless and these I printed off for Stu as he didn't have all the tokens required. The Fire marker I jazzed up a little by printing the top few layers in Red and I also made some up for myself.

The Item markers I made from the item crates in the files and added a bottom layer of blue to help the symbols stand out.

Lastly we have the Smoke marker that I was initially looking for, these are meant for 15mm mortar strikes but I just made them a little taller and left the width the same.

So we should now have the game tokens covered, onwards to victory!

Mule

Things have been a little quiet on the 3D printing front but with Mantic releasing the entire Mule model on the Vault I thought I'd see if I could print it off in as few parts as possible.

So after joining most of the parts in Autodesk Fusion I let Bambu Lab do it's thing on the standard 0.20mm layer height and the results are very acceptable. 

Just the front looks a little off due to the supports, but I'm sure something could be done about that with some fiddling.

Upcycle

Nozzle: 0.4mm
Layer Height: 0.20mm Standard pre-set
Material: Bambu Matt PLA
Supports: Auto Tree with outer Brim

As I've printed out more bits I've also collected more of the cardboard centres that the filament comes in so I decided to expand my earlier design for storage tanks. In order to allow me to stack two (or more) tubes together to make taller towers I designed an adapter to allow them to stack up. I also stretched out the original pipe I designed to reach the second level.

Whilst I was doing this I also modified a free ladder model I'd found to reach the top of the two different heights I now have. This will give access to the towers for anyone not worried by falling off.

There will be a limit to how many of these I really need so I'll have to think up something else they can be converted into.

Bat out of Hell

Nozzle: 0.4mm
Layer Height: 0.08mm High Quality pre-set
Material: Bambu Matt PLA
Supports: Auto Tree with outer Brim

This months Mantic Vault had the Matsudan Grav biker model which previously had only been available in resin. I already had one but really needed a couple more for a proper squad to deploy in Firefight. So I cranked up Fusion 360 and imported all the parts in so they could be joined into one model before sending over to the printer.

In the end I popped the heads off so they could be replaced with spare ones from the infantry kit I had left over. Again the A1 has done a great job considering these are really made to be printed off on a resin printer. I did keep the model orientation upright even though it meant lots of support's on the bottom as it also meant all the marks from removing the supports are on the bottom out of sight.

Whilst I was painting up the bikes I also took the chance to paint up the Matsudan Medic Bots that I'd had printed up in resin a while back. I printed off some barrels and boxes to mount the models on as I'm not a fan of flying stands.

Into the desert

It's been a productive week on the 3d printing front with some designing of my own items mixed in with printing offerings from other people. Everything has been printed on these settings apart from the mini-dunes which used a 0.12 layer height.

Nozzle: 0.4mm
Layer Height: 0.20mm Standard pre-set
Material: Bambu Matt PLA
Supports: Auto Tree with outer Brim except buildings which had inner brim.

As we play more V for Victory I've been trying to work out the correct amount of terrain for the game and it became obvious that we really needed something to fill in the slot for low/soft cover that a hedge provides. A search around on the internet came up with a set of files that looked about right. I did need to resize the dunes down to something that looked more like minor drifts of sand rather than towering dunes but that was the work of a few moments in Bambu Lab Studio. I didn't have the ready for the last game we played but they are now ready for the next one.

Continuing with the VfV theme I also knocked up a card & token holder to go by the side of the table, this will save having piles of tokens next to the table. I used the negative space technique from the last blog to make this but having now made some progress with Fusion and the Inset function I would do it differently if it had to be done again.

With the new Halo: Flashpoint bundles on the way I also picked up a card tidier design to keep all the cards and tokens in one place. Mantic Games are selling a version of this but it's much cheaper to get a free design and print it off myself.

Lastly for this week I picked up Fusion 360 again and watched a tutorial in order to start making some progress on designing some buildings. I'm basing these around a 3" cube system so I can use the Deadzone rules as the basis for an infantry skirmish game. I had planned to dive straight into Stalingrad but will be making a diversion via Tobruk (with any luck). I want to create some template designs which can then be modified into individual buildings so after watching a video on the basics of Fusion 360 I was able to create a box and lid. This is a 3" * 6" and I will make up a 3*3 and 6*6 template as well before I start the detailing.

I found some reference photos of Tobruk on the Australian War Memorial site which looks like a real treasure trove of information for any conflict the Australian Army took part in.

Here's a cut down version of the design I printed out to check the parts all fit, there is some warping on the corners which I need to look into. Initial investigations suggest adding a Brim around the print will stop that.

Merging and Negative Space

Having been off for the last week that has meant the printer has been working over time to add things onto my 'to be painted' pile. 

I decided to print up some terrain to use in HALO and Deadzone and wanted to modify the set I'd already printed off for Stu.

First of all I looked at the roofs to add a hole in for ladders to be attached on the inside of the building. This was very simply achieved by add a 30mm negative space cube to the roof model, a bit more tricky was adding the mounting point and I had to get my ruler out to measure the correct size and then work out the placement relative to the hole. Much to my surprise I got the dimension correct on the first try (even though I forgot to measure how wide the ladder was) and I printed a couple off.

I used the same technique to open some closed doors up and add windows to enclosed buildings.

I then realised that you could add a 'positive' cube and put a negative on inside to create a window sill / enclosure, making them look a bit more interesting.

The last thing I modified where the barriers for the roof tops by merging them together into L shapes for ground scatter. I now realise I could have gone a step further and used the Mesh Boolean 'Union' option to join all the individual items into one object, though this often throws up errors that cannot always be resolved in Bambu Lab studio

I've also knocked up something totally from scratch to use the cardboard spools that the filament comes wrapped around. I've got a few of these now so wanted something to use them up and hit on the idea of a simple kit that could be added to the spool to male an oil tank.

It's not very complicated but does the job and looks good enough with some paint on.

Everything here has been printed with:

Nozzle: 0.4mm

Layer Height: 0.20mm Standard pre-set

Material: Bambu Matt PLA

Supports: Auto Tree with outer Brim except buildings which had inner brim.