Stockings and Suspensions

Strap in, ladies and gentlemen, for we have much to ponder! This last week I've been beavering away on the webstore getting a few things added (not the least of which is The Army Painter's superb ranges of paints and hobby stuff) but mostly I've been fettling 3d printers and thinking about what else to feed to you hungry Miercenaries.

Stockings

Over the course of the last few months I've been printing lots of nobles as job lots, pretty much one or two different ones a day, simply to ensure we have some stock. This is now reflected on the webstore; if you see a green ‘in stock’ - well, it's in stock! Generally speaking there'll be around 10-20 of them at this point, and I've been concentrating on the most popular ones (as well as ones that make sense production-wise): so, for example, all the female nobles for the Ysians are in stock, as are a few other popular nobles like Eadric, Cynemon, Mildryth, Heldred and so forth. I haven't yet got around to updating the stock for everything, but I will hopefully get that sorted in the next week.

Lots of Ysian ladies!

Suspensions

My last blog concerning the 3d printers has had a happy resolution: it was the screen protectors. Don't use matte ones, people! While I had some success with Krull with a matte one, Angrislaug really didn't like his - it was making the supports incredibly thick and detail was terrible - so I swapped them both in the end to clear glass ones intended for the Tesla Model 3 screen.

(This is despite The Interweb telling me that matte screen protectors are fine.)

Beasts and that

Anyway - the end result is that production is rather better now and I'm churning through the beasts sale production and moving on to the monsters. The Peg a Pin Up! sale won't take too long either, being mostly nobles. I reckon I'm around 1-3 weeks behind on production for Grey Wulf stuff, but that should get easier now that I've got the printers fettled - and I'm not on holiday, I guess... ;o)

Not bad for £15

Of course, once I had Angrislaug fettled, Krull (the other Mega 8k) kindly decided to accept a hole in its fep. What the 3d printer gods* didn't plan on is that I've invested in a £15 electric screwdriver, so it has literally halved the time it takes, although I still have heart in mouth moments due to my longstanding Ham Fist - especially when slicing off the excess fep. That's definitely a stage I have to concentrate really hard and have to stick my tongue out while doing it to ward off Loki.

*these guys have moved on from paper printers because it is more satisfying watching someone shout the worst swear words very loud at 3d printers than someone mutter under their breath at paper printers.

The Army Painter

Here's a fun fact for you: I gave The Army Painter their first big break back in the day. My old store was the first to stock Quickshade and we supported them all the way, and I have to say I have loved watching them grow from those small acorns.

The Speedpaints range is something I particularly like myself, and I did have intentions (when I actually had some spare time) to reprise the Tale of Four Miercenaries with The Army Painter's range of paints; but, as ever, time is my enemy.

Anyway, take advantage of the 25% discount and grab yourself some fantastic paints!

Parting is such Sweet Sorrow (So is Not Parting)

Something I've been meaning to bore you with for a while is parting a miniature, which magically occurs inbetween everybody going ‘Wow!’ when they see a new miniature and us delivering them to their grubby mitts.

It should be said at this point that parting a miniature for casting in resin is completely different to parting a miniature for 3d printing. 3d printing can do things that casting in resin cannot - the evidence is in those amazing hollow chests of our undead wiht horsas! Casting in resin does not like funny right angles followed by another angle, so miniatures have to be parted in seemingly crazy ways and - certainly when it comes to smaller miniatures - has probably been maddening for you all. 3d printing anything below 60mm has meant that we can reduce the amount of parts our miniatures are in; the frēawulfas were body, head, jaw, legs, tail before we started 3d printing them as one part - which is a great advantage, but it can be taken too far, which we have been guilty of.

Printing larger miniatures as one piece leads to problems. And I hate problems. Here's the problems:

1. Firstly, I always remind people that this is a hobby as much as anything else; if we produce miniatures in one piece, where's the fun in that? I get that some people don't like the hobby side of things, but you won't respect your toys as much as if you have actually put the work in to make them look good.
2. Secondly, if just one tiny part of that miniature fails, you've wasted a lot of resin printing it.
3. Thirdly, you can't hollow anything, which is essential to save money - 3d printing resin is bloody expensive!
4. Fourthly, supporting a miniature as one piece is a total pain, and doing so means you have to compromise - you often get supports in places where they shouldn't be (such as teeth) just to please another part of the miniature (such as fur), which very often obscures detail when removing parts, takes longer to desupport, and so on.

To illustrate, as I know you all love pretty pictures, here's Rēoc the frēawulf's progression from cast resin to first stabs at 3d printing to now:

At the top we have Rēoc parted for cast resin; all the legs off, body, rock, head, jaw, tail. Getting carried away with what 3d printing can do, we printed Rēoc as one piece (middle); on the bottom is Rēoc as we now print him, so that a) he can be hollowed and b) we don't have to have supports for his teeth. Always take lower jaws off if the mouth is open!

So I guess what I'm saying is that there's a sweet spot. If it's a small thing, like a wulf on a 40x25mm base, make it one part (as previously for cast resin they had eight parts each and there's no point in hollowing them). If it's even slightly bigger than that, such as for a human, whip off heads, arms at the shoulder, but not much more than that. If it's horse-sized or bigger, make it so that you can at least hollow the body somehow (usually by removing the head and the tail), and take those jaws off where necessary! Obviously a lot bigger than that you're moving into how we do things for cast resin anyway.

Reivers / Rivers

Now that's off my chest, here's some more pretty pictures with some reivers by Rafael Callegari (who always calls them rivers for some reason).

He's now completed the champion (apart from doing the other weapons) and three of the females, the hornblower and her alternate plus another, so things are moving on apace!

I honestly think these guys are going to be amongst the best miniatures we'll ever produce and I can't wait to get them on the site. The infantry side of things (bear in mind there'll be shieldwall, great weapon, two weapons and bow/arrow versions of each of these) should be done this month, and then next month the reiver horse will follow; and they are going to be so cool! I'll make sure the horsed guys have the weapons appropriate for their profile of course - two axes to throw, with a shield and helm option; and don't forget there'll be reiver hunter horse too.

Rafael is really producing some amazing work and I'm happy to say he's chuffed to bits with what we're asking him to do. He loves it!

Drēorgan of Dunhowe

Speaking of that, the mighty undead dragon known as Drēorgan is now up for sale of course!

Bone or Brown or Something Else?

Now his rider Gārwald is sculpted too now, and I'll be getting him riding Drēorgan up on the site next week; but one thing I'm changing - and need your input about - is a new colour for our renders because I'm bloody fed up of grey.

 

So I've chosen either bone or brown; what do you think, fellow Miercenaries? I genuinely can't decide - and if you have any other colours that you think would a) be neutral enough to display on both a light background (for images) and dark (for videos), let me know... and speaking of videos:

100 Warlords - Next Week!

Now then now then! With the printers sorted I can concentrate on these guys. I've done the first Eorcenbehrts and Constantines this week, which leaves Conall, Ophios and the reworked Talorc and Penda; so by the end of next week, the first ones should be leaving the shores of Misty Mierce. I know its taken a while to get here, but we always get there in the end...

Right, that's all for now, I've waffled enough. I hope you guys enjoy yourselves over the weekend, because I certainly will. With beer!