Painting Update

Over the weekend, I managed to get two sets of Peter Pig Character packs primed. I started to paint them on Monday night. The hats, pants and duster are done with one of them. They are fun to paint up. I should be able to finish up at least one pack this week.

I have been eyeing some terrain to purchase for WAC. At the moment, I am sold on some Warbases 15mm Cactus Creek buildings. In working our the area surrounding the town, I am trying to figure out buildings that can be part of the town and in the outskirts as well to get the most bang for my buck. But I just found a new to me company - Tre Games. They are US based which is helpful for me as postage will be less. There are a number of buildings that are of interest. Some will be of use for ACW or AWI as well. I am particularly interested in the windmill and the mill building. The mill would be fantastic for AWI games.

Using the Knuckleduster book Cowtown Creator as a guide, I am looking at making a "trading Post" and a "Hog Ranch" for the outskirts area. A Trading post would be a single business structure with some outbuildings that would offer trade opportunity for outlaws, homesteaders, Indians and others living outside of civilization. The Hog Ranch is an illicit pleasure district that would spring up outside of a town. There would be saloons and several small cabins with some outbuildings. I focused on these buildings for my pending Warbases order. Turner Miniatures just released a new set of miniatures for British Legion Cavalry. That has gone into my cart at MyMiniFactory. I need to get back to painting up my British Legion. Maybe I will do so this week. There are just two groups of Infantry that need wrapping up. Also I have cavalry that are next on the list. I paint so slowly but hopefully I can find some time to get a bunch done. I need to get a game on the table.

I started painting the bases to my British Legion last night and finished up the painting on one of the Peter Pig Character figures. It needs a little help with the basing but it is mostly there in mounted, foot and deceased form. The room was dark and I ended up using the flash. The picture is better but still bad.

I also started work on the base of one of the Turner Miniature horse casualties for the British Legion. I need to pick up the pace with the British Legion. I pushed it to the side too much lately and need to wrap this up. I have at least one more group of cavalry to do. I have five mounted troopers and three mounted officer figures. I will use at least one of the officers as another trooper. I also have a pair of standard bearers and something like 3 buglers.

Somewhere along the way, I managed to delete all of the files on the thumb drive I was using to 3D print with. Not sure what happened there. I also had some trouble with my vehicle. The radiator cracked and it was overheating. Too much money later and I have a working vehicle again. Ugh. I need more miniature time to recover from that.

Weekend Work - Mostly What A Cowboy

With the storm rolling in and all of the conflicting events that I had canceled, I did manage to get quite a bit of painting time in. I was able to glue and prime some Peter Pig Character figures for What a Cowboy. I really like the character packs. They come with a mounted, foot and dead version of the characters. The aim is to field at least four gangs of up to five figures each with a mounted, foot and dead version. I would eventually like to get some plains indians as well to complete my Battle of Adobe Walls scenario.

The first thing I finished was a World of Pratheron small adobe house. I painted the roof and the base building separately and apparently forgot how I was painting them. I may have to redo the roof as it does not match the base of the house. I really don't want to redo the roof. Will see if I get around to this.

Then I was able to work on the bank building from the same vendor. It is a really nice building that was designed for 28mm figures. I shrunk it down to 1/100th scale and had it printed. It came out great. Some of the details are a little less distinct in the print. Painting the walls, doors and floors under the overhangs was painful. I was wanting the building to come our closer to the bottom portion of the small house above but instead more of the base color came through than I thought would. I think I am happy with it as it is and will not tinker with it too much further. The interior of the buildings are just painted black. All 3 levels can be opened and they fit together with small pins glued to the bottom portion.

To the right of the bank building are two of my design. I don't know how to apply textures to 3d Prints yet so the canvas tops of the two buildings are a bit plain. I attempted to give them a wash of Army Painter Soft Tone but that beaded up and looked very strange. I ended up repainting it once that dried. The false front tent is going to get some signage for a Cafe or a Diner. Something along those lines. The print came out well. The wooden planks on the front and the lower wooden portion are visible but not as distinct as they were in Tinkercad. I may just use a fine point sharpie and draw in some lines holding down the tarps. I haven't decided yet how to finish these.

In the background you can see the Bear, Bison and wolf that I had painted earlier. I messed with the bases some. Still not overly thrilled with them but they are done enough for the time being. These are also visible in the picture of the campsite along with the single Longhorn that I have painted. The woodpile and tents are nice. For somereason, the one bedroll that is not fur is shiny. I didn't use any gloss paint on it so I don't know what happened. Hopefully I can get a can of matt varnish soon and fix it. I need it to protect the buildings I have painted anyway. The tents came out OK. The models had plenty of texture for the soft tone wash. I have a campfire to paint but didn't feel like painting it. I have several camp fires for my Sharp Practice armies but the basing is better suited for the AWI than the desert. I will have to get around to it at some point.

One interesting piece so scatter terrain that I had printed up was a hand water pump and bucket. This is a neat little item. It printed well in 1/100th even though the print was designed for 28mm models. This will be great for any yard in a town or farmstead.

Lastly, I have a house under construction. I actually have 3 different ones that I have had printed out for me. I like the model but I don't like how the first one came out. I also have three piles of cut lumber that I can place as scatter nearby. I painted it in Army Painter Pale Sand and then washed it with Soft Tone. It just doesn't look right. I have looked but I have not found anyone with a painting guide for fresh cut lumber. Any suggestions? You can see where the soft tone just beaded up on the model. I guess that the texture on the model is not workable with it.

British Legion Project

I worked on rebasing some of my militia again. I have four groups on the new basing scheme and another 8 figures on the new bases of 10. I still have a number of militia to rebase still. I will also be rebasing my Provincials. I need to figure out how to complete out these bases. I am thinking of just painting the base and then adding some sand and glue. This will need to be done on the trays as well. The trick will be to not allow it to overlap. That is the part I haven't wrapped my head around. I will just have to give it a try. I may prime the movement trays black. That way I will only have to deal with the top and outside edges.

I spent some more time and now have five and a half groups of militia rebased.

3d Printing

I got some more printing done. I think that the water soluable resin may be an issue. The definition seems softer and there is a tendency to warp. I am not sure what to do about this. I printed an adobe jail building. The base structure seemed OK but the roof is bent. The details are OK but not great on both parts. I am printing some henchman bases for What a Cowboy. Will have to see if I have the same issues.

I received the roofs for the store and the train station that a friend printed for me. His prints are much crisper in both filament prints and with resin. I have to conclude that the issue is with me.

Singling

I am pleased to note that my Singling Supplemnt for Chain of Command and What a Tanker has reached Copper status on WargameVault. Thank you all for helping with this.

What a Cowboy Items

I am very happy with the initial prints of the two buildings I made in tinkercad. The first is a large tent and the other is a test that has a false front for a store or the like.

I need to trim a bit of support from the chimney on the store tent. The one disapointment was with how poorly the wooden slats show up when scaled down to 1/100th scale. I will need to be careful when priming to not loose the detail that is present.

I have an old book from Knuckleduster called Cowtown Creator. It is a great reference for how to build out an Old West town. I am using this to build out the towns I am working on for my What a Cowboy games. It divides towns into multiple types based on the way they were created and provides a good guide for what buildings would be present.

I also managed to paint up some animals that printed out a while back. I picked up a couple of colors of Speed Paint and went to work. I am not sure how well they came out. I am thinking that the bison may need to be darker. But I am just not sure.

I have also done some small camp items as well. I printed out some small camping tents, some bed rolls and a wood pile with an axe. All of which are in process. The bedrolls came in two types - one with fur and one without. I printed several of each. The details was really good even thought the model was for a larger scale.

I started to paint an adobe house. I am not sure I like how it is progressing. Hopefully a few more drybrush coats will fix it. At the moment it looks terrible. I started to print an adobe jail last night. I need to check on the print later today to see how it turned out. I also think I have sorted out henchmen basing for my What a Cowboy games. I have henchmen based on small 13mm wide washers. I found someone who had made a base for henchmen that I was able to adjust to fit my existing models. After I print the roof of the jail, that will be the next print job.

Lastly, I found an old site that had an old west campaign that was set up for another rule set. The map is laid out so it shows settlements, ranches, small soddies (dirt houses/farms), mines and other things that could come into play. My thought was that each "faction" in the game would have their own motivation to go places and do things. Where they go, they will run into people who may oppose them that are not necessarily from an opposing faction. So I threw together a quick table to roll up to figure out what the area would be defended by. Anyway, it will give me an excuse to get some figures on the table for a few games.

Buildings for - What a Cowboy

I pulled together the buildings I just had printed. I have also started the job for another print session for my tent building today. I managed to give each of these a spray undercoat. For the "new suburbs" area of my main town, I have three buildings under construction. These are models from Project Wargaming. I also have the models for their three shop models. These are nice as they are basically a mix and match set of models that allow you to construct more than the three models that they are designed as. Other than them having the same footprint, they give you some great flexibility. They have a few other buildings that I am interested in but I don't have a large enough print bed on my 3d printer to make them.

On MyMiniFactory, I found the World of Pratheron. From them I have bought a number of models. I had a train station printed. I am still waiting on the building roof as it was not cured when my friend brought the print to work.

From the same vendor, I also bought their Small House 2 model, a Large House, a Bank and a Jail. I have not had the Jail printed yet. But the others are printed. There is also a store that I had printed that I believe I purchased from Wargaming3d. Not sure who the author was.

These multi level buildings have pins that you can add that help align the models. I have started to put those in place but they will need some more glue.

I started on a Sarrissa Cantina building a while ago. It is mostly assembled but needs work before I can finish it off.

The plan is to plaster the cantina. I will look at Rich's recent videos on how he plastered a few MDF buildings.

I have a few older painted buildings for my Mexican village. These are mostly old JR Miniatures models. I am nto sure what else is there.