{"id":28632,"date":"2024-05-04T19:49:58","date_gmt":"2024-05-04T18:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hntdaab.co.uk\/blog\/?p=28632"},"modified":"2024-05-05T15:00:52","modified_gmt":"2024-05-05T14:00:52","slug":"project-update-may-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hntdaab.co.uk\/blog\/2024\/05\/04\/project-update-may-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Project Update: May 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Oh yeah, we’re doing this again. As much as I do my SITREPs and updates when things happen, sometimes you need that monthly update to keep your eye on the sheer number of plates you’re spinning. I’m going to write them at the start of each month, and do a quick once over what’s been done and what’s coming up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tech Update<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Before we go into the juicy stuff, a little update on the behind-the-scenes. Two big things with the resin 3d printer at the moment – the first is that I’ve moved away from Elegoo ABS like in favour of Sunlu ABS-like. It worked out cheaper and as a side effect seems to be slightly faster to print using after doing my calibrations. I’m very happy with how it looks and feels in the hand, especially when combined with the larger scale I’m now printing at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Less good was the other issue – turns out that I’ve been running the Saturn with a dead LED on one of the lamp boards. This was leading to some of the weird behaviour I’ve included above, with an almost perfect square of failure on every print. After doing some troubleshooting (aka opening the printer up and donning some shades while running tests), I narrowed down the issue and reported it to Elegoo support. And props to them, within a few days I had a replacement part on it’s way from China for less than a bottle of resin. The part arrived earlier this week, so the next step will be opening it all up again to replace the faulty board and get it up and running again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ultramodern<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After announcing my plan to reduce my focus and rebuild around a standard scale, I’ve felt a little bit of a weight lifting from my shoulders. Rather than having to balance collection guilt vs new (and useful) shininess, I now get to focus on picking up what I need and when I need it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The first order of business (after the test models) was to reprint all of the current Spectre STL releases I own, using 110% scaling for extra details. On a Sunday evening, while watching AEW Dynasty, I got these figures based up as well as doing a few little tweaks to the Task Force Operator guys, clipping off the NVG mounts on the helmets and filing down to give a set of figures ideal for daytime operations. Thanks to having the STLs (and with NVG STLs on the way hopefully), I can make a second set for night ops later on (the glorious advantage of printing your own, the idea of having duplicate sets suddenly becomes much less like madness).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Onto the painting desk, I have the Spectre Local Forces. The idea behind these guys is they will be used for Tsarist Irregulars (a little bit against their original intention but suitable for the project), while Russian figures are being used for the regular Tsarist armed forces. The Local Forces are going to be the first models painted in the new scale, so I’m going for a slightly simpler camo to get my brain back into painting mode. I ended up sponging on colours with two shades of green and another of brown, before going back (after the wash) to top up with a final sponge of the original green. I’m still not 100% on it but I’ll have more of a play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Republic of Shyluz forces, they are being redone due to the scale change. However, seeing as I’m building them from Combat Octopus’s modular parts, they need a lot of space on the build plate and I was running into issues with the failed LED. Rather than trying to play “avoid the horrible pit of print failure”, I’m going to wait until the replacement part is in situ so I can print away efficiently and get the first platoon of Shyluz Airmobile Infantry printed off ready for painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of the Ultramodern Project, details on Shyluz have continued to be developed over on the Patreon<\/a>. The background material has all been covered about how I’ll be talking about the focus of the project, the Platoons of the Republic of Shyluz Defence Forces, so now it comes to detailing them. I’m also updating on how Shyluz is doing in the wider world, which may setup some details on other nations that will be involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BPRE28mm<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A subproject of the Ultramodern project but actually the game I’ve ended up playing the most, BPRE28mm is taking up a chunk of time in my brain. Now that Spearhead has been released, it’s time to get my collection all setup to play the complete BPRE experience. I’m pondering about the idea of expanding my battle mat collection with a larger Phaseline one (the larger size also fits in the Spearhead and Raid mission types). I have also picked up the BPRE vehicles for coverage and to add to the visual appearance of the table. There is another element for the visuals (but we’ll cover that in Project Blender below.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I’m still assembling the latest figures but I’ve got to say they continue the excellent work of the previous sets. I was a big fan of the new SPEAR guys when they first showed the artwork for them, but seeing them in the resin is another step, with all the details picked out and ready for painting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once these guys are assembled (as well as their Nitto opponents), I’ll then get to work painting them all up, ideally in small batches but at a similar time so I can keep the consistency. I’d got all the paint schemes written down but it’s much easy for consistency where there isn’t a big break between sessions. And once it’s all painted up, then it’s time to run a Spearhead campaign with my Corporate Regular Opponent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Old World<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Offt boy okay. So in my last post on the Old World<\/a> I was like “huh, this game is fun and I have lots of figures suitable for this army so maybe I can jump in for cheap?”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer was No. Because half measures are for fools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I hit eBay after drawing up my original list to see what I could pick up and discovered some Chaos Chosen for massively under the retail price. Chaos Chosen are one of those units I look at the current box, enjoy the wonderful sculpts and realise that the release is 100% designed for the smaller units of AoS, with each set of five costing \u00a340. Unfortunately, I need 10 of them and frankly, I’m not paying \u00a380 for a special unit of the shocking “Big Dudes”. Luckily for me, someone was selling the spures separately and I was able to make a giant saving. Now to just wait for some cheap version of the Chaos Warriors and Chaos Knights so I can add some command groups…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I also did my base order from Hobby Heaven<\/a>. This is something I could have printed myself on the FDM printer, but after a few test I realised it was actually more efficient to get the bases ordered but 3D print the movement trays<\/a> I’ll need (seeing as the filament printer is busy with other things and occasionally I do need to turn it off so I can sleep). Hobby Heaven is someone I have ordered from repeatedly due to the wide array of plastic bases available and rapid delivery times. No change with this order, arriving on Friday after a Tuesday afternoon ordering with a literal pile of 30s and 25s for the infantry, as well as a few larger ones for certain models in the collection. This weekend is going to be a rebasing session, which I’ll be reporting in elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project Blender<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My time spent learning Blender is a little bit slowed due to everything else going on right now. However, I have continued a little bit of playing around, mostly looking at how to engineer the connection between the different parts of the structure. Although learning to 3D model is the central focus, I also ideally want to make sure the things I sculpt are actually useful in the end, so learning the do’s and don’ts is a key part. I will however head back to actually putting hands on the tools this coming week, with the idea of getting the first building fully printable with all the things I want to try out on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve also started assembling the hit list of items I’d need if I were going to build my own figures, although this is more of a thought exercise at the moment. Items such as magazines, optics and hard objects on web gear are, by their nature, standardised objects that would be reused when building either a weapon or a full figure. With the plan of “Buildings->Guns->Figures”, preparing for stage 2 by gathering references now will save me time in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Projects<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Although the projects above are the focus ones, there are still other projects that I’m keeping vaguely involved in, even if there wasn’t any movement this month<\/p>\n\n\n\n