Alarums and Excursions (and other stories)

Well, thats been fun a 2026 so far. Lots of worrying things abroad in the world and nearer to home too, And it's ony the end of February.

Closer to home for me, I've been pretty stumped in getting anything at all done and any plans have been totally scuppered to date due to fairly minor (thankfully) but no less incapacitating ailments since before Christmas with the likes of a throat infection, subsequent linguring cough, closely followed by tooth ache and trigeminal nerve issues with wisdom tooth extraction and breaking the tooth next to it. 

Coupled with Dentists and Doctors that don't know their arses from Tuesday, cancelling appointments at the last minute and passing responsibilities on to other Professionals and so on. Also multiple transport issues caused by the state of the roads locally and around the country with repairs to windscreens and wheels required it's been an interesting couple of months so far. I did have a day at the end of January where seemed to be ok and before next issue arose (the fololowing day) but my wife pressganged me into some DIY which in fairness was much behind schedule along with everything else.

But, touch wood, I seem to be getting out of the morass and feeling more up to getting my nefarious plans back on track.

On that, I did have quite a few irons in the fire which I'd been planning to get into this year, including new ventures into the land of business of the model making and design variety extending to design and manufacture of furniture and storage along with general modelling and hobby activities, DIY and so on. Obviously, due to the current state of karma around me, bugger all has been done up to this week.

The first positive step has been made this week however. Now the back story... One New Years day 2025, I had a bit of a windfall, picking up the £1K Daily Win on the Postcode Lottery. Good start to last year. Hummed and hawed a bit as to where to spend this but I quickly plumped to pick up a 3D printer with associated paraphenallia. The money was suitably banked and I set about reading up on things, checking various reviews and getting my head around the differences of Resin and filament printers and capabilities.

Time passed and things carried on as usual and fairly quickly decided upon a Resin printer which would cover Hobby Printing to suitable detail but also give me options for more functional accersory outputs for my other activities for jigs and machine parts. Time passed...

Things moved on, other life changes were coming to the fore and descisions made with the relevant one here being that I'd decided to take slightly early retirement and would be looking to supplement my income come the summer of 2026. Various plans became a bit more concrete and part of this was the facility to digitally design and print models.

Now, with the end of the year looming I got my finger out and ordered my first 3D printer (along with all the paraphenalia) which would land nicely just before Christmas and would have the time to step and experiment and get to know things before I went back to work.

As you can guess, things didn't go to plan here due to picking up an infection and the subsequent trials and tribulations that followed and I didn't get to open the boxes until mid February. Now all opened, contents checked and assembled, switched on, checked again, usual test prints run and all good.

First hurdle was up beginning of the week and looked to get my first print out in anger as it were. Previously purchased STL's were duly sliced and saved to .ctb file uploaded to printer and.... nothing. Lots of investigations were carried out, change of settings, different arrangements and means of loading, compatibility issues checked, software updates etc etc and finally lockated the issue being with the resolution profile on the slicer software had to be set to an older version of the printer than the printer actually was. Go figure.

Anyhoo, re-sliced my first batch of prints and uploaded and set to print last night and in the morning my first print selection was sitting waiting for me to clean and cure.

Lastsword Miniatures Heavy Pike Command
 and Bite The Bullet Githyanki Fighter

With the first output a success, I'll plan forward for some much needed hobby time and get some modelling and painting done soon.

Looking to post up on recent hobby related activities over 2025 and plans for 2026 and will update on the Business venture further down the line once it's a bit more developed.

More anon.

All about the Base - Remix

 

Following on from my recent experiments with modelling and casting resin bases, I had decided I wanted to try an alternative casting material and aware that I had used polyester resin previously (only because that's what I had lying about) which is not the first choice I procured some fastcast polyurythane resin along with resin dye to see how that turned out.

First attempt using the previously made base moulds was partially successful as I mixed too much resin, basically more than I could pour before it began to set. Living up to it's name as 'Fast Cast'. What I managed to pour worked out fine and trying again with half the amount of resin produced a variety of bases fairly easily and a lot quicker and less smelly than the polyester, all of which was nice.

The castings are a lot sharper, as the filler I had used in the polyester casting did blur things a bit though I did like the 'feel' of the castings produced. Polyurythane is obviously the way to go and I picked up some alternative 'white fastcast' at the same time to see how that works out as this has a slightly longer pot life.

I also knocked up a quick mould to cast up some small scatter terrain bits to individualise the various castings which I had deliberately kept fairly blank, especially so I could tart up bases as required with these decorations. This mould worked out fine and I can now produce rubble, scatter and battlefield detritus to my hearts content. A few choice bits are already added to the Kroot Killteam bases which are currently in progress and will post up soon.

All about the Base

 

First figs receiving newly cast bases

Having been getting into Killteam recently and investing in the 'Into the Dark' set when released last year I had started building up the teams included in the box with the Kroot band being the first to be assembled.

I had also invested in the 'Imperrium' magazine during Covid as a occupational therapy activity and had started assembling some of the new marine figures and a few others and intended to use the terrain bits included with the magazine for use with Killteam scenario's.

On assembling the first figs and basing them I had decided I wanted to get some modern or techy basing for the figures to difference them from other 40K ranges I already have. Having some of the GSW rollers from a small previous project ,I had tried to put on some rolled results on to the standard plastic bases for a couple of the SM figs but this prooved to give a very thick look to the base which I really didn't like.

Having never really liked the plastic bevelled edge bases from Citadel since first slotta base release back in the day and preferring a fairly thin square edge to my basing I decided I would sculpt up and cast some basing for the Killteam and SM figures and would add in some alternative basing for some of the other bits picked up recently like for my Sisters of Battle and fantasy skirmish bits too.

I had tried some bought resin bases previously from a couple of manufacturers and though the sculpting is OK and often very nice for the chosen products I have found the quality control over the castings is usually fairly poor with a general extreme variance particularly on the thickness of the castings and sanding the the extreme ones to a cosistent level a big pain and extremely laborious.

Selection of scuplted blanks

First up was to produce some blanks and I duly purchased some MDF circular 2mm bases to give a regular size and applied various textured clay pieces to the bases with a bit of chopping and changing and mixing the various textures to give a bit of variety and embelishment for some of the plainer basing.

A fair bit of finishing and minor sculpting and ensuring all the blanks were of suitable sizing and edges square etc. followed.

First moulds and casting results

Next up once I was happy with sufficient variety of bases of varying sizes (28mm, 32mm and 40mm) I made up some moulds with some silcone I had left over, enough for 3 sizable moulds.

The only resin I had to cat up first time was some clear water polyester resin, which although stinks to high heaven does give a fairly sharp cast result but is quite plasticy and hard so I added in a small amount of marble filler which makes the resin a bit friendlier and a much nicer feel. Also makes the casting a bit easier to work with though does blur the casting results slightly.

First bases cast, cleaned, and undercoated

The whole process though fairly labour intensive, especially at the beginning in the blank preparation, is simple enough and fairly enjoyable. I picked at the production in small bursts so as not to sicken myself with extended work.

I also limited myself to the number of casting blanks scuplted so I could produce enough bases for the figures I had already assembled and was wanting to get painted and into some gaming, though this has still been a few months in production over all.

Ready to get painting

Quite happy with the results of the project thus far and had to stop myself in sculpting up more and different bases, but have a few plans for some more and hopefully better basing.

The character and larger models I have planned will be individually scuplted as not wanting to make up castings for ones I would only use once or twice, but I intend to incorporate bits of the castings I have done so as to unify the band or army feel for all the figures.

Will post up the finished articles in due coarse.