collecting firewood

thomasriepe , , , , , ,

Another civilian Miniature by Full Metal Miniatures. This time a porter carrying firewood. Painted as usual with GW contrast paints.

The streets for Hue

thomasriepe , , , , , ,

In one of the last posts I showed you a house I did for my Hue project. You can see it here. If you build a city you need some groundwork to place it on. As my terrain tiles are all grassland and not suited for a build up environment. I started building thin overlays as ground for the city/village. I will build streets running over the rest of the terrain in a similar way later.

I got myself some foam board sheets (PVC), like they are used by sign makers, you get them in the WWWor as waist from sign makers if you ask politely.

The sheet as it comes and cut to the right size, in my case roughly a foot by a foot.

I then added sand as texture, you can use white glue to fix the sand .

The sand added, make sure it is even as otherwise the buildings won’t sit flush on the base.

Then I added the usual paint I use for all my ground work like bases, around buildings and other vegetation.

Here a lighter dry brush is still missing.

So you get the result you can see below. As the tiles are very thin( but not warping) you can take them with you to other locations quite easily. As you can see on the picture. The setup is on our dining room table and not on my usual gaming table in the basement. This could be a nice lockdown project as you get everything you need on the net.

The finished base tiles

Mother with baby

thomasriepe , , , , , ,

Here is the next Full Metal Miniature. A woman with a baby.

The snake catcher

thomasriepe , , , , , ,

This is a figure of a snake catcher. Figure by Full Metal Miniatures. He is carrying a Y staff for catching the snakes and a basket with lid for disposing the caught snakes.

I see purple smoke

thomasriepe , , , , ,

Last year I build a burning smoke grenade in the classic way, by using an armature and self made colored upholstery foam. You can read about this here.

Now As I got a 3D printer last year and I acquired some STL files for smoke effects like missile exhaust , explosions etc from Deadly Print Studio I tried there smoke marker STL . I modified the file a bit to get different sizes of smoke . Then I printed them out based them in the usual way and added a little smoke grenade. Here are the results:

These are the two designs you get from Deadly Print.

Now I combined them in Tinker CAD to make these:

The miniature is an Empress Miniature added for size comparison .

Here are some more pictures:

What do you think which is better ?

pushing a bike

thomasriepe , , , , , , ,

Here is another Full Metal Miniature civilian. A woman pushing a bike. A very nice figure especially the bike is very neatly done. A treat to paint.

Another size comparison between a Full Metal Miniature figure and an Empress miniature one:

The complete 2nd squad

thomasriepe , , , , , , ,

Here is the complete 2nd squad of my third US Marine platoon.

Next I will start on my Australian miniatures.

Another building for my Hue city project

thomasriepe , , , , , , ,

First of all I hope you had wonderful holidays during these rather stressing time. I managed to finish another building for my Hue project over the holidays. It is a 3D print from the WOW Vietnam kickstarter. There are another 3 different shops in the kickstarter I have already printed but not yet painted up.

The building is printed in 4 parts so that you can place figures inside each floor. The backyard wall and the pavement is scratch build to fit in with my other buildings.

The adverts are found on the internet and printed out on paper then glued on and matt varnished. Be careful here and use a rattle can or an airbrush as otherwise the color will bleed on the paper.

Here is another picture with an Empress NVA for size comparrison:

This was 2020

thomasriepe , ,

So only a few more hours to go… Then the year 2020 is history. It was a really special year for everybody and for us wargamers and figure collectors. The COVID-19 pandemic had a very heavy impact on all of us.

I am in tears about all the loss of life, all over the world due to the pandemic…..

I hope that you, my dear readers and your families, are well and stay well in the future.

Due to the pandemic we had no possibility to meet like we normally do at our conventions like Salute, Crisis or Tactica. As all these meetings did not happen there was more time then in the last years to finish some projects in isolation. I managed to build a big Vietnam War project and had a few Star Wars Legion games with my son during the last month. I started 3D printing which added a complete new dimension to my hobby.

So here are some pictures of the things I did this year, concerning our beloved hobby:

So I hope this is a big enough view back into the year 2020.

I wish you all a prosperous and ,above all, healthy new year 2021, stay safe and hopefully meet you again soon when circumstances allow ….

Happy Christmas in these rather special times!

thomasriepe , ,

So it is the 24th of December Christmas eve. The time we celebrate over here in Germany. I know that others celebrate on the morning of the 25th, but anyhow ….

I wish you all a very happy Christmas

and hope that you and your families and friends are well. Sure this Christmas will be different from the Christmases we had before. In fact it will be the most difficult Christmas we had for a long time. Not being able to see all of your family members or friends is difficult but, I think, very necessary to further fight against COVID. I hope that years Christmas will be a bit better for all of us again.

Take care and look after the people in need in theses special times……