2023 Week Two Painting Blog

Monday

Started the day 3d printing while I worked. The goal is to make simple Malifaux base toppers and I’m kind of amazed at how much better my new FDM printer is than my old one for it. Takes a few minutes per base for some slightly raised stonework. Next up it’s trying to remember how to wrangle [https://github.com/richeyrose/make-tile](MakeTile for Blender) in order to make them varied. Or I could just try and remember enough Blender to texture them myself.

Printing at 24.4mm x 24.4mm x 1.3mm seems to be the sweet spot for the smaller bases, and 32.5mm x 32.5mm x 1.3mm for the medium ones. I’ve not looked at the large bases yet as I don’t have any and I’ll worry about that when I get to it.

I’ll have to do a tutorial when I get my workflow down.

Something else I might do are some display trays for the models. Basically just movement trays but customised for each box. Malifaux only having a few different base sizes makes that one easy, and Killteam being mostly a case of “this is a team and it’s done for good now” really lend themselves to that.

On a more admin note I fixed the RSS for the site to only show the blog as it’ll get confused with all the auto generation otherwise.

Tuesday

Still not much painting today as real life got in the way, but hopefully the Witness crew only need a few more passes to be finished. Lots of website tweaks today as I needed to work some things out and why not experiment on my own site so I can get the benefits?

I also 3D printed a box for my malifaux cards because I couldn’t find anything I really liked on Amazon.

Wednesday

The real world sure does like to intrude into my painting life, but I’m oh so close on the Witness crew now. A few highlights and basing two models and I’m done.

Thursday

That’s it, my Witness core box is finished. Crack out the champaign. The speed isn’t important, it’s the fact that they got done and I think nearly 2 weeks for a core box is a good rate since I’m only getting painting time in here and there.

Next up was a bit of 3D modelling to design something to hold them. There’s bases that are 30mm and three that are 40mm so I designed a quick test with one of each of those hole sizes on to see if they’d fit. I used Blender’s Geometry nodes to do it and it worked out quite well as it let me adjust the numbers easily while I was working out sizes and things.

Friday

I need more things to paint. Tempted to go with the Untold Tales box from Malifaux because it adds options for my witness crew, but I’ve also got these Kroot that need finishing so I think them first.

I do need to sort out photography next though because what’s the point of a miniature painting blog without pictures? More work on the trays today. Exploring Geometry Nodes in Blender a bit more and figured out how to space out the holes automatically. Still needs loads of work, but getting there. . I printed out a 4x4 tray that was quite deep to hold Pro-Acryl paints as well. It’s a lot heftier than other paint trays I’ve printed and so the paints are quite secure. Keeping paints organised and not just covering my desk is a constant battle.

Saturday

If it’s a Saturday it’s new GW stuff day, and today is the 2nd box of re-released Space Marine Heroes models. It’s a range I really like and as what is probably a last gasp of a “proper” non Heresy, non Primaris marine release they’re a nice project. Or kill team.

Imperial Fists Mk 4 Marines

I started these last year as part of an answer to “Is the new Imperial Fist contrast paint any good?”. The answer was yes, it’s very good but like all contrast it doesn’t give a pleasing finish on large armour plates, which for Games Workshop must be very annoying as their line of quick paints is least suited for their best selling models. What it does do is give some really nice shading and so I went over the panels with Pro-Acryl warm yellow to try and flatten them a bit. For quick and dirty paint jobs they’re not bad.

The missile launcher I first painted in Coal Black and then blocked in some Dark Neutral Grey to make it a bit more interesting.

Witness Core Box

As the marine pictures suggest I also sorted out a dedicated photography area today so I can actually take photos of what I paint, so here’s the belated pictures of the Witness crew box for Malifaux. I did go and touch up a couple of models after seeing the pictures and I want to do some more, but if I go down that rabbit hole I’ll never finish them.

Sunday

The big question is what’s the next project? Another Malifaux box I think as my GW itch was scratched yesterday, so I think I’ll go with one of the starter sets. The explorer’s guild one looks interesting so that’s an easy choice.

I started by printing out some base toppers for them and discovered something interesting. Not all bases are created equal it seems. The 40mm base has a shallower recess and slightly smaller hole so the topper didn’t print. I shaved another 1mm off and hopefully this will remind me the next time I encounter it.