BSSCF2025 - Broody Birds

 Finished sanding down the walls lastnight and had a discussion about the build with my daughters at breakfast this morning. I suggested I would add some Swallows nests to the house as those tie in with the whole New Life theme.

A mention of the word Swallow must be accompanied by Monthy Python. Sorry, I don't make the rules.

 

The girls, rightfully so, said that a Storch or a Storchs next should be there as well. That presents a bit of a problem as the rules stated the build must fit inside a 4x4x4 inch cube and I'm hitting those limits with not a lot of room to spare. But I'll give it a try, so in comes a chimey. Plugged it in, glued it down and filled it with superglue and cornstarch to make it solid. I'll add a nest at a later date, the same for finishing the connection between the roof and the pipe.

 The Swallows nests (I went with Barn Swallows nests) are basic balls of Brown Stuff (my Green Stuff has gone the way of the Dodo ages ago) pressed into place with a toothpick and left to set. Once those have hardend I'll add a few tiny balls so I can paint up a few little Barn Swallows. Don't expect too much, those balls will be about 1mm in diameter max, with tiny stripes of red, white, black and the occasional yellow stripe. 

 

BSSCF2025 - Slurrpie House

 I could have used another term but you get the gist of it.....

Slurry mix of cheap wall filler, some wood glue and a drop of water, mixed into a fine paste. Use a brush that you have no emotional relationship with to spread it along the wall and let it set. It dries really quick but this is all I'm doing today. It looks rough now but once I've gone over with some fine sandpaper it evens out and will help with painting a weathered look. 

Shout out to the lady who gave away 100 small espresso cups for free on the local Free FB page, these are just perfect for this :)

More tomorrow. 

BSSCF2025 - Window framing

 After a semi decent nights sleep I came to my senses, and reminded myself that someone with reumatoid arthritis must be a complete idiot if he wants to cut out 20 windows by hand :)

That and I bought this printer for a reason, so printer go BRRR. 

Mental note: Do this again when you build the 2nd part of the Fish Factory as you no longer have card windows in your stash.

Putting in the windows in the right locations was very straight forward. So straightforward I only took 1 picture. That got corrupted. Son of a.....

 Basically I use The Chopper to cut a lolly pop stick into a large and a small section. Large section goes lengthway along the floor, short section goes upright againt the corner. Add glue, add window, push inward a bit and remove the sticks. Repeat.

 Added 2 roofing nails to the front for the signage.

And that is all I had time for tonight, now to let everything dry and tomorrow or wednesday spackle the walls.

BSSCF2025 - The core build

 Right, basics are done. 

 I put some thoughts to paper and grabbed what I needed.

Used my Proxxon to cut a 9x9  and 6cm tall block and cut out a overhang on the front. Recycled a old unused rooftest and cut that to size, and flattend off the top. Glued and pinned it all down. 

 

Grabbed some thin card (thick paper?) and made a nice 4 layerd front door for a bit of 3D . Fresh scalpel blade and my trusty punches, nothing else. No fancy Circut here (mostly cause I can't afford that).

And glued that into place, with a bit of scrap MDF as a step up. Easy peasy.

And the same for the back door, but a bit lower, nothing fancy here.

 Cut a high end sateh stick into 4 pieces and used those as support columns, trimmed the tops of the floors with swizzle sticks. A bit rough, but will be cut and sanded on the ends....it's just easier that way to do once it is all dry.

 My usual method of tinned sheet roof in progress. Some painters tape keeps it from lifting off....I could pin it down but this works fine and saves metal (for the War effort, you see?). 

And thus endeth my lazy Sunday afternoon...well, evening now. Roof in place, everything drying.

Next up is cut 20 windows (after replacing my scalpel blade, amazing how quick they blunt) and glue them on, strengthen the roof with prodigious amounts of superglue, sand the wood, do things I forgot and then plaster the whole thing up. Then let it all set for a few days so it is rock solid and then go to town with whites, greys and browns. I'm talking about paint btw....

Build Something Small Competition Fall 2025 - Fertility/Maternity Clinic for AK-47

 There is a new build over at the LAF, and I'm shortening it to BSSC - F2025

The Theme is "New Life/New Beginnings"

Naturally, I will join. I looked at adding something for Verrotwood, but that game is pretty much the Antitheses for Life, so no. So, AK-47 it is. Nothing like blaming yet another fire on the Rebels ey, think of all the headlines in the worlds newspapers and the support Wadiya would get :)

As with prior Building Something Small, the maximum size is 4 freedom units (inches) cubed. Or 101.6mm cubed for those in the rest of the world.

I grabbed one of my precut tree bases, selected a 10cm square and cut off the offending bits. With that sorted I grabbed the foamcutter and cut out a 9x9 block out of one of my 6cm thick not-Styrodur sheets and grabbed a old roof from the bits box that turned out too small for one of my 28mm builds. Cut out the middle so I had a nice pointy roof, but that would have been too tall, so flattend it. Glued it to the base and pinned on the roof and let the lot dry.

This building will be spackled, so I can add the windows, doors etc with card on top of the foam core. I'll add magnets to the front so I can change the sign. I might make one in Vietnamese as well, for reasons.

White exterior, nice on the front, bit weathered on the sides, seen better days in the back (keeping up appearances). Weathered tin roof. 

And that is it really. Make up a name etc I can do in the coming week.

Timelines (all times are midnight Pacific Standard Time of that day stated - yes my timezone means you get an extra 8 hours you lucky European sods)

• Start Time - Oct 1st
• Last Registration Day - Oct 8th
• Construction Completed - Nov 7th
• Painted Photos Due - Nov 10th
• Voting Begins - Nov15th(ish)

 Deadlines popped up in the Calendar, I have the time this month, just not sure about the energy as I'm getting plenty of frequent flyer miles back and forthing from my place to all of my check ups, blood tests and new meds to test. Plenty of pain , now with inflamed and open skin for extra oomph. Ain't Eczema great.

3mm test print 1

 Sliced the base off of the 6mm model and printed it at 40% to see if that works ok for 3mm. Might run another test tomorrow at 50%.

And somethimes it just doesn't work.

Multi part in 15mm and 28mm are coming out fine, the 15mm with a loss of detail but nothing terrible.

Starship engine printed at 15mm and ready for cleanup.

Scifi trams at 28mm and 15mm, ready for cleanup

Scifi train reay for assembly and cleanup, for the Stargrave scenario the Heist. Might add a passengercar to the list, the flatcars end up too thin on the sides to print safely so I will need to mod those a bit. 

But then I try one of the WoW files again and it fails (again) at the 2nd layer. 

Oh well, such is life 
 

Northag in 3mm - doing the paperwork

 After 2 games of Northag in 15mm I found I simply don't have the room for the game I would like to play, but I like the game. After mathing some math, looking at the pro's and cons of 3mm vs 6mm I've decided to give 3mm a go. I painted that before, I can do that quickly with a nice bit of detail, and that just leaves the isuses of the lists, purchasing and basing.

Lists:
I've downloaded a British and a Russian list from the FB Group, noted down the numbers.

Purchasing: 
Made an order with Oddzial Osmy for both, plus some civillian stuff. The way the packs works it means some will  just barely cover it and others I will have way too much, but it is what it is. 

Basing:
Vehicles will be single based, troops per team.

For all vehicles I'm nudging towards 40mm x 20mm  or 30mm x 30mm wide for practicality purposes (standard sizes help with fitting in the box, infantry teams can be on 30mm round, Specialists on 20mm rounds?. Command bases 40mm or square, just like the offboard support markers..... but tbh I can't make my mind up about base sizes. It doesn't really matter for Northag anyway, and every other system seems to have their own special needs. I'll give it a good think as I'll need to paint everything first anyway. 

I'm still keeping 7 days to the Rhine in the back of my head as a backup btw. 

That and I should not be overthinking this, ey?

The Sarkarians (Verrotwood Cult)

 

Sarkar the Divine


Before the death of the Gods, the small village tended to the docile orb weaving Sarkarian spiders living in the nearby Forest around the shrine of Sarkar, and harvesting the strong fibers of their webs for a light and very expensive cloth. It was a hard life, but they managed.

And then the Darkness came.

Suddenly the spiders weren’t so docile anymore. Several workers are attacked and killed, their poisend bodies used as nurseries. Even worse, the spiders started growing, and growing, from small hand sized spiders to the size of a Bull. When they started entering the village in search of food, a local harvester donned a suit made of the special cloth and approached the largest spider carrying an offering of fresh meat wrapped in strands of web, wafting in a cloud of incense, weaving it left to right, stomping his feet and mumbling rhymes praising Sarkar to himself.

The spider stopped as if hallucinated, bowed down, and took the offering placed in front of his monsterous jaws, and backed off back into the forest. Sarkar would be pleased, if only we appeased His children more His favour would surely return.

But now the animals have all been slaughtered and fresh meat must be aquired, so the villagers are flooding the Forest in search of more fresh meat. Animal or Human, Sarkar cares not. And with enough offerings, Sarkar will decend from the heavens to give plentyful bounty to her followers.

Well, they hope anyway. 

Pinetrees drying and ready for base primer and flocking

 Getting there.

Pining for the trees WIP

 Picked up a joblot of tufts last week and in it was a big bag of H0 scale pine trees. Use it or lose it, so started basing them up this weekend.

Will work fine as young ones for STALKER and regular pines for 15-20mm. And yes, my dinnertable is a right mess atm.

Pain is finally receding again though my skin is still FUBAR, but at least I have an interest in doing stuff again instead lying in bed doped up. Jay. 

Printing the night away.

 Sick as a dog, changed medications to another one that doesn't fuck up my liver and kidneys (as much), so 0 interest or energy to do anything untill my bodies accepts it (couple a weeks to 6 months max before it accepts it according to the paperwork. Also, jamming a autoinjector into myself is...interesting). So, printer goes BRRRR.

I bought some STL's from Multiverse who is quickly becoming my favourite creator. Currently on the plate is the tower for the Turbolaser, scaled down to 15mm, the turret is already finished. As is the Admin tower (on the right in the pic) and a free STL of a Repulsor cargo skiff, also scaled down to 15mm.

  When printing single part large items it gets a tad close to the plank that sores the dryers and spare filament, but such big prints are going to be exceptions. I've noticed I'm not having the best sleep due to all the varied and non repetetive noise it makes. If I ever get a new kitchen (somewhere in the next 5 years I think) I'll move the freezer out of the understairs cabinet and put the printer in there.

Comparing the set I bought from a friend to the print of the Imperial Hab unit, and it works just fine. Again scaled down to 15mm. 

 

Imperial Administrative Tower scaled down to 15mm, I need to make a blob with antenna's and a magnet ...using the originals scaled down isn't going to work, only 2 layers this will snap instantly.

A not Tatooine set of walls, again in 15mm

Cargo skiffs in 15mm x 3. Will make good scatter, need to find some stuff to put in the back and a tarp over it.

And why the hell not, print one in 28mm. Same idea, bigger scale.

For some reason I can't get the half round imperial roofs to print properly, the top part keeps getting small openings so I need to look at my printer settings for that. The flat ones print off fine so that is what I will use for now. 

Everything is now being printed at 0.08 layer beight after being scaled down to 53.6% of the original size. 

There will be more in 15mm and maybe a few in 28mm as well. 

Generic Cultists WIP

 Tonight we have a playtest for Verrotwood and I have grabed a few of my Frostgrave sprues to make 2 sets of 9 Cultists with the various loadouts as listed in the rulebook. No special conversions as these are meant to ge generic and to get used to the game, that can come later. 

 Both sets contain, from L to R:

• Generic Leader model with Heavy Blade (not needed in Verrotwood so can just double as a Heavy Blade Cultist)
• Crossbow
• Bow
• Pole (in this case a spear and a halberd)
• Heavy Blunted (A big hammer and a giant mace that I shaved the spikes off of)
• Light Blunted (a mace and a hammer)
• Heavy Blade (Identical curved blade)
• Light Blade (I gave them both 2 knives)
• Improvised (Meat chopper and a bone with a iron nail in it....you could argue the Meat chopper is a Light Blade but to me it feels more like something they grabbed from a better equipped kicthen of the Cook joining in )
  
  

Everyone has a pointy hat except the 2 Leader figures. They also have a slightly more exposed face and will get more time in the painting que. They are all from the Cultist and Cultist II box for Frostgrave, with the occasional part from other kits tossed in. I still need to do the basing, add pouches etc.

Colourwise....I just dunno. Lot's of washes to get them done, not a single conversion except a few weapons swaps already done. Either Dirty White, Dark Red or Dark Grey Black feels like a good colour....I just can't make my mind up yet. I will make another set of 9 or more with WW2 weapons, as I have plenty of spare sprues with Warlord Russian etc weapons, so I have options. I'm also looking at making 9 or so armed with muskets but I don't have any spare ones atm. I think. 

This way I'll end up with enough Cultists for Pulp, Silver Bajonet, Horror etc. 
 

In this case, they don't need or want them to be perfect. Better to have a decentish paintjob and get them to hit the table instead of languishing like some of my poor Stargrave figures are doing for years now. Then again, best laid plans and all that.... 

2nd set of graves

More graves for the graveyard. Again all Renedra Ltd but the fence around the double grave is from Noch. 

 

Quite a bit of room left in the box so I better keep this up.

 

 

Verrotwood: Vicious Terrain - Sacraficial Altar

 "Something awful happend here and now the ground itself is tainted with hatred"

If you do a melee attack within 3 inches of this terrain piece, you gain 1D10 attack dice.

Examples: Sacraficial rock, pile of bodies, etc.

 

I found this free STL ....somewhere?* I can't for the life find who made it, even when using the file name. I'm sure someone will someday tell me. Printed it off, used a saw to remove the badly printed goat skull that was there as sacrifice, sanded it smooth, coverd the gaping hole with some flatterend crumped paper and glued 4 Games Workshop skulls on top. To represent another team of 4 Cultists that had met a untimely end. Or timely, depending on your view.

*Edit: Apparently it is a Forest Shrine from this range Temple or Arba ....but I picked it up as a free STL, I think? It's not in my online receipts at any of the STL places. So I'm now showing off a pirated STL.....FML. I'll send a message to the creator. 

This was a experiment on how to paint printed stuff, as it is very different from the MDF I'm used to. Lot's of sponging too on this one to subdue the printlines a bit. Didn't quite work the way I wanted to, but done is done. Size wise it fits in nicely with some of my other shrines. 

So...the altar for He Who Ascends, The Allseeing Eye, or the Giant Spikey Boob*? Who knows, but it is done. 

*You may thank Modhail for this: "All hail the malignant mammary of magnificent magnitude!"

 

 

Stalker grave marker - proof of concept tester

 I grabbed a STL of a Orthodox cross yesterday and printed off at 2 sizes to see if it would print properly and if my idea would work for Stalker. The texture of my plate at the back gives that idea of really rough concrete, and the iron function on the front gives you the idea of exposed rebar, so yeah, this works.

Started and finished within 24 hours.....see, I can get shit done quick if I want to. (if only it was so easy but yeah....)

What lurks in the Jungle.... is finally bloody finished.

 Last post about these was Feb 2024, but now the lot is finished. The 2 busted ones are more overgrown, and the intact ones I want to be able to use in various surroundings, so I made sure not to go overboard. I think I succeeded.

As planned, these are for 15mm.....but a bit big now that they are done, so into my 28mm Pulp box they go. 

 

 And the tacky original as they came in tacky garish colours at 1 euro a piece back then (these days 1,50 euros each cause of course, inflation)

For 15mm I really need to find one half the size, or have 10 of em printed in resin at the proper size. And do it all over again.....