QT3 hobby desk thread

[merryprankster]

@Mark_Crump Awesome trains! I love model train sets and dabbled in it as a kid.

@rowe33 I would shy away from “plastic glue” for reaper stuff. That plastic glue is for the hard pvc spue plastic of GW stuff or like model airplanes. Reaper is a different plastic and I would just use super glue on them (a lot of folks I now use super glue on the GW stuff too).

(Unless reaper has switched to the hard plastic sprues, in which case the plastic cement is a little easier since you get a few moment of “work time” to position things just the way you want.)

[Juan_Raigada]

I don’t know what Reaper makes their minis of, but there’s ABS plastic glue too.

[Mark_Crump]

@merryprankster

Awesome trains! I love model train sets and dabbled in it as a kid.

Thanks. The club I belong too is massive. The layout is over 40’ long. It’s a fun creative outlet.

Aside: how to the Reaper paints airbrush?

[rowe33]

Ah, thanks Merry, will keep that in mind after we move!

[cpugeek13]

Anyone here into Warlord miniature wargames? I started playing Bolt Action a couple years ago, and have branched into some of their other wargames recently. Been working on a Waterloo British army for Black Powder the last few months:

I really like how polished Warlord games rules are, even if they sacrifice realism for a more streamlined game experience. I also just preordered a started set of Black Seas, their new tall ship naval wargame.

[PreachyPreach]

I’ve spent the summer painting up a Swedish TYW army from Warlord Games, though as my gaming partner and I have browsed various rules, we’re more inclined to try Baroque or The Pikeman’s Lament - the handling of the musket/pike elements in P&S seems fiddly. But their miniatures and customer support are really good though.

Cruel Seas is pretty fun as well - quick and dirty knife fighting.

[Mark_Crump]

This year I want to get more serious about model railroading, other than “take it out of the box and put it on the track.”

So, I have been making scrap loads for gondolas. I am using styrene bits and left-over rail. This is one pretty much done, and two ready for the glue to try and then primer.

This is a scrap load from crappy plastic wheels.

[meeper]

Looking good!

I enjoy painting minis, dioramas, and models of military vehicles and aircraft, but I’ve never gotten the hang of cars or trains. Love your choice of rail car though – I haven’t seen that logo in years.

[cpugeek13]

Almost done with the first foot brigade of my Napoleonic British 28mm army!

I’ve also started an early-war French army for Bolt Action.

[Shieldwolf]

No pics to post but I finally got some painting done.

Painted Computer tokens for Nemesis.
Painted Voidseeders
Painted Sabotage board game

To do:
Paint rest of Nemesis Aftermath and Carnomorphs
Paint Blood Rage
Paint Rising Sun

[PreachyPreach]

Warlord Games stuff? (Have you tried Chain of Command BTW? It’s quite a fun little system with a bit more of a “real” feel, for want of a better word and the campaign system is fun - a friend and I just played through a Normandy sequence of battles.

I spent the autumn painting some SPQR Romans and Gauls - next on the list is some Red Army.

[merryprankster]

Those train cars look super sweet!

[Mark_Crump]

Thanks!

I had a lot of issues with the Tru Color paint primer sticking. I read online about something obvious I should have thought about: using RC Car adhesion promoter as a kind of pre-primer, primer. I use it for painting the handrails on locomotives. They are so flexible getting paint to stick is a challenge.

[cpugeek13]

Those are some really cool SPQR minis. I played it once with a friend, but we found out that with the new FAQ rules it’s not really playable with block units (which I have from Hail Caesar), which is a bummer. The starter box is an amazing value though, and I have considered picking it up.

As I’ve written before on this forum, I really like Warlords games balance between historical accuracy and fun. It makes their games appeal to both history buffs and Warhammer players.

[PreachyPreach]

Thanks - contrast paint helps immensely if you’ve got the artistic sense of a squirrel, like me…

[merryprankster]

Got a couple hours of hobby in today!

[Tin_Wisdom]

So I’ve managed to get back into miniature painting a little bit. It’s a halfway interesting story I think, but it’s a wall of text, so you can skip it if you wanna.

Digging up my old Hobby

I was following the YouTube channel Astartes, which is a fantastic semi-professional CGI series of little one and two-minute segments of a short story that somehow manages to convey everything that is great about the 40K setting without any text or dialog.

The guy who does that channel somehow managed to lose control of it for some time just about the date he was set to release a new segment. It was hacked, or an ex-girlfriend gave away the password to unsavory folks, or unspeakable forces from the bottom of humanity’s id took control of it; something or another.

I was looking to figure out what was going on so I did a YouTube search and listened to some folks talking about it; mostly while showing some 40K-themed video game or during a miniatures battle report.

YouTube gamely recorded my newfound interest in the 40K hobby and started to recommend a bunch of new channels to me, 90% of which I ignored.

BUT, one suggested a video on new ways to paint miniatures that caught my interest and I started watching… and then I was down the rabbit-hole.

See, I used to be MASSIVELY into the GW hobbies. I actually have a Golden Demon on a shelf down in the basement (best battle-scene, 1993). But I hung my toxic paints and razor-sharp Xacto knives away when my kids started to crawl around, and other than the occasional foray into nostalgia I haven’t done much in the last 25 years.

What piqued my interest this time around was watching a bunch of really interesting and generally very talented people on YouTube demonstrate all the new paints, new tools and new techniques. See, new models and new games wouldn’t have really done it, but new TECH… well, now you’re talking.

So I put a couple paint-related stuff on my XMas wish-list, and since I didn’t have much else on there, my wife bought them for me along with a copy of the new iteration of Necromunda.

Here’s the first round of new models, the Goliath gang from the Necromunda boxed set. They’re fairly drab-looking with muted colors that GW purists would scoff at, but I had a good time playing around with air-brushes, zenithal highlighting, contrast paints, textured paints, glazing media, and other crap that wasn’t on the radar neigh on three decades ago. They’re not quite done as I want to add a glow-effect to the plasma pistol, and one guy is inexplicably missing a gun. But overall I had a good time doing the “Blanchitsu” style, especially using low-viscosity oil washes and white spirits.

The second gang in the boxed set should lend themselves to a cleaner, brighter style, so I’m looking forward to that.

The other little project was a way to store and organize my paints. I went online and looked for a DIY solution and saw a few that would involve hundreds of hours of 3D-printing, but I found a laser-cut plywood solution for sale on Etsy or Ebay or something… and rather than buy it I chose to design and build my own. Pictured below is the second version of the thing – the first one wasn’t as rigid as I had figured. I need to cut a second one because one isn’t quite enough to hold all the paints I need it to.

[Daagar]

Knowing what storage solutions like that cost pre-built, that’s awesome you’re able to make them yourself. That looks excellent.

[merryprankster]

Wow! Sweet paint rack!

[Charlatan]

That is an amazing storage solution for your paints. It’s quite impressive that you designed and made it. And the miniatures are cool too! I was in to that a while ago but I figured my eyesight wasn’t up to it (not to mention my hand-eye coordination). It’s great seeing what others in the community here have done.