Saturday Workbench 18 March 2023

 

OK, so it's actually Sunday here in the UK but it is still Saturday to the West! Tomorrow is the final day of the Challenge, and I'm frantically trying to finish things off in time to get everything photographed and the post written before the deadline.

Today has mostly been cutting up the decals I've made, gloss varnishing the Type S ready for adding decals, painting and gloss varnishing the backdrop pieces, priming and base-coating 1/270 and 1/1000 versions of the Type S (I thought that if I do have time to get them finished, they'd make a great addition to the post - I'll just have to see how things go tomorrow), painting up some snack and drinks machines for the backdrop and adding decals to everything that needs them.

Speaking of the decals, they've been an absolute nightmare. First off, when I went to print them, my inkjet printer wouldn't output black. I knew the cartridge was a bit low, but there should have been enough. Luckily I had a spare cartridge, so I put that in, hit print and...yes, not printing black. After about 30 minutes of going through the cleaning, deep cleaning and print head alignment processes, I finally managed to get it working. Of course, that was about 2am on Thursday night/Friday morning. Yesterday I hit them with gloss varnish to seal the ink in.

This evening I was adding the decals to everything. The small ones for the cargo items were (mostly) good, the ones for the Type S went on nicely. However, I had real problems with the ones for the backdrop, possibly because of the size. The 36 x 56mm ones weren't too bad, the 16 x 96mm ones were a touch tricky, but the 36 x 196mm ones...let's just say that there was a lot of swearing. Luckily I had made sure to print extras of each, which was all well and good until I accidentally picked up one of the boards to move it after applying a top coat of MicroSet, and of course my thumb just happened to land right on top of the softened decal, pulling it up as I removed my thumb. And no spares remaining! I've printed another sheet and varnished them. I'll have to apply that one tomorrow.

Tomorrow (today, I guess) will see me doing lots of varnishing, some touching up around the edges of decals on the ship, some weathering, some more varnishing, photography, photo resizing and then writing a rather long blog post for the submission.

Thursday Workbench 16 March 2023

 

I just realised that I'd completely forgotten to do my Wednesday Workbench post last night - better late than never!

I've finished painting the 3D printed figures you saw the other day, and they're varnished and stuck on acrylic bases (well, not the sitting and relaxing figures). On the workbench right now are a few whimsical bits that might become part of the story. At the time the photo was taken, they were waiting for the first round of washes. They've just had a second round, which completes the painting - I'll be varnishing them later on.

I'm still working on the backdrop boards. The 3D printed panels have been glued onto the wall boards; I'll be gluing on the extra bits this afternoon/evening. I'm just over halfway done on the floor board - I've still got two more print runs of floor panels to go; it should be ready for priming and painting tomorrow.

Monday Workbench 13 March 2023

 

I've started painting up bits to accompany the Type S. Yesterday I painted a bunch of small cargo items and gloss coated them this morning. I'll be adding decals to them later this week once I've (2D!!)printed and prepped them.

This afternoon I began work on painting up a few 3D printed figures. As of taking the photos, they have all been base-coated; I'll be doing highlights over the next couple of days.

There are six figures in 4 poses each, plus three individual figures. I've limited the colour palette as much as possible to help speed the painting up.

At the moment, I'm not quite halfway through printing some bits (wall and floor panels) for a photo backdrop for the figures. The wall plates will be going behind the items shown above (NB - positions of some of those bits will be different on the final piece and some may be omitted).

AHPC XIII - 13th & 14th Submissions

With painting of the Type S finished (barring application of decals and some weathering of the exterior), I spent a bit of time painting a few figures for the last two studios.

Entry #13 - Japanese Casualties

Full post here

Entry #14 - WW2 German Propaganda Team

Full post here

As you can see from the map below, I have submitted something for every studio in the Green and Blue zones.

The only to bits of the map that I won't have visited are the Gift Shop and the Yellow Brick Road.

Wednesday Workbench 08 March 2023

 

The photo above was taken a couple of hours ago and I've since made a very good start on all of the figures. These are for the World Cinema and Historical Drama studios.

Last week I 3D printed a fairly big collection of figures to accompany the Type S. Not all of them will get used, but I wanted to have the options. I've recently come across a technique using Mod Podge for gap filling, and thought it would probably also help to fill in the layer lines on 3D printed stuff. 

Yesterday I zenithal primed roughly half of the figures; I then gave all of the figures a coat of Mod Podge and left them overnight. Today I did another round of black/grey zenithal priming on all of the figures to see whether another coat of Mod Podge was needed - it was, so I did that, left the figures for an hour or so and then did another round of black/grey zenithal priming. It seems as though two coats of Mod Podge ws enough to smooth out most of the layer lines, so I then added a final zenithal of white.

I remembered that I'd previously zenithal primed an identical figure to one of the ones in this group, which was convenient as it allowed me to compare the with/without Mod Podge:

Mod Podge; no Mod Podge

Speaking of the Type S, I've finished all of the painting now which just leaves decals and weathering of the exterior. Given its current state, you won't see any photos until it's been submitted and published.

AHPC XIII - 12th Submission

 

I only had the one figure submitted as an entry this week - an old school early 1980s Hobgoblin by Citadel. I submitted it for the 1980s (or retro) studio.

Full post here

That leaves me with just two studios - World Cinema and Historical Drama - to visit to have done something for every studio. I've got figures I can use for both of them, and I should be able to get them done this week, leaving me free to focus on finishing the Type S and some extras to go with it until the end of the Challenge.

Speaking of the Type S, I'm almost done with the hull pieces:

Just a few details left to do, then some touch-ups and varnishing. I also need to hit all the interior pieces with a coat of matt varnish before I assemble the ship.

Wednesday Workbench 01 March 2023

 

And so it begins...I've started work on the hull of the Type S. The upper side has been airbrushed orange and varnished (the varnishing mainly as protection against masking tape which I'll be using in later steps. 

Having discovered that the gloss coat I applied caused the brush-pen panel lines to run, after cleaning that up I gave it a coat of matt varnish before redoing the gloss. With that lesson learned, I gave the underside a coat of matt varnish to seal in the panel lines. I'll be airbrushing it orange tomorrow.

After the exterior base coat is painted I'll be moving on to the interiors - for that I will probably break the ship down into sections or individual parts as that should be easier, especially for painting the details.

Here are some photos of the finished interior pieces and the aft cap: