MIA? and a few new things

I have been missing in action for almost a month now.  the first 2 weeks were taken up by a deep painting funk.  the 3rd week I was laid up in bed sick with a chest infection. not normally a big deal, but i have asthma, so when something gets into my chest it knocks me off m feet for a few days.

then last week i was finishing up a 28mm SYW painting commission  for one of the guys at AGNM. I was down At the AGNM  workshop on Saturday dropping off the figures, so I picked up the other French vehicle that is soon t be released, the AMR-35 ZT-3 tank destroyer.  this is a lovely Casting. It's one resin piece with 2 metal fittings(gun barrel and Exhaust system at the back).  Casting was nearly flawless.  there was one small bubble on the bottom of the cast on base.  Since it absolutely does not impact the look of the vehicles, who cares!

French ARM-35 ZT3, soon to be released from AGNM

I have also been working on my French truck over the last month. I picked up the resin and RTV rubber form Toronto, and then had to wait a week to get back down there to grab the mold release which i had forgotten.  the mold turned out well, although i probably made the walls a little thick.   I have been having a bit of trouble getting the bits out of the mold.I think i have it fixed, but it's still a pain.  and since they are resin, they are also fragile. 

I was thinking about returning to my old way of resin ccasting with Alumilite for 3 reasons: Alumilite has a bit more tensile strength, it cures faster(cure in 5-8 minutes which is a big deal when you get about 2-3 in 10 casts don't turn out, and they take 25 minutes each with Smooth cast) and the old way of casting, i end up with a bit of thin flash, which ever so slightly thickns th parts, making them slightly less fragile. I haven't yet decided.  I suppose the other option would be to get them metal cast, but i by no means have the money to contract out the casting.  Anyway, on to the pictures.

First casting of the French S-20 truckFront view

French S-20 Truck rear view

S-20 Truck between a Panhard 178 Armoured Car and  an S-35 Somua tank, both from AGNM.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  there are a few minor things.  in 1 or 2 places i missed the rapid prototyping texture left behind. there are actually more places, but on the seat backs it almost looks deliberate, kind of like a texture for the fabric covering.  given that it is my first attempt, I'm pretty happy.  Now all i have to do is get a bunch of complete kits ready fro sale.  when i am ready to sell them(probably starting in a week or two)  I'll be charging actual shipping costs.

Laffly S-20 arrived.

 My 1:56th laffly S-20 truck arrived today from Shapeways in the Netherlands.  I decided to try out a new material that they are doing an 8 week test run on, Frosted detail. it`s capable higher detail then the material I used last time for the test wheels, and it has a smoother finish.  Unfortunately, the material is semi see-through so it is hard to see  details in any photo i take.

From my computer...

To a physical model!

All in all the truck cost about $70 CDN( $62 for model & shipping, $8 for UPS COD at the door).  the spikes on the engine block are designed to fit into little slots on the cap section, and the wheel covers also slide into slots on the side of the cab.  I was initially a little worried about these not fitting but they fit perfectly! I was also a little worried about unwanted surface texture, but there is only minor texture on the right side of the truck bed.  a Dremel buffing wheel should probably take care of that nicely.

It is also nice that it arrived today as tomorrow is my Birthday.

Laffly S-20 WIP Test render

Just a quick update on my CGI model of the Laffly S-20 truck

Last night a did about 6 hours work on the Laffly S-20.  It's not done, as I need to add axles and most of the undercarriage.   The truck bed is  separate(you can see the seam if you look closely) this is how the truck was manufactured.  I'll be able to ordere one tab/undercarriage and the 2 differnt back, and cast up the 2 common versions of the truck.  I'll also be able to take the 47mm SA-34 AT gun and mod it to the back for the uncommon tank hunter variant of the truck.

1/56th Laffly S-20 Troop Transport

A quick screen capture of WIP SA-34 47mm at gun
back at the beginning of January

I'm quite happy with how the truck is looking. I need to touch up the back wheel well and add the small runner wheels(after the undercarriage is in place)

Update on hte Laffly S-20

As I posted  2 weeks ago, I got my laffly truck wheels rapid-prototyped(additive manufacturing). I finally got around to putting the main wheels on the truck

Truck with main wheels, next to Bolt Action
Early war German

The truck is really starting to take shape.  After the success of the wheels(I was really quite impressed with the detail & smooth surface) , I decided I would try rapid-prototyping the entire engine section. this section has nearly all of the fine detail on it, and is really the part I was worrying about building.  I'm a lot more exact and faster with Computer models then I am at actually scratch building, especially at particularly fine detail.  the engine section took me about 2.5-3 hours total time to do.  I'm not entirely sure if i could have actually have acheived it by entirely by hand, and certainly no to this level.

rendering of the front grill and engine block.

I'm currently using Shapeways to prototype.  I use the White Detail material(a photopolymer) and the detail is pretty good. Also,  unlike their more common(and cheaper) materials  they use, the white detail material gives a nice smooth surface.

Shapeways.com is not the best rapid prototyping business by far(in terms of detail produced), but you can't beat their prices. this engine block will cost me $7.40(USD or CDN, since they are effectively at par now)including shipping.. It helps that I hollowed out the engine compartment leaving ip open from the back(which you cannot see).  If I could could afford to get them done better, I would, but this method (so far) has been surprising good. Also, if it doesn't work out for some reason, I'm only out $7.40, instead of $15-30+shipping  i would be from most other rapid prototyping vendors.

now the one catch with Shapeways.com is that the minimum order is $25. this isn't a huge deal for me though, since i have 20+ star ships of my own design that I can order to fill in the difference. and i have already ordered some of those ships, so i know they will turn out.

Rapid Prototyping goodies.

I've been working with 3D modeling programs for 7 or 8 years now. I started when my gaming group decided to publish the Space combat game  A Sky Full of Ships. I did the cover and some CG art inside. Ialso 3D rendered the ship counters in hte back of the book.  While these were not fantastic models, they were pretty good for what we had access to, and I had only been using the program for a month before creating them.

I worked a lot over the intervention years on my own background with my Best Friend, Mike Hoyt(son of Dave Hoyt). I created CG models for my 2 main races, and I started working on Mike's Terran fleet as well.  I always wanted to have models of my ships, but Rapid prototyping was in it';s infancy and was way to expensive. I also did not have the necessary skills to do them justice.

We lost interest in it for a few years, then this company, Shapeways started popping up on forums i frequented.   they are a sort of "print on Demand" for  3D modelers. ist started gatehring quite a following. Str Rangers Starship combat forum now has a " Print on Demand" forum in their miniatures section.

At Christmas, when i was building  The Laffly S20 French truck, I figured i wanted to sculpt the tires in Light wave 3D.  So i pulled out the software and reinstalled it.  I also went looking for a plug-in to export the file in the appropriate format(in this case, .stl)  I found it and it worked.   So i started modifying my existing starship models i had to be printed.  i finally ordered some stuff a few weeks ago, na it arrived today.

THe company only ships UPS, and is located in Europe.  that usually means you get outrageous UPS brokerage and COD fees at teh door. this time, on an order of $32.37 CDN(shipping included), the UPS COD charge was only $3.99. that's surprising to me, i usually expect 20-35% of the value.

Anyways, i got 2 Londarian Heavy Cruisers, 1 Falchion Strike Carrier, and the 20 wheels(of 2 types) for my Laffly truck. I grabbed the ships in the " White, Strong, Flexible" material and the truck wheels in the "white detail" material.  the "white, strong, flexible" material has a bit of a gritty texture to the surface, and you can see feint lines where the layers were cured.  the white detail on the other hand has a nice smooth surface and very crisp detail!  the pictures don't do the wheels justice.

So, now i can continue on my Laffly truck!

More On The Laffly S-20

Last night and this morning I spent another 4 hours on the Laffly S20 I'm building.

 Laffly S20 WIP show with

The model is sitting on a plastic bottle cap, which makes the vehicle  5mm higher then it should be. also the wheel is just one I had on hand, and is about 2-3 mm in diameter larger then the final wheel will be.  So far I am pleased.  I still have to make the grill for the front, sculpt the engine vents on the sides of the front, and  use putty to smooth joints and  fill gaps.  When it's finally done,  it will come in at about 31mm tall, plus the 3mm base it will be put on when it's finished.

Progress on the 1/56th Laffly S20

I selnt about 2.5 hours working on  my 1/56th Laffly  model.  I had mentioned my attempt to build one of these in a thread on TMP and asked for some help on dimensions and such. 

Plans by M.C.Bell, provided by BlackWidowPilot, 

rearranged by me to have all hte views I wanted in a single file.

Two posters stick out  as as particularly helpful: Jeff Ewing and Leland R. Erickson(aka BlackWidowPilot ). Jeff Ewing was helpful in deciding on which set of dimensions to go with. he also gave me link to pictures i had not yet seen.   BlackWidowPilot  said he had some plans and scale drawings of a few variants of the truck, and sent them to me Sunday night.  I sized and printed out some of these drawing and you'll see them  in the pics.

WIP(bottom) compared to scale  

colour printout(WW2 drawings website)

Anyway, yesterday i cut out the 2 side pieces, and tonight i cut out all the other pieces present and assembled them. so far I'm about 2.5 hours into the project. I'm fairly happy so far with the results.  I need to add a slight ridge to the side and back and i still need to flesh out the drivers bench and dashboard.

 Side and rear views of the S20 WIP, compared to scale 

printouts from M.C. Bell Plans

I'm not going to go nuts on the detail of the undercarriage, since the final product will be a single resin piece with smaller add-on (steering wheel, etc) on a base(similar to AGN miniatures, which make up nearly all my vehicles). I'm only going to do the stuff that will be visible from the side.