NTaW's Thokt Dynasty

[MithrilForge]

Wow that was fast...from stating your getting a printer to Boom it's there 

I see many new and exciting things appearing in your future...please share all of them with us ...

 

Cheers, Mithril

[NTaW]

Amazon apparently does not mess around with shipping, I was surprised that it showed up before the expected delivery date as well. I hope to have it assembled and in place today but unfortunately I haven't even been given a tracking number for the PLA so who knows when I'll get printing.

 

My pylons have even shown up but they were mailed to a friend's house so I'll have to see when I can actually go get them. At least right now we don't have to get around our work schedules and gas is crazy cheap, shame we can't use this time to game :lol: ah well. At least I still have the option of nabbing the box off his front porch for now.

[NTaW]

Objective #1 complete! Hopefully it's onward and upward from here :tu:

 

[Dread]

Nice! A good friend of mine printed me off 6 of those only not the damaged look. They'll look good painted up like your army.

[NTaW]

I was thinking of doing a bunch of roughed up stuff to represent the "first finding" of my Tomb World, damaged/weathered look and rock outcropping sort of stuff, then another run of clean stuff (looking hard at 3dalienworlds) to represent a more/fully operational planet.

 

To that end, here's my first piece of terrain. At 140mm tall this is almost the height of a Doom Scythe on its base. One more of these to go!

 

[NTaW]

Next off the bed: some smaller monoliths to make a kind of Stonehenge-esque circle on top of a large hill. 8th edition's cover rules really has me re-working my thought process for terrain.

 

Edited April 17, 2020 by NTaW

[MithrilForge]

 

 

 

I'm so jealous 

[NTaW]

Don't know if you have a friend/printing service locally but it's a free file for printing from thingiverse, Mithril.

 

I've been working a ton on another table project recently but then I had a thought. A while back I figured that a Dr. Manhattan toy would be an excellent starting point for a Transcendent C'Tan conversion so I searched it up and voila:

 

 

I'd be a fool not to try, it's even the same pose! It also naturally scaled down to fit on a 60mm base at ~105mm high which is as tall as my Finecast Nightbringer and the right base size for the model (according to my research anyway). I'm not going to add the tendrils all around him but I will be adding the chest/face harness with kneadatite. If only I had found this at the beginning of the Cryptek's Conclave!

Edited May 7, 2020 by NTaW

[Dread]

That's gonna be a great cobversion. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

[NTaW]

So the print came out great but I think I've over-estimated the size a bit. I was so focused on the scenic base fitting on a 60mm circle (which it does quite nicely) that I didn't think of how bulky the body would be. Without a base Dr. M is pretty much the same height as the Nightbringer and as you can see a fair bit bulkier.

 

 

 

 

Should I be obsessing with the scale? Easy enough to resize and reprint, could still do this one through as a practice run or give a friend a cool print of Dr. Manhattan (at least it's blue?).

[NTaW]

Good news/bad news day.

 

Bad news first: I had a ton of issues printing the arms and ended up completely forgetting how much I had reduced the model by so I can no longer complete the one I started printing. I'm going to suggest it gets used as an award by the local shop at the next event (I'll put a plaque on it, sort of looks like an Emmy anyway right?).

 

Good news: I have now resized the model down a bit (as small as my slicer would show layers for the fingers) and successfully printed both arms (with files that have their scale written into their name for all to see and know) and am quite pleased with the result. I've done nothing in post production to these prints aside from removing the rafts, supports, and lone string that comes off from the print's end point to the extruder. SM plasma pistol arm for scale, which I think is just about perfect for being quite a bit larger but still in-scale for the tabletop.

 

 

 

I'm probably going to put energy orbs in the hands as things progress so if the fingers break during cleanup I'll just sculpt over and it without worry. A new torso matching the scale of the arms is on the print bed. Transcendent C'Tan here I come!

Edited May 9, 2020 by NTaW

[NTaW]

It has turned out to be a critical scale-down. I like how this looks a lot and am eager to get working on adding the collar for that enslaved fragment of a star god vibe though I'll admit I'm a bit apprehensive about the Triarch symbol on the chest. I may sculpt it on a piece of scrap styrene and make a push mold rather than try to sculpt it right on to the chest and I don't know how I feel about the indented look. At least that will be one of the final touches so I have time to ponder the problem and practice making the teeniest of ankhs.

 

 

Next up: some careful sanding and clipping so I can get those arms affixed.

[NTaW]

Two bouts with GS later here's where I am. I did the chest and neck first then the face once it had cured. I've already touched things up a little further since these pictures as the GS has cured a bit and made it easier to do but I'm pretty happy with where I'm at in terms of aesthetic and symmetry. Chances are I'll see another little nudge or two before I start on the chest coffin shape. I do plan on adding a bit more detail to everything once I have the basic shape in place and cured as well, though we'll see how that goes when I get to it.

 

 

 

[NTaW]

I had ears for a moment but they looked like elf ears so I cut them off. It was a little easy and I'm hoping there was just too little material maybe a bit under-cured to resist a sharp blade, otherwise the bond between GS and PLA may be in question (a very low chance I think). Either way I just glued the arms on and while I have some putty mixed fixing the gaps there I'll toss a bit down and at least try to sculpt an ankh but I'll likely end up painting it on.

 

 

 

 

 

I was originally thinking I'd be sculpting a bit more details but now that I'm doing it I think a clean flat look may be best. I'm also thinking that maybe I should add something to the ends of the harness as it comes around under the arms. I could put an energy orb like what we see on the side of the Wraith tail maybe? Thinking of orbs does this guy really need energy orbs in the hands? The fingers printed and cleaned up far better than I thought they would and they were an idea originally thought of to hide blemishes. Ah, decisions.

 

I'm open to suggestions and input if anyone has some to offer 

[Tyriks]

It looks great so far.  The harness is surprisingly clean and neat.  I do not think he does need the energy orbs or anything.  With an ankh (painted or scultped) on his chest he'll look plenty like a C'tan shard.

[NTaW]

Consider him done then. I appreciate the input Tyriks, as always :tu: 

 

The smoothness is a pain but necessary I feel. My #2 colour shaper is critical there.

 

Thinking on smoothness, I'm considering giving the model a thin coat of mod podge before priming to help hide the styrations from printing. Maybe prime, see what it looks like, then hit it with the 'podge before re-priming. I've seen this technique employed on scenery and it looked great, but this isn't scenery and I'd rather keep the definition of the body preserved best I can.

 

Sanding crushes my soul. It's a last resort to be used sparingly lest it drive me away from hobbying while I'm entering week 8 of being off work.

 

In other news I've been working away today at what I have just dubbed "Tomb Mortalis" (this name gives me great pleasure). I've finished the tiles and main wall structures, next is wall decoration and bulkheads (energy barriers more likely, thinking translucent blue filament too).

 

This is me celebrating a few solid hours of work by shuffling some pieces together to make two tiles.

 

 

Test prints of the two tile types:

 

 

It's gunna take an age to print but oh man I'm excited. Eventually the hardware store will open and I'll be in nabbing up some planks for the surface of the planet but for now (as always in lieu of actually painting models) my focus is on the interior passageways of the crypts of Talrynos.

[Tyriks]

 

Yeah, sanding printed plastic has been awful every time I've done it. Maybe it's the stuff my friend uses but it seems crazy hard (wore out a brand new hobby saw blade cutting a printed rhino up to make a base so I'm not just imagining it). Mod podge seems infinitely better.

[NTaW]

PLA seems to be very hard but quite brittle in the right circumstances. I was dead surprised that the fingers on my C'Tan not only held up to my knife cleaning them up but that I had to fight to get through. Good and bad I suppose for this application. Fingers crossed the podge method works decently enough.

 

Been working on the walls some. How's the circuitry looking so far, too much/too little/too samey? There's ~15mm of clearance from the top and bottom of the wall for the designs. The ghost box is roughly the size of one of my Lychguard for reference and the wall is 3" tall. I was also thinking of going 4" tall with the walls but it seems unnecessary (and will add a lot of time to printing).

 

Edited May 14, 2020 by NTaW

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

I like it, looks nice and simplistic while not being too simple. To quote Lex Luthor, simplicity is deceptively complicated. And I think you got this little bit figured out.

Looks better than some of my wall segments, at any rate.

 

Are you using rings or cylinder holes to make the circles at the circuit terminii?

[NTaW]

Right now I'm using cylinder holes so that I can add a bit of colour to the wall when painting, plus it's one less thing with the potential for cleanup after printing. The lines are currently 1mm thick indentations and the circles are 3mm diameter, all to be sunk 1mm into the surface. I think if I was printing this design laying flat I'd be more inclined to make them rings but printing vertically (wall+floor in 6" squares) and expecting a ~1mm diameter dot to show up seems like I'm pushing my luck. I'm new to all this though and this is among my first attempts to make something digitally, really am sort of making it up as I go :sweat:

[INKS]

The terrain looks awesome. Is this for a display or battlefield? Space Hulk?

[NTaW]

It will be for a battlefield, zone mortalis/space hulk for sure, but I could see me using at least some of the tiles in my cabinet to set models up on. That could look quite glorious.

 

I got a print of the first full flat tile now, it came out good though I sort of expected it to. Measurements are pretty bang on as well which pleases me.

 

 

I've also decided on long wall light for the other wall decoration, which means I just need to replicate this on the other three tiles, attach the floor tiles, and I'm good to print (and design some scatter terrain)!

 

[MithrilForge]

This is coming along awesomely   Those floor tiles are Soooo nice looking, I imagine the table will be spectacular at the of this....just the place for the Silent King to saunter through 

 

Cheers, Mithril

 

p.s. I love the Transcendent C'tan Shard... and great clean sculpting 

[INKS]

Very cool stuff, can't wait to see more. Does the paint hold well to that plastic? I guess why wouldn't it. The blue color throws me off a little. Too many years looking at grey plastic I guess. lol

[NTaW]

Does the paint hold well to that plastic? I guess why wouldn't it. The blue color throws me off a little. Too many years looking at grey plastic I guess. lol

 

I printed a flick-out lightsaber for my son and we had a bit of a family project painting it. If you think the blue is weird to the eye try priming it camo green (only good primer in the box) then painting it silver  it looked like a nightmare the whole time compared to how I paint models but the finished product was fine. I hit it with a bit of testors spray laquer (again the only clearcoat I had available) and the paint has held up to a month of almost constant play (he even takes it to bed with him ).

 

I got some good work done today, the 5 tiles are assembled and uniform in size. I'm wondering if I need to add some decoration to the inside corners of the walls and the flat edges. I feel like most of them will be covered by whatever I come up with for bulkheads but I worry about having too much flat black....though that's sort of the standard for Necron style. 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyone have any thoughts on those (potentially final) details? I'm kinda stumped for the moment.

Edited May 15, 2020 by NTaW