Back from Holiday - June 2021

 Yay! I'm back! (Well, that should be 'booo' I suppose as it's back to early morning rises for work!) 😩

Anyway, let's have a quick refresher as to what's on the workbench so I can crack back on with the ongoing projects. The first thing is 'Invasion Mars, 1899' and my first Steampunk 'regiment'...

Looking OK, about 75% done I'd say. I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed with the quality of these models, they are a little shoddy. The body of these figures were printed out in one piece, not in separate component parts as I have done previously.

The reason I tried this was to see just how much I could get away with, obviously printing a model in one part makes thing quicker and easier as there are no subsequent assembly required. But the downside is the hit that the quality takes. Printing separate parts means that you can chose the best way to print out each individual part to maximise it's quality - print orientation has a big impact on different shapes of objects - so printing one object vertically might not be the best way to print another, which might be most effectively printed horizontally.

And so, as I said, these one-piece prints are a mixed bag for quality, but the experiment was worth a try as it gives me a bottom line for what I can expect to work. You live and learn.

Anyway, there's not much left to paint on the body, I just have to clean up the arms that I printed and then paint them. At the same time, I'm also painting the prototype model for my Steampunk light infantry unit. This is pretty far on as well...

Moving on...
Aside from this unit of soldiers I was also working on some Christmas gifts (yes, I'm starting extra early) and I think it's interesting to highlight the current project as it might have some influence on future toy soldier ideas. I've been making some festive mantlepiece ornaments based on Victorian Olde Worlde Shops!

What's relevant to this blog is that these little buildings are roughly in 28mm scale, which makes them handy for wargaming related projects. I haven't had much experience in printing 3D wargaming terrain and while this project is overly decorative it's also being very useful in teaching me some of the techniques for making battlefield scenery...

There are a few other bits and pieces going on but I'll wait until they are a bit more advanced before revealing those. But I've plenty to be getting on with in the meantime!

Steampunk British Infantry - 18/05/21 Update

 I've given up on 'part numbers' for these posts as I'm working on a couple of related 'regiments' at the same time!😁

So, the story so far...

After getting my recent creative diversions out of the way I have returned to my 'Invasion Mars, 1899' project by starting to paint my first 'regiment' of British for the campaign. These are my heavy assault infantry - Grenadier Guards - with the Mk. 1 (diving suit) space clobber!

It's nice to see a unit of my peg soldiers in progress, it reminds me of why I started this blog in the first place (even if they are not Molatarian infantry)!

The scarlet I am using for the suits is Vallajo's 'Gory Red', crimson was a bit to bright for my liking and this more muted red is more to my liking though it's a bit of a pain to paint with and needs a couple of coats to get good coverage. Still, it's worth it.

I'm gone for a coppery brass for the diving helmets and again - just my luck - this paint is a bit of a pain to use as well...

It's going to be a bit of a slow slog to work my way through these five figures in order to complete the unit AND I haven't even completed the 3D printing of the arms yet! The delay here was due to my fancy-nancy 'space rifle' design which is turning out to be a pain to print properly. I think I got a bit over-ambitious for the scale and should have stuck to my super simplified design ethos of my earlier peg soldiers' weapons. 

Anyway, in the end I managed to get a passable print, though it still needs some cleaning up...

Above: Hard to tell what's going on when all the print supports are
on but hopefully it will do the job once it's cleaned-up!

And in the meantime...
While scratching my head over my Grenadiers' guns I cracked on with the prototype for my second British unit - a Light Infantry trooper in a Mk. 2 suit...

You can get an idea from the above pick how the space rifles should turn out as I have primed the arms for this little chap. And while I had my red paint out I made a start on painting his uniform.

In all I hope to make three British infantry units (of six soldiers each), the Grenadiers, a Light Foot and a Marine detachment. I'm going for six in a unit as in this 50mm scale and using a version of the Portable Wargame rules for a small table 'battlefield' this will keep the overall numbers manageable for a game.

Aside from the infantry there will also be a section of 'cavalry' (steam mechs) and a artillery section (one gun). The mechs will pose quite a challenge as they will be quite big.

And that's all for today, it's just banging on with these figures in a little painting production line!

Invasion Mars - 2nd British Infantry (Pt. 1)

As mentioned in the previous post, I am well on the way to making my first British unit for my 'Invasion Mars, 1899' project. This unit is a 'heavy' infantry Grenadier unit - an elite with special weapons - so I next wanted to start on my more basic 'light' infantry.

I had in mind something along the lines of the idea of 'Zulu on Mars' when it came to designing the light infantry figures, using the 1879 pattern of uniform worn by the British at the Battle of Rorke's Drift. Taking this as a basis I would then modify the original design to give it a more Steampunk look!

Luckily for me this is already a pretty popular theme and there is a reasonable amount of reference and ideas knocking about on the internet and in print and even in popular media...

British infantry on Mars! Doctor Who, series 36, episode nine – Empress of Mars

For me the most iconic bit of the uniform has to be the British Army's 'Foreign Service pith helmet, so I wanted this to be at the heart of my design. But unlike some early science fiction I did not want to endow Mars with a earth-like atmosphere, so this helmet would have to be modified into some sort of environmental protection.

Using TINKERCAD as my 3D modelling software of choice (at the moment, until I can get to grips with something more sophisticated) I quickly mucked about with some shapes until I got something approximating my idea. I won't lie, the helmet was a bit of a bitch to do and it took me a while to get something that I was happy with...

There was then a lot of tinkering around with sizes. I always tend to over-size things when I free-hand my designs and the first attempt at the helmet was way too big in proportion to the body and when compared to the Grenadiers I did...

Back to the drawing board and I rescaled the helmet a couple of times until I think I hit the 'Goldilocks' zone. Yes, it still is a little over-sized but that's part of my cartoon style and also so that it works as a 'space helmet'...

The next issue was the design of the 'space gun', again I didn't want to do what some game miniature designers have done and simply make a Martini-Henry rifle (as used in 'Zulu') for a science-fiction figure. I don't know about the effects of ballistics in space or what effects a different gravity has on projectiles but I'm sure a 'one gun suits all' (space and differing gravities) would mean some special considerations...

So, I went for a fanciful Steampunk design with an unspecified firing mechanism - could be a rail gun, could be a ray gun sorta thingy that would suit all situations! 😂 

Sorry this is upside-down, but the above picture show how I orientate my
objects for 3D printing for the best quality.

Design Done - The Printing Begins!
Now the nerve wracking bit, although I am starting t gain a little confidence with my 3D printing workflow. The primary concern is print quality and how to orientate designs on the print bed to get the best print I can. 

There is actually two concerns, orientation and whether to add supports. In the above picture of my space gun I orientate the arm and gun component in such a wat that I get the smoothest print quality on the main straight line (the upper arm). There were several options but I decided this offered the most advantages. Others might disagree.

Supports are the second - but related - consideration. I might orientate my model so that I can minimise the use of supports (supports being scaffolding that supports over-hanging elements of the model). So it turns into a bit of a puzzle working out which way to place the component to get the best quality with the least support! 😵

Here I have orientated the body & legs in the vertical BUT I have, then, had
to add a lot of tree-like supports to aid in the printing of the helmet over-hang.

Yes, it's all a bit crazy, but after a time it becomes second nature and you eventually just 'know' instinctively what's going to cause problems in a particular model. Er, mostly!

Print done I then carefully compare it to the other model I have made in the series, my Grenadier. As mentioned above, my first attempt at my new helmet resulted in it being obviously over-large when compared to my Grenadier's 'diving helmet'. But this latest print turned out to be proportionally correct (I think)...

Above: Checking mutual proportions, but also notice that I have added
my 'magnetisation' system to the bases, steel washers! LOL

Well, this is all going swimmingly! Er, except.......!

On fitting the arms to the body I noticed that the arm holding the gun didn't fit properly due to the splayed feet I had done. It's not noticeable in this photo due to the angle I took it, but believe me that the arms are not fitting the way that they should be...

...Back to the drawing board again! This is what prototypes figures are for though, working out all the kinks before running off a whole unit of figures. In this case I had to go back into TinkerCad and alter the angle of the feet so there was more space for the gun to sit on the base properly...

And that's it for now. A very good start I think (?), I'm quite pleased with my design for a Steampunk soldier and I'm really enjoying this series. AND it's actually taking me back to the original idea for this blog which was to do wargame armies (rather than the single figures I have been doing for a long time).

I may even get round - eventually - to doing the FLW Molatero army I intended to do in the first place! 😁

NEXT: Painting my Infantryman.

Steampunk Grenadiers - Magnetised Bases

 Having completed printing the remainder of the first unit for my 'Invasion Mars, 1899' project I realised I had made a bit of a boo-boo! But, first of all let's have at the progress so far...

So far so good - although I am still working on the arms and weapons - and this is when I had a bit of a 'duh-oh' moment. I like to magnetise war game figures so I can easily move units in unit trays, this entails fitting a small magnet into the base of the figure - guess what I HADN'T done! 😖

I didn't really want to start drilling or carving out holes in the figures' bases so I could insert magnets, this would be quite messy.  SO... Plan B, I decided it would be easier just to glue steel washers to the bottom - then I'll magnetise the unit trays with magnetic sheets.

This is a bit of a fudge but it does have one positive effect - it gives my PLA printed figures a little bit of weight - which I prefer. Every cloud has a silver lining!

NEXT: I finish the construction and painting of my Grenadiers.

Invasion of Mars, 1899 - Grenadier Officer

Well, I completed my first prototype figure for my 'Invasion of Mars, 1899' series. It was a bit more involved than my normal 50mm peg soldiers but I did enjoy making it.

I can now get on with the rest of this unit (six figures total) with the 'ordinary ranks' carrying heavy rifles with under-slung rockets. 

Unfortunately, I didn't take into consideration the magnetising of this unit which would have been handy as the air tanks make it rather top-heavy. I am now wondering if I can modify it with a tiny magnet which I could fit into the shallow base. ???

If I can manage to fit a magnet I could then make a unit base with it's own small magnets. Hmmm (today's project).

Invasion of Mars, 1899 - Part 1

 I'm juggling projects at the moment (yet another reason it takes me forever to get a job complete) and I've even started a new one! 😆

I've always been a bit of a closet Steampunk fan and particularly like the fantastical yarns by the likes of H.G Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jules Verne where the conquest of space began - fictionally - in the 19th century! Typical of this type of early science-fiction were stories like 'The First Men in the Moon' (H.G Wells) and the Barsoom Stories (E.R Burroughs) where 19th century adventurers managed - in various ways - to journey to other planets in the Solar System. 

Above: Bedford (Edward Judd)  and Cavel (Lionel Jeffries) land on the moon in 1899.
Picture from 1964's British movie 'First Men in the Moon'.

Aside from the fictional stories I have always been tempted by the RPG 'Space 1889', a tabletop role-playing game of Victorian-era space-faring, created by Frank Chadwick...

"The game presented an alternate history in which certain discredited Victorian scientific theories were instead found to be true and have led to the existence of new technologies. In the setting, Thomas Edison invented an "ether propeller" which could propel ships through the "luminiferous aether" (the universal medium that permeates space, based on a now outdated scientific theory)...By the time of the game's setting in 1889, the great powers have used Edison's invention to extend their colonies and interests to the inner planets of the solar system. Venus and Mars have been colonized by the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Russia. Belgium has only colonized Mars and Italy has only colonized Venus whilst Japan and the United States maintain economic and scientific enclaves on Mars. ..."['Space 1889', Wikipedia.]

The Invasion of Mars - A Table-Top Skirmish
When I started my Molatero blog the original idea was to journal my making of a H.G Well's 'Funny Little Wars' army and it's subsequent use in a war-game. This never actually came off as I was repeatedly disappointed in the figures I acquired for this use. Gradually I moved towards the idea of - first - converting figures to my own liking and then - eventually - to actually making my own figures. This has finally ended up where I am today, making my little 'peg figures' - a style of cartoony looking little chaps that suit my less than serious tongue-in-cheek attitude to the hobby.

However, for a long time now I've been making single stand-alone characters while I perfect my current style of model soldier, so I thought that its a bout time I get back to my original idea - making a little army for use in a table-top game.

Above: There is plenty of inspiration, reference material and even game rules for a
Steampunk/Victorian interplanetary campaign. Osprey Publishing has a few books
that provide a great source of ideas.

The idea for 'The Invasion of Mars, 1899' - although still generally a concept which I can attribute to H.G Wells - allows me to work on a limited one-off project, while still gaining some experience of making multiple figures and units which I can then later use to make a full blown FLW war-game.

I'll be restricting my armies to limited units of three infantry, one artillery and one cavalry on each side, which I deem achievable even at my slow pace of construction! 😁

Making a Prototype Soldier
As usual, I start working out a new concept by making a prototype figure. In this case I jumped straight in by making one of the central figures for my Victorian Steampunk army by creating a 1889 Aether-Grenadier for my British expeditionary force...

This design is very much influenced on the models I had just created for my 'Assault on Innsmouth' series, where I had created a larger body so I could mouth an oversized head on a modified 'peg' body.

I really liked the idea of making a unit based on the Victoria diving suites as worn in 'The First Men in the Moon'. Game-wise, my notion was this would be a 'heavy, elite unit' which is why I am calling them Grenadiers. These would be armed with heavier weaponry and could add some variation to the look of my British forces.

While this design added a bit more detail than I usually apply to my cartoon-style of pegs, it's still quite simplified and didn't posed much problem to make in TINKERCAD...

Satisfied with the look of this model I 3D printed the component parts out on my Flashforge Adventurer 3 printer. The multipart 'kit' took several individual prints to make as I prefer to try and make print 'jobs' in smaller groups so that I can get the best quality I can (in theory, I could have - perhaps - have printed this model out in one go by using a LOT of print supports, but this could've got quite messy).

This would be a officer figure, so I created a little 'ray gun' but - as a nod to the Victorian Steampunk style - also gave him a sword. 😁

Above: My Space Grenadier (left). You can see how my recent Innsmouth mutant
inspired this bigger than usual 'peg' design.

Having constructed and primed my 'kit' I noted some things I might change for the rest of the unit but was generally pleased with the way this was going. The rest of my British units would be based on my original, slightly less bulky, peg body design and have different uniforms and equipment - just to mark my grenadiers out as being 'special' (elite).

I then moved onto the painting. Again, this is a kind of prototyping too as I have to work out the colour palette that I will be using. NOW... I don't usually like showing my painting in progress, mainly because it shows off just what a sloppy painter I really am! BUT... I think it's only fair I should show you my process.

Here (above pic) you can see how I apply blocks of colour working from the back (or bottom) most part of the model and work outwards. At this point you can see how I am a bit slap-dash, going over 'lines' and not exactly being very precise! The idea here is that, as I add each additional layer - working outwards - I gradually work a little more neater and effectively cover over any over-painting I may have done on the previous layers. AND SO... In theory, by the time I get to the outermost - top - layer I should end up with a nicely painted little model! (Sorry to disappoint anyone who thought I was - by nature or skill - a good painter. I'm not!) 😂

NEXT: I finish off this prototype and start banging out the rest of the unit.

Edit (17/4/21): The day after I posted the above entry I came across a set of gaming rules that seem absolutely pertinent to my idea of a Steampunk skirmish, these are Osprey's 'In Her Majesty's Name', by Craig Cartmell and Charles Murton and published by Osprey...

Annoyingly, these rules seem to be out of print now (typically) BUT there still seems to be some support and updates for them here: The Ministry of Gentlemanly Warfare