Juggling Jobs! June 2021

 Yes, I've been amiss with my posting. This is due to a flurry of numerous diverse projects I've been trying to complete - mainly household jobs - over the past month.

At the top of the list is the tidying up and reorganisation of my man-cave in the attic. I've been busily clearing out junk and eBaying a LOT of stuff that I do not need or have time for any more. I had no idea that eBay was so time consuming, it's a hobby on it's own!

Anyway, modelling has ground to a near halt because of this and I'm having to put what time I do have into my Christmas gifts schedule, as this *cannot* fall behind as I am making ALL my family presents myself this year. Sadly, personal projects - like peg soldiers - has suffered as a result.

Still, it might interest you to see the completion photos of my 'Olde Worlde Christmas Shoppe' prototype as the building process will have will have an impact on future military projects for this blog...

This is roughly 1/72 in scale I reckon and would have been a terrific learning experience for when I was doing WW2 military wargame models (but I have knocked this hobby on the head). It is, however, giving me lots of ideas for toy soldier projects in larger scales (28mm and 50mm), the first of which is quite simple - a sentry box model for my peg soldiers.

So...Onward and upwards...

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!

What's Going On - May 2021

 Yep, doing a unit of figures (even a small one) is taking time, so I reckon it will still take something like another week of spare time to finish my first 'Invasion Mars, 1899' unit. Sorry, I'm a slow painter.

I have made some progress on the fiddly steampunk gun models that I had designs - I think I overstretched my design ability here - and I got them to print out OK. I just have to remove the supporting sprues and clean them up...

So, what am I also working on that might be mildly interesting to talk about in the mean time?

Well, my youngest daughter and I have been making a start on our DIY Christmas gifts and one of the ideas we had was based on some little wooden mantlepiece ornaments that we found... (Bear with me)...

What we wanted to do was build our own slightly more detailed versions of these Christmassy ornaments and put some lights in them to decorate out front rooms. So I came up with a prototype of my own...

NOW... What has this to do with toy soldiers? Well, at some point I did want to war game with my soldiers and this would entail making some battlefield terrain and furnishings - like buildings and what-not.

So, this festive novelty is actually an interesting experiment in what I can archive if I want to build some scale buildings. And it's been an interesting exercise.

Scale-wise I reckon that this prototype is around either 20mm or 28mm or somewhere in between. While I might struggle to make something in 50/54mm - my printer having a smaller print area - I think I could do something for my peg figures if I print the models out in parts.

I was very pleased by the level of detail and textures I could get out of my printer and I can imagine some of the possibilities for various types of battlefield accessories...

Anyway, it's a intriguing idea.

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!

The Curse of Being 'Creative'!

 I'm gone a bit 'off-piste' over the past week or so (not by choice really). I have had to comply to a few friend & family requests and this has cut into my valuable toy soldier making schedule.

However, you have to look on the bright side and think of these unrelated project as 'opportunities for good practice' (I say that through gritted teeth). 😒

So, what have I been up to? And here, I'm not going to try and fool you into believing they were all relatable to my toy soldier hobby...

First of all, I was given a stone garden ornament that the mother-in-law wanted painting up to look like their pet dog. Somehow because I 'paint models' that means I am an expert in doing anything vaguely 'creative'...

I could not conceive of any part of this 'project' that could positively impact on my peg model making except that by doing the wife a 'favour' (order) she would cut me some slack for a while. And that's about it, so I did it. 

The second little job was - at least - my idea. I wanted to make a little gift for my work colleague (we are both NHS operating theatre domestics) as she has been very supportive as we have worked throughout this pandemic.

She happens to have a couple of donkeys on her bit of land and when she saw the 3D models I had been making she mentioned she would love to have a 'little donkey'! I was happy to do this as she has really mad a bit of a stressful 12 months bearable and has got me through the times when my own health issues have plagued me at work. So, I made her a little Eeyore (from 'Winnie the Pooh')...

This was definitely worth taking the time away from toy soldiers to do, especially when she was so pleased when I presented it to her! 😁

And finally...

Now, this was very useful! I've been wanting to have a go at 3D modelling slightly more feature detailed figures which would involve some slightly more complicated 3D modelling using the TINKERCAD software I have been using lately.

Along-side my super simple 'pegs' I wanted to experiment with the possibility of making larger one-off display models of historic soldiers but which would still be modelled in a cartoon format. Trouble is that I needed some sort of initial project idea to spur me on to trying out the idea...

As it happened, another work colleague asked me whether I could 'make one of these' and showed me a blurry photo of his football team's mascot! He supports Barnsley FC and they have a mascot called 'Tony Tyke' (really) and so after doing a bit of research I had a play with TinkerCad and knocked up a rough approximation of Toby!

I decided to start with the head as that was the most identifiable part of the mascot and feature rich element of a model...

It took a while but I managed to put together something that looked a little like Toby, well dog-like anyway! My friend was very happy with this design so I forged on with the rest of the body...

Getting the right pose was a bit fiddly as this was the first time I had tried anything like this, but after several iterations and modifications I managed to come up with a pose I was happy with...

Now, how does this relate to toy soldiers? Well, having worked out a fairly OK anatomy of a cartoon figure - albeit a footballer, in this case - I could now see how I might further modify this into any other figure that I might like. I reckon it might be an easy project to alter this into a uniformed mascot, varying the head into something appropriate for a particular regiment - a bulldog for a US Marine, for example, or a French Bulldog for a Foreign Legionnaire!

You see where I'm going?

Again, I apologise that this post seems a little left field BUT these distractions - particularly Toby - have given me some ideas for future toy soldier projects that I think will be very interesting indeed!

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.

Innsmouth Bad Boys - Completed

 These little guys were a bit of an experiment so I'm not 100% happy with them, but they gave me a bit more experience in designing 3D figures. till, they expand my 'Assault on Innsmouth' collection and have given me some ideas for future fantasy projects.

'The Snapper Brothers' - Frog Man
A swivel-gun totting amphibian psychopath - the elder brother of this duo, his toxic bite is as deadly as the bark of his canon-ette !

'The Snapper Brothers' - Shark Man
He never sleeps and his search for prey is ceaseless! He'll get you, by tooth or he'll nail you...

These models take me slightly away from my original peg format with their modified bodies. I think I could have made something similar out of wood, but the great advantage of 3D modelling is it allows a lot more latitude for on the fly experimentation which encourages trying new ideas.

So, that's my monsters and now I'll have to finish off this small series with a few more human cast members. It'll be fun, though, setting these up against 'normal' figures in a skirmish game! 😁

Link to all posts in this project series: Innsmouth Bad Boys/Assault on Innsmouth.

Innsmouth Bad Boys - Progress

While I'm getting there with my 'Innsmouth Bad Boys' I wanted to show the intermediate progress rather than simply going straight to the completion photos (which are about a day away). That would be a bit too much like those frustrating Blue Peter 'and here is one I made earlier' reveals! 😁

While most of these figures have been pretty straight forward. I have topped the project with some painting that is a little more involved than usual...

In particular, my 'frog-man' has been given a facial that is more detailed than my normal cartoonish peg figures, with some graduated tones and textures.

The reason for this little departure from my usual super-simplified style is that I wanted to emphasise the monstrousness of these characters as compared to the 'normal' human peg characters in the series.

They are still - obviously - not 'realistic' by any means, but it was an interesting small departure for my painting style, if only to see what I could do for fun.

A Sunday Stroll into 28mm Territory

 Really, while planning and designing my next figures and trying to use up the last of a PLA filament spool, I decided to experiment with scaling down my normal 50mm designs. I was intrigued to know how scaling would effect the detail that I had on my peg sized soldiers - would it disappear or deform beyond recognition? ...One way to find out (I thought)...

So, I reduced my 3D Steampunk figure using TINKERCAD to what I considered an equivalent of 28mm scale (according to a web search that is 30mm form foot to eye level of the figure)...

As I said, I made no concession to the effects on detail by shrinking the existing model so I had no idea whether some of the finer detail would simply disappear during printing. Also, I have never printed out a 28mm scale miniature using my Flashforge Adventurer 3 so that was a bit of an unknown too (although I know a lot of gamers regularly print out 28mm miniature using such a 3D printer and are happy with the results).

In any event, I was sort of pleasantly surprised by the what was spat out! Bear in mind - because I like to tinker - that I decided to print this small figure out in one-piece (the body anyway) instead of three pieces like I did with his big brother. The arms and the sword I printed the usual way and separately...

Not too shoddy eh? (But it did need a clean up.) 😁

Here's a comparison photo of the 28mm fig with the original 50mm soldier. I haven't worked out the percentage reduction of this but it looks like it's about a 50% down-scale-ish...

As you can see, it's a little rough round the edges of some of the smaller detail I created for the 50mm fig. But it's not too bad and would probably look better once painted. If I'm honest, I've actually had worse plastic soldier figures from commercial companies and not complained! (I'm looking at you Airfix!) 😉

So, what have I learned here? Well, I do have to make some concessions to the smaller scale, perhaps by making some of the finer detail a bit chunkier so that it holds itself in the reduction. There has to be a balance in robustness of the design when I think I might be doing both a 50mm and 28mm version of the same figure.

Useful experiment.

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