Side Projects - Starter Fleets and Marines... and Bugs (oh my)

[original draft 2019-01-02  -  merry new year]
This post may end up becoming a bit of an accumulated build log until certain projects stop looking like the original pics...


Imperial Navy Starter Fleet
Have started printing a BFG starter fleet for a game buddy. Will just be a mix of some of the more utilitarian/common imperial ships for starters.

2 Lunars, 2 Dauntless, 4 Swords... all guns and lances, a few torpedoes to get a taste of ordinance.

The Swords are still awaiting bases. Am recycling the bases from the Blackstone Fortress models, as those're all getting clear bases... eventually.


Aside - Name Tags
I'm strongly considering not continuing with the name badges for the Imperial ships. Am instead considering using the number tokens out of the x-wing box. 'Ship 1' can be any of the ships and it's easy to reference on the list and for the other player(s). Time to raid the x-wing box again methinks.

[later: something exactly like this...]

Marines Fleet
I have started constructing a space marine fleet. Apparently they're good with ordinance and boarding.
After my experiences with (IMO lacklustre) marines in Epic i was a bit hesitant about investing time and effort in a marines fleet for BFG. Yet here i am...

5 Strike Cruisers, 2 Gladius, 4 Nova, 4 Hunter, 12 sets of Thunderhawks (boarding craft - still to print their bases).
The Gladius and Nova are my own model. These are being printed at 78% as they're out of proportion at 100% with the Nova looking too much like a Strike Cruiser.
The 2 Gladius i had done previously will be used on a new - and inglorious - project (*).
I will be using the 'strike cruiser' i made previously as a battle barge. It's about as large as a battleship model. May end up adding some extra widgets and gubbins to the model. May not.
The 5 strike cruisers are someone elses model (not the one i'm using as the battle barge).

* as a future project i'm going to take some mis-sized prints, might even have to print a couple of extra bits and pieces. i will then glue them together and make a (ork) space hulk. should be cool. looking forward to that project. Glue a number of ships together, fill in some gaps with wall plaster to make is asteroidy, bit of texture... one space hulk.

The temperature here is crazy hot so my paint area is unusable for more than 10 minutes at a time unless i feel like a therapeutic sweat. So not much painting. Conversely the printer is adhering to the base plate well.

[later: battle barge]

The marines Battle Barge is (as far as fluff goes) predominantly about launching assault/boarding craft either at a planet or at enemy ships. 
Sure, there bombardment cannons and batteries and so on but it's effectively about close combat.

Based on research pics i decided to modify the existing model a bit.

For starters, i've added on some turrets (same size as used on the retribution battleship) so give an impresison of larger. yes, the cannon on the front is a big bastard.... that's the left/right/front dorsal bombardment cannon (as per rule book).

The overall shape is not exactly on par with those of the rule book but i'm pushing the 'xyz class represents a scale or function of a ship, not a specific model'... and i almost buy it. 

The prow previous had a big gun poking out which has been snip-tucked into flight decks. superglue some off-cuts into a new prow launch bay and should look fine once painted up.
Some pics also have some antenna form the front of the ship, not sure what for but i've added some token 'poke'.

Will potentially be adding on some more off-cut bumps and shapes to break up the larger plains [ed: i did, not a heap but a bit here and there]. This is more an 'arts' project than a (3d) modelling one now.

I printed off some bases for the thunderhawk and did a test batch. The ships (133% scale) shuck soooo much easier than the original size ones.
with the base i'm cutting off the 'stands' which print ridiculously poorly (and i can't find the original stl to modify them) and then using cut filament as the new stick. gluing pla is surprisingly frustrating, but seems to work eventually.
am probably more happy with the test batch than the original size. might be a tiny, tiny, tiny bit too big.... how much do i want to reprint them all though??


[later] obviously i did reprint them, at 125%. and i'm even reconsidering that too, maybe even 120% or 115% would be ideal... however i have already started constructing the 125% version and i'm not doing it twice which makes the decision far easier. 

The battlebarge, strike cruisers and gladius frigates have made it to the paint desk (top section). The nova and hunters are awaiting paint sticks and a final cleanup (bottom section), and the thawks are still being assembled (bottom of the bottom section) - 5 (of 12) stands to go.


[later] Bugs
With the printer basically operational and idle i started churning out some Tyranid ships.

Completed so far: the first of two hive ships, 5 cruisers, and the first of many escorts. Each of the larger ships took 3+ hours to complete but that's the majority of them done. mainly just escorts to go.

The prints ran end-to-end successfully - lots of despruing - and this is before any fixes/carving (due to poor FDM printing on a 'high detail' model).  so yeah lots of work to go on these. i'm thinking of them more as a basic shape from which i'll need to arts-and-crafts something vaguely respectable.

Until next time...