Appartmant Street ‘Terrain Challenge’

Been a busy weekend. been painting up some vehicles that will coupe the roads outside the buildings I’m printing.

I’m using resin moulded cars and vans from another great Kickstarter from the guys at Kore Aeronautics called TableTop Cars 32mm.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/978361943/tabletop-cars-32mm

I’ve chosen some from this range I’ve backed that include: a police car, muscle car, 2 vans and a people carrier.

i plan to paint them up to give the project that exit demotion outside the buildings themselves swell as giving myself somthing to paint and develop as the 3D Printer (Barry) dose his thing.

Here is my first big build of all the parts imvi printed so far. form ground floor to second, third, fourth and finally the first roof section.

looking like i may not be able to get all four printed and the sidewalks done in time for the end of the terrain challenge but ill be shot to give it a good try.

here are some pics.

Just wanted to show everyone exactly what I’ve done softer and how time seeing to expand every day. makes me feel good 🙂

I’m starting to think about painting. After looking at some reference images I’m thinking for now to go for the red brick look and the creamy coloured malter.

Thinking a bace primer of army painter skeleton bone then layer up with a light brush the red over so it only catches the bricks. only other idea is after the skeleton bone maybe a steep angle zenith on a mid brown or something to make a light shadow and to give more of a tone then doing the bricks…

Still not there yet but am looking in to getting primed soon or started.

Other details are the dark colours around the roof tops look good and thinking going maybe an off black to the fire escapes instead of a complementry colour in the reds but not shore if the black will be to overpowering.

still not show about the larger soon parts like the stairs and lintels yet as a guy may clash and the red may be to much.

Will keep this space updated

Please leave any comments and look at my “OK Guys and Gals i need your opinion…!” Post as i still need help with some decisions on some of the details on what to do on fire escapes and roads/sidewalks.

Right I’ve more or less finished the first building load of printing and how starting on the second. still worried that i wont be able to complete all the printing in the deadline and still paint and detail them. but we will see

Want to keep everyone updated on issues i have had as well as my progress.

The other evening i have a coupe hours i had that i could fit a bit more printing in so i set Barry up to print some fire escapes. about an hour in i came back to find there was an issue. it looked like it had been missing layers and had made a mess of the print (see pictures below). once removed from the print bed and stated the print again i noticed that it wasn’t extruding the PLA properly and at times not at all. I Could feel that that the filament wasn’t being pulled in to the extruder very well so i unloaded and then reloaded the filament.

The filament reloaded but again didn’t flow as it should as i have only had the printer running for a couple of months i thought it was unlikely that the teeth on the extruder had worn down yet but after looking on the relevant forums and youtube i learnt that on the other side of the extruder is a wheel that gives presser to the filament and there are two adjustable bolts that once tightened bit more fixed the issue and has been working fine since.

This is why i advise anyone that is looking to buy a 3D printer to strongly consider the Prusa i3 range. the price is a little more than others (because a lot of others are copies) but the support and comity that use the Prusa i3 products are worth the extra price as a 3D printer is a hobby itself.

The Plan.

whilst Barry (my 3D printer) is hard at work printing the parts for the buildings i need to decide what other things i need to consider and do to the rest of my project such as painting, adding accessories and detailing .

firstly, painting up the buildings. as it is a 3D printed project the serfases of each part are not 100% move and can look off with paint going start on to it, I’m going to take a look at a plastic primer from Halfords that i have seen used but the guys at beasts of war before that has like a self levelling property that i hope will help reduce the visual rigging that can occur with 3D Prints. i will attempt using just a basic primer and also a plastic primer then bace primer to see if there is a significant change or not. i will post this when i get to this stage.

Next details and accsesaries. firstly i plan to add street rubbish, lamp posts and fire hydrants as well as vehicle parked up. i will also be looking up and researching graffiti (one saying the end is nigh would be fitting), posters to be pasted on walls and maybe even some protest signs discarded on the floor to keep with the apocalyptic theme.

i want to also decorate the insides of the buildings if i have the time to give the full feel to the terrain.

The merger thing going on at the moment is that i think I’m about a quarter of the way through the build and am hoping everything keeps on track so i can get this project built.