Txarli Factory Statue of the Gods - Dice Tower

 

This 3d printed dice tower comes from txarlifactory - by height, this is the largest 3d print I can place onto the Bambu Labs A1 Mini - 180cm.

The last picture is the 3d print just about complete - I think it was about 95% at that point. As its purpose is of a dice tower, I printed with the standard .4mm nozzle with standard print settings. Even then, the print was about 9-1/2 hours.

Once printed, I grabbed the airbrush and used the silver balled needle (.7mm) which is great for priming and gave it about two to three coats with a grey primer which concealed most of the layer lines. I then swapped out the silver for the blue needle (.5mm) and sprayed the statue with Vallejo' Stonewall Grey before hitting the mountain with Black. Next up was a lot of drybrushing with the Citadel Scenery Brush - Neutral Grey and then Stonewall Grey on the mountain followed by Reaper's Maggot White (it's just a bit of an off-white as pure white would have been too much) on the statue itself.

To give it scale I took all the pictures on the 3d printer bed including one with a bunch of recently painted models along with some dice.

Ruined Manor House

 

I took a risk and bought some things of Temu - picked up a couple t-shirts, some 3d prints, and a 2d metal artwork piece. I definitely will not be buying t-shirts off Temu, I could have guessed those would just be very low quality. The 3d prints are alright - this manor house, a graveyard, and a couple of medieval boats that'll need airbrushing. The 2d metal artwork came bent, I complained and received money back on the item with a keep it message - we'll see what we can do with that - I've started working on it, but unkinking metal is a pain in the ass.

First up, I picked up this ruined manor house. It's scaled at true 28mm - probably really needed to be 32mm to deal with where heroic scale minis have been for the last two to three decades. Original 80's Ral Partha miniatures would be right at home. It also appears to be missing a lower doorway piece on the front side, but that wasn't included (and not included in the seller's image).

I did the majority of this with airbrush. Black base for the brick - brown base for the wooden structures - blue base for the roof tiles. Then drybrushed with a giant Citadel Scenery brush (it's the only Games Workshop brush I own). Neutral Grey and Stonewall Grey for the stone. I think it was Plague Brown for the wood. Then Magic Blue and Lightning Blue on the roof tile.

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Ulden Mountains

 

It's been awhile since posting as the end of spring led into all sorts of activities from my youngest son's high school graduation to our Aglarion campaign slowly getting put on ice and myself getting more and more into the ShadowDark RPG (which is fantastic). However, I did have one more post to make on the Kingdom of Aglarion map - the Ulden Mountains which make up the edge of the map to the south at the edge of the Ulden Forest.

These were a blast to not only print but also to paint with the airbrush. These were completed back at the end of March so the details may be a bit foggy but I believe that the mountains introduced a new color schema to the board of Vallejo Sombre Grey, followed by Wolf Grey and capped off in Dead White.

At the time I took some additional photos comparing the 50% reduction of the mountains to the original sample trial at 100% scale.

Here's a look at the backside with the individual magnets on each hex - which then lock together and onto the whiteboard.

Final view here of bringing the camera in for a birds eye view of the place.

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Ulden Forest

 

I printed off bunches of forest hex tokens - so this hex was pretty easy to get painted up and ready to go on the board. I actually expanded a bit more southwest than originally planned as that hex is the Ulden Forest and didn't need anything more than trees.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this hex starts the fourth ring around the city of Onadbyr to the southwest...

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Vaddon's Abode

 

On the edge of the swamp is Vaddon's Abode. A rumored hermit living at the edge of the Ulden Swamps who talks to and understand plants and swamp creatures better than people. This was a fun hex to build as it transitions from the swamp to the forest and there was a perfect Hexton Hills hex token with a little cabin on the edge of the swamp but also embedded in the forest.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this hex starts the third ring around the city of Onadbyr to the southwest...

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Ronul's End

 

Now that I've completed a couple more minis and projects off my desk it is back to the Hexton Hills project with Ronul's End. This extends the North Bay into the main continental land mass with the town of Ronul's End as the showcase of the area. This also will complete the peninsula of the North Bay Lighthouse.

The only bit missing for Ronul's End is a ship - I think the rumor is that Ronul was a pirate that retired in Aglarion and married a mermaid. His own ship was run aground at the end of the pier so that half of it is in the water in order for his wife to have a method of discreetly socializing with her mermaid relatives. I'm going to need to fire up the 3D printer and see how tiny of a ship I can create.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this hex completes the northern gap in the second ring around the city of Onadbyr - it's just to the north of the city in the North Bay just past the Tomb of the Constructor and its southeast hex token completes the Lighthouse...

Obelisk

 

One of the more interesting and intriguing ideas Wizards of the Coast did in their 5e adventures was to place a mysterious obelisk within the adventure. Individually they're just an interesting location with some having more powerful attributes than others but not key to the singular plot of that adventure. However, taken together over time there is potentially a plot that these are the artifacts holding back vast evil. I think the Witcher books, video games, and Netflix film series had a similar somewhat magical obelisk like monoliths that controlled magical power and teleportation. One of the obelisks located in the adventure Out of the Abyss has teleportation powers as well.

I came across these while perusing Makerworld for D&D type of items and figured I'd print these off as they can be used in all sorts of tabletop terrain from D&D to Warhammer battles.

The shorter version is actually the original. Then I did some experimenting where I kept the X and Y dimensions of the base the same but then extruded upwards the Z axis within the software. Overall, there is something else interesting, well a bit of a problem actually and I couldn't figure it out. It's hard to tell because of the flat black (which is purposeful), but one side of the inner panels has a glitch which is almost scarlike. I printed the original version first and thought huh. Then I printed the modified version and that ended up with the same scarlike glitch but on the opposite panel. That makes no sense. 

I airbrushed a flat black and then brush painted the runes using Reaper's Retro Emerald #09694 I picked up several years ago at the Reapercon event.

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Eastern Length

 

The eastern length of the map uses individual pieces of border which is perhaps my only unfavorite/disappointment to date with the Hexton Hills hex tokens. Each bit of border and each half-hex are unique. Ideally, you'd want a single piece that incorporates 2 or 3 combinations of the border piece with the half-hex. The individual pieces are not only more difficult to work with but they aren't as sturdy when snapped together - they really just want to fall apart - if it wasn't for the magnets on the magnetic whiteboard it would just fall apart.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then the combination of these hex tokens generate the eastern border of the map from the corner up to the North Bay...

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Point of No Return

Let's all sing together - how long to the point of no return! We finally got there - the southeast corner of the map.  I wanted to have a bit of fun here and mimic the idea of many historical mapmakers (and the Kansas album I grew up with as a kid) when the world was thought to be flat and make the edge a ship falling off. I found a really well done 3D print of a ship that is supposed to be a game token and scaled it down to fit on a hex.

The falling off was the hard part as the water token is the lowest point of all the hex tokens so it's not possible to physically change the hex tokens. Using some blu-tac I set the ship at about a 35 degree angle. I need to think more about it before permanently using superglue to lock it in place. Maybe painting a bit of a white water edge where the ship is angled and then using a dark blue on the other side of that edge to represent the ship falling into the abyss? I can come back to this at a later date.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this set of hex tokens represents the southeast corner of the map...

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Sea Horse Cove

 

Fun with a seahorse! The seahorse represents a section of the map called Sea Horse Cove - a bit of a play on words with it representing a difference from the Calhay Sea. This tile is actually a tile and a half-tile along with the first piece of border on the map.

The borders were airbrushed Black and then, maybe regretfully because it's a lot of work to handpaint and then fix any mistakes, I decided to paint Vallejo's new Stonewall Grey on the indentions (I mention  "new" because the latest version of Stonewall Grey is more grey than the old version which matched up with Games Workshop's Fortress Grey which had more white in it). Each bump and each indention represents individually approximately 2 miles of scale on the map.

The width borders from Hexton Hills are actually quite nice. Not only do they have longer pieces but those pieces include the top piece of hex integrated into the 3D print making a really tight and nice solid piece to interlock the other hex tokens together. The length tokens, that's another subject coming up in another post - let's just say they're a real pain.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this hex starts the completion of the sea to the borders. I want to get all the sea complete as it represents the southeast corner of the map and then I can use that point as the starting point on the magnetic whiteboard and work in the -x and -y directions...