Friday, 26 December 2025

"The Bureaucratic Mentality Is The Only Constant In The Universe."

"We'll get a freighter."

This Terran Small Transport vessel is by "Fat Dragon Games", and was created using some "Bambu Lab" Matt White PLA (Polylactic Acid) on an A1 Mini 3D Printer. It can be purchased as an STL (Standard Triangle Language) file as part of the company's Expansion Set Three for "Battlefront Valkyrie", and has been printed using a 0.2mm nozzle, with a 0.1mm layer height in order to minimise any striation lines on the finished model.

Initially I was simply going to use the same "Vallejo" Heavy Bluegrey colour scheme on the tiny freighter as I use on all my (not) Federation starships. However, I thought it might be nice to make the spacecraft stand out a little more from my fleet, so decided upon a double helping of "Citadel" Rakarth Flesh as an undercoat instead.

"Saucermen Studios" WIPs - This Concrete Defence Wall just needs some shading and a dry-brush

The miniature was then washed with some slightly watered-down "Citadel" Agrax Earthshade, and dry-brushed with (more) Rakarth Flesh to help bring out all its details. Finally, its propulsion unit was 'picked out' using my tried and tested combination of "Scale 75" White Alchemy and "Citadel" Talassar Blue.

With so straightforward a paint-job completed, I have managed to find some time to almost finish pigmenting my test piece for some planned games of "Trench Crusade" in 2026. This small Concrete Defence Wall is made by "Saucermen Studios" as part of their "Beyond The Trenches Of Despair" Kickstarter, and is one of several pieces from the range which I've had my A1 Mini busily producing.

"Wizkids" WIPs - Despite some issues the Black Canary is close to completion

As the model is terrain - and they'll doubtless be a fair few pieces littering my tabletop - I am working on a reasonably simple palette which should be fairly quick to apply, but also still look quite effective. Unlike the vast majority of the buildings etc I paint, I am also not planning on basing a lot of these fortifications on plastic or MDF stands, as their footprints would clearly require several bespoke, irregularly-shaped bases to be specially made for them. 

Lastly, I've made a bit more progress on my "Heroclix" miniature of the Black Canary by "Wizkids". To be honest, now my initial enthusiasm for this particular member of the Justice League has subsided, I'm finding her a little tough to keep picking up due to the sheer lack of detail on the sculpt. I'm not sure if it's simply a bad figure, an overly thick pre-paint job, or a combination of both. But it's proving quite difficult to ascertain what parts of poor Dinah Laurel Lance are costume, and what's not...

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