u/ResponsibleKey1053

Bonjourno, so you may have seen the post a few days back about me gathering thoughts on filling layer lines.

Top two suggestions were automotive primer filler and acrylic gesso.

Thank you to everyone for all of the other tips and tricks, I really appreciate it.

In my attempt I went with Mr hobby surfacer 1000 grey (2x coats) shellac 1/4 pint cut (I'm a woodworker), scrape down with a Stanley blade, 2 coats of Mr hobby surfacer mahogany 1000.

Now I don't want to put lipstick on a pig, or at least not too much, so I painted it within 4 hours and called it.

This was only ever a test of can I print and fill it reasonably enough.

The print was with. 0.4mm nozzle, layer height was 1.2mm.

No special optimisations, setting were generic for sunlu high-speed pla.

This is the first tank I've painted in 30 years, after a long ass hiatus. Anyway here's what was and what it is.

This was also a reason to hide from the from the psychophage I started painting and kind of bottled it after a long session.

(The psychophage was not printed)

Ps, oh yea are these reasonable colours for salamanders? ( I used Caliban green and scorpy green).

Hellow lovely people of the the printed hammer sub.

I've got questions, and I hope not to reinvent the wheel.

So the picture is of an fdm print of a tank, 40k scale. Layer lines are not terrible and the print was not optimised beyond printing at 0.8.

What do you guys surface small prints like this with?

My plan was to airbrush Mr hobby surfacer.

Sanding doesn't seem worth the effort for the most part, maybe for the most egregious lines, or to resharpen rounded edges (like the bolter, which I of course glued on wonkey).

Any tips or advice is welcome, I'm all ears

Hello gang, I first must lead with a confession/apology. You might have noticed that I wrote the wrong sub name, it's on every photo, it couldn't really be edited out, I don't know what to say really, but yea sorry lol.

Preamble/ramble.

Back when COVID hit, some really great sculptors emerged and the resources were rich. Between the end of COVID, discord and patreon, the resources are once again scarce. So like many others I'm muddling my way into this seeing what works and what doesn't, I have no formal artistic background and am a bench joiner by trade.

I miss forums so much, I really am quite lost with Reddit, so hold on tight here goes nothing.

I am bulldozer here are some tools.

Ideally the tools you need, you can substitute.

1. honing compound, 2) IKEA picture hanging kit, 3) scratch art bamboo styluses, 4) leather strop, 5) pin vise, 6) super glue, 7) diamond stone 400/1000 grit, 8) pin vise drills, 9) finishing nails (avoid oval nails), 10-11) needle nose pliers and beefy wire cutters.

Start with trimming the heads off your chosen nails, you don't want to just power through it, make little squeezes and rotate the nail, this will break the head free without marring your cutters blades (the ones in the picture are 20 years old).

Load the nail cut end first into your pin vise. Next we are going to grind the tip into a conical shape on our diamond stone (400 grit). Pitch the nail at a fairly low angle ( you can use the angle the facets are cut, rotating as you draw it back towards yourself. We are looking for smooth controlled movements, the most critical thing is holding the nail at the same angle.

Once the edges are knocked down and it's starting to look nice, we the switch to (1000 grit). You will notice rotating the the pin is getting easier and it's easier to be consistent with your angle.

Next step is optional, but I find it helps with chisels and it takes but a few seconds. Do the same angle, pull, rotate thing with our strop using some polishing compound.

Handles, now this might be controversial. I think a very light handle is needed, so you can feel the feedback of contact with the greenstuff. I've noticed with the big metal sculpt tools I just can't feel what I'm doing.

So bamboo scratch art styluses, find a drill bit slightly bigger but deffo not smaller than your nail. Drill a hole as best you can, it doesn't have to be perfect, just reasonably straight and near enough in the centre. Load your nail pokey end inside your pin vise, put a drop of super glue in the hole of the stylus, push the nail in until it is seated firmly. The pin vise will give you enough leverage to bend the tip if it's really wonky. But I honestly wouldn't worry.

Ok so that's one stubby pokey tool, let's look at the other flavours.

Philips/spade. Start by cutting the sharp end entirely off your nail. Then when grinding do not rotate it, until you have formed a single flat face, then rotate 180° and put another face in the nail. Now the tip may end up slightly tapered, a bit sharp, or even a little bit toothy. Just take it over your stone, completely vertical (do your best to prevent rocking) and rotate it like a drill with gentle pressure. This will square the end up. If you take too much off and the edge is a bit too broad, just repeat the first steps of making the facets.

Give it a polish and a handle.

Domed, difficult. So there's a few ways to go about this, if you want a fine small dome, start with a stubby pokey like the first example and carefully blunt the tip by drilling down onto the diamond plate like we did for squaring the Philips head. Then at a high angle do the angle/drag/rotate and increase and decrease the angle as you go. You will eventually form a dome. Stropping this shape really helps as it can develop burrs when it's being formed, failing a strop you can burnish it. To burnish it you need a hard surface like a cutting mat and just drag it around tip down until the burrs are smoothed.

Long pokey, everything is the same as the first example, except the angle at which you grind it. You want a low angle, the best way to achieve this is to start with our basic pokey from the first example and progressively grind it, making sure only the shoulder (not the very tip) is in contact with the stone. Eventually you will have a really good lo g pokey, but the tip can get very fragile and break or bend. There's no formula for that, it's a bit of trial and error.

Ok so now you have 4 tools. They can be made super fast, I think writing this tutorial took twice as long.

I've got a bottle of cold blue so my tips got a splash of that before polishing, it will add corrosion resistance. But I see no circumstances where they would be corroded, especially because I use vaseline to grease up my tools.

Anyway, I hope this made sense and that at least one person finds it useful. I'll stick the B-reel in the comments and will always answer a question on this thread.

Much love, Bulldozer

So after seeing a recent post, I thought let's give a Stanley knife and felt backed flooring lino a go. How bad can it be?

Terrible, really sub optimal. I'm sure if you took your time you could produce something good.

Here's a 10 minute bash, I really couldn't recommend this.

And of course, acrylic paint lashed on, and a post it note to really emphasise the pigs ear.

Critique flair added, because I had to pick a flair.