3D Printing :: The Shores of Tripoli

I took some time to tinker with my 3D printer and scoured through Thingiverse for STL files to print in order to craft a custom play-set. I started this journey in a previous post here.

Here are the results of my effort. A similar article which I wrote in parallel appears at boardgamegeek.com via https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2540417/article/36274186#36274186

The Game-board

I went to Home Depot and had a technician there cut 0.25-inch MDF into those exact sizes. I upscaled the board using Deep AI so that it could be much larger; about 40-inches by 14-inches. The result of the upscaling was a crisp but an enhanced painterly effect, which is what I wanted to pursue. I also needed to use the clone-stamp tool within Photoshop to create additional art mimicking the existing art. I then used Illustrator to re-label everything and to clean up the lines of the various compartments, icons, and shapes.

After mounting the sheets to the MDF, I applied several layers of PVA glue ("Mod Podge") with a large paint brush so that the surface of the game-board looked textured like a painting.

The 3D Printer

I used my FDM printer which is an FL-Sun QQ-S Pro that melts PLA plastic filament and builds things upwards from a hot plate. I think as a first printer, it is good enough for projects involving small printed objects. The largest thing which I've printed is about 5-inches (75mm) tall and about that wide.

The Custom Bits

I wanted to have the entire game to have a painterly finish. To this end, I primed everything with black and then painted that quickly with a base color, ensuring that I leave enough of the black showing. I then did quick dry-brush using mostly white.

Armies

These are half-inch wood cubes I purchased from Michael's Art Supplies. I painted them all in a base color (red, blue, white) and then dry-brushed their edges in tan (for the white cubes) or white. I then added some black just lightly on many edges. I like the final effect.

Wood cubes painted and textured. Tripolitan Army is reddish. Americans are blue. Arabs are white.

Ships

These STL files are from Thingiverse.com. The idea was to have all of the fleets be atop the same size bases (15mm x 40mm) but the gunboats be rendered smaller. The frigates are all three-mast designs. The Swedish and American frigates are the same design but different colors (blue or yellow). The Tripolitan frigate is a different design entirely.

Swedish frigate.

Tripolitan gunboats. Two masts not three.

Tripolitan frigate.

American frigate.

Reinforcements for the American player.

For the Tripolitan raiders, I made them be two-mast designs. For the American gunboats, I printed them as smaller three-mast designs which I think was a mistake because it was hard to differentiate them from the frigates. I will print them again as two-masted ships.

I particularly like the caravels; I wanted to make sure that the Corsairs looked like a fleet and so I made two appear upon each base. 

Caravels for use by the allies in Tunis, Algiers, and Tangier.

I think here the American player should worry about corsairs in Algiers!

Tribute

I decided that the tribute would look better as chests of coins instead of individual pieces of gold. I found this also on Thingiverse and they painted up nicely when I applied several colors each using the dry-brush technique. 

Tribute chest. There's 12 of these.

Unclaimed tribute.

The Overall Look

I am terrible at framing my subject matter properly especially for ensemble or atmospheric arrangements. However, this is what I've got and I hope you like the gestalt of it.