3d-printable terrain for all your samurai wargaming needs
Here's a quick guide to painting the new Taui Fusion Reactor, with a super handy shortcut for saving some time on the base section!
£ The base section was the first part to paint, and I saved some time by masking over the exterior lines I wanted to leave as clear filament, and then spraying with a rattlecan of light grey matt paint.
For the Taui Landing Pad, I had carefully painted each hexagon on the pad by brush, and it had taken hours and hours! Since the floor of this fusion reactor is not such a focal point, I decided to save lots of time by investing in a thick-nibbed paint pen. This probably would have taken hours to do with a brush (especially since it's white!), but this only took a few minutes! Strongly recommended!
£ After pulling off the masking tape, the interior of the base section was complete.
£ The next step was to paint the surfaces of the reactor in a sandy yellow. I used cheap Americana Camel acrylic paint to cover every surface of the model, except the recessed blue lines and the interior hexagons. This took 3 coats to get a smooth finish, but at least every coat was faster than the last!
£ I used GW's Flayed One Flesh to highlight the edges of each panel, and then an even thinner edge highlight of Bleached Bone to make it really pop.
For the monitor, I roughly painted a 'reactor powering up' kind of display, but if you have the time you could try printing a custom transfer from a sci-fi movie?
£ At this stage it was time to glue it together. I found it was easiest to do this by gluing the central core to only one tower, and gluing that tower to the base. Once that was properly dry, I glued the other tower into place on the base and to the core. Pretty perfect fit!
£ One last thing I wanted to do was brighten the central core. Although I plan to use LEDs to light up the model and the central core, there will be times when I'm not using LEDs so it seemed a good idea to lighten it slightly anyway. So I masked the two towers off, and pulled out my airbrush.
Oh no!! My airbrush had died!
So I couldn't use a light blue paint carefully and smoothly airbrushed on the central reactor core! What a pity! I had to use a cheap rattlecan of matt white instead, with one quick vertical spray pass from about 30cm away. It wasn't perfect (you can see the specks of paint in the photo), but I guess it will do okay?
Currently I'm just sorting through the pics and videos of the new fusion reactor, so it will be ready for release in a few days!
The new Fusion Reactor print is being painted up as we speak, so while you're waiting.... here's a new Gun Tower for the Taui collection! 
£ Yes, that's right - it's another pretty damn big design! This one towers (oh, sorry for the pun!) 300mm above the battlefield.
There are 2 unique features of this gun tower....
£ Firstly, the gun turret section can actually be raised and lowered during gaming, if you need to, or if you just want a different look to the table.
Secondly, those enormous twin-linked railguns (and the blue window section) can spin around about 250 degrees!
Of course it's a hollow model just like all the other Taui designs, and can be lit with LEDs inside for some cool effects!
Printing is now complete on the 3rd of our Tau-themed sci-fi terrain models - the Taui Fusion Reactor!
Assembly is pretty simple, but here are some tips and suggestions for getting the most out of this large terrain piece.....
£ The base can be printed as one piece for those that have large enough printers (25cm² bed), or as 4 separate pieces which all fit on to a smaller 12.5cm² print bed.
£ Next you'll need two side towers. These fit neatly at each end.
£ Next come the big pieces! To print these as one piece prints, you'll need 27cm of available print height, but of course smaller cut versions have also been included.
I printed every piece of this model at 100% infill, because I'm using clear filament for LEDs. The walls are only 2mm thick, so printing at 100% infill doesn't make much difference to the amount of filament used.
£ The final two pieces are the computer terminal and the central reactor core. These are the only pieces that require print supports, and should be printed as oriented in the files if possible.
£ Here's the finished and assembled model, which towers 27cm (11") high. It is 30cm x 16cm (12" x 6.5") large at the base. It's hard to see the sculpted detail with this clear blue filament, but there are some lines and alien text dotted around the model. These will be much clearer on the painted version!
£ One unusual feature of this design is that it's hollow! Every piece, from the big towers, to the small monitor terminal and reactor core, is designed for LEDs and wiring to be inserted if you want to. It's not essential to do that, of course, but I thought it was fun to give you that option.
£ A quick test of some string LEDs pushed through the central reactor core. Those holes are 5mm in diameter, by the way, which should allow most small LEDs to fit.
£ How big is it? Pretty big!
It's larger even than this Eldar wraithknight model, and has space for maybe 20 infantry models behind the walls, so should provide decent cover options for your tables.
The fusion reactor will be hitting the paint desk this week, and should be released very soon (along with another Taui design!). Watch this space.....
We have a new design for our Taui sci-fi range to show to you today - the rather large Fusion Reactor!
In keeping with the existing style of the Landing Pad and Teleporter, this design has similar rounded surfaces and a clean sci-fi look. It measures a whopping 303mm x 160mm table footprint (12" x 6½"), with a height of 270mm (11"). 
This hollow terrain piece has been designed with clear PLA filaments in mind. By printing in your choice of clear or colour-tinted 3D printer filament, you can easily add lighting effects with clusters of LED lights inside the reactors and the surrounding walls. The hollow reactor core also features 5mm holes, and can be wired for LEDs.
It's test printing at the moment, so some printed photos will be coming in a few days!
We have a new print partner to announce this week, PRINT A QUEST, from Queensland, Australia. They are now selling print versions of our Japanese samurai terrain, and Necrontyr and Eldari sci-fi terrain on their webstore! They even have a free shipping offer on at the moment!
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