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http://www.curiousconstructs.co.uk

Curious Constructs is my little venture in the world of eCommerce, through this new webstore I'm selling my own original conversion bits and miniatures. I'll also be aiming to stock a small selection of other products, including terrain and hobby supplies.

I've previously sold my own conversion bits through my blog, but as I'm beginning to expand my range (ableit slowly), this seemed to be the logical next step. The webstore is admittedly basic at present, instead I'm investing time and money in products instead, however a new store is in development to replace this one later in the summer.

At present my small range is quite tailored to hobbyiests of a specific taste, though as I expand this I'll be adding things which I hope will appeal to a wider audience. I'm also very keen to be able to cater to minority audiences, so if there is somethign specific your looking for dont hesitate to get in touch, I'll certainly consider any project that is viable.

In this thread I'll be highlighting new releases, previewing new products which are work in progress, aiming to answer any quetions, and of course responding to feedback, comments and criticisms.

Releases as of 03/07/12

28mm Cavalry Conversion Kit - The return of my first and popular 28mm metal conversion set with an updated Lancer torso.
28mm Lancer Torso Set - The 28mm metal Lancer torso supplied with the conversion set is also available seperately in packs of ten.



28mm Heavy Cavalry Conversion Kit - The 28mm metal cavalry kit is also available with my Life Guard torso for armoured cavalry.
28mm Life Guard Torso Set - The 28mm metal Life Guard torso supplied with the conversion set is also available seperately in packs of ten.



28mm Dress Uniform Torso Set - This metal 28mm torso pack features ten dress uiformed torsos with a winged skull motif.



I'm also proud to now be able to offer the first few pieces of terrain from Lucky Punk Miniatures. These include two Barricade Sets of three 5-6" resin cast terrain pieces. The first of these is a Sandbag / Mealie Bag Barricade set, the second a Sandbag & Crate Barricade set.

Nice, boxes! I'm glad to see some originality from these barricades.

I've bought from Col. Gravis on many occasions and can say that his sculpts are crisp, clean and gorgeous! I highly recommend buying from Curious Constructs!

Spiffy. The texture on the sandbags is nice.

Excellent barricades.

looking forward to placing an order soon

I added a link to store and thread in the Praetorian ressources thread.

Just a little snippet of a preview, as part of the next wave of releases I'll be sending off for casting shortly, first up is this Heavy Laser Rifle, these I hope to make available in sets of ten, cast in resin.

nice stuff, the sandbag texture is a bit.. fuzzy if you ask me, but not enough where i wouldnt use them

I think I might pick up some of those sandbags with the crates later, they look fab *bookmarks*

At last I've finally got a restock in the store, and more importantly the latest batch of releases!

All of these new items are metal cast heroically scaled 28mm.

Top of the list is the brand new multi-part Gatling Gun kit, of which I'm a particular fan, these are packed singluarly at £5.00 each.



Also in the store are packs of ten Heavy Laser Rifles, as previously previewed at £5.00 per pack.



A new Hussar torso, also in packs ten at £6.00 per pack.



And following popular demand paks of five Cavalry Legs, one the Dress Uniform set previously available as part of the Cavalry Conversion sets, another the 'Militia' set which lacks the vertical stripe on the outside leg. These are both sold in packs of five, at £5.00 each.





All of these are in the store now at, http://www.curiousconstructs.co.uk

More soon!

That gatling gun could make a very nice counts-as heavy bolter for certain IG armies, methinks...

More new releases now available, as well as a further restock of existing products.

New in store are the Life Guard head sprue, these have been selling rather quickly, and are available in packs of two, five head sprues.



Also in is this multi-part tank commander, consisting of torso, head and pointing arm.



Finally, the Light Gun Carriage and Wheels which were previously part of the Gatling Gun are also now available seperately in limited numbers.



More soon!

the heavy lasers are awesome and so are the lifeguard bodies. looking forward to my order of heads to match!

Are these lead pieces?

Orinoco, well I hope you like the heads just as much! All stock of the heads has gone now, it may be a few weeks before I'm able to restock them again unfortunately.

Raxor, yes in common with most metal miniatures the alloy used in production of these miniatures does contain lead - hence the recommendation that they are not suitable for children.

Just thought I'd just this up, Phil Anderson, who's Praetorian Army has been featured several times on the GW Facebook page, and on their 'Whats New Today' feature, has done a review of the new Tank Commander, with some more on the way.

http://colonel-winterborne.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/curious-constructs-tank-commander-review.html

Been a little quiet for a while, but here are a couple more new releases, nameley a Pith Helmeted and a Picklehaube Head set.

Pith Helmeted Heads, now available, HERE.


Picklehaube Heads. Now available, HERE.


In addition I've got some more head sets on the way, Bearskins and Shako's - with some larger, and more exciting projects to preview very soon.

Phil Anderson has put together another REVIEW of some Curious Constructs products, this time the Life Guard Heads and Heavy Cavalry Kit.

So finally I can post something with paint on!

Hmmm, the head is as large as the upper body. How come?

They are on the larger side yes, though I did'nt think this was unreasonably so for an heroic miniature. Hence I went with the look of heads rather then following correct anatomical proportions. Obviously though, if I get alot of feedback suggesting I've gone to far with size, that'll be something for me to address with future releases.

That all said, I think that particular picture may emphasise the size somewhat, as the cavalry kits are quite squat and hunched over being at charge in the saddle. This rather quick shot may be give a better idea of the proportions of the heads.



I'm always open to critism, Im still as far as I'm concerned very much an amature, so if I get something wrong, or theres something which I can improve upon, then I do want to know about it, and I'll do my best to act on it.

What do you think based on the second picture? Too large, okay, or somewhere between?

From that shot it's the torso that looks small compared to the head and legs

Thats interesting, the torso is actually identical in size to a GW Cadian torso.

Difficult to tell without heroic arms and horses. Infantry man looks a bit better, torso looks smaller because Cadian Torso has massive chest armour.

I recently assembled some "Praetorians" with the 28mm Dress Uniform torso from Curious Constructs and the Victorian Sci-fi arms and legs from Victoria Lamb's range. I also used Col. Gravis' pith helmet heads sold by Secret Weapon. The end result were some awesome looking figures with more dynamic poses than the old GW figures.

The pieces all worked well together, but the finalized miniatures stands a bit taller and are thicker than their GW counterparts, but not so much so that it is off putting. Mixed in with some GW figures the size difference will merely represent the variations in height found among humans. At least that is how I am justifying it.

Here is a comparison shot.




Col. Gravis, are your newest pith helmet heads similar in size to the Secret Weapon heads?

When will the carriages be available again?

Kroothawk wrote:Difficult to tell without heroic arms and horses.

Fair point, I'll see what I can do a little later on tonight.

DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Col. Gravis, are your newest pith helmet heads similar in size to the Secret Weapon heads?

This is a slightly awkards answer, but yes and no.

The heights of the heads are pretty much identical bar the crest and spikes on the Life Guard and Picklehaube helmets respectively. They are however wider by a small margin - a little factoid, the masters of the Secret Weapon Heads were also wider originally, but there was an accident when the master moulds were being made.

Javin wrote:When will the carriages be available again?

The carriages will be back on the store soon as the new store which is being worked on goes up, I'm still hoping that might be before this weekend. In the meantime I have just recieved some more of them in stock, so if you'd like to place an order for them in advance of the store going back up, just drop me a PM. I'll PM you this information as well.

Is it just me, or do the faces on the heads look a bit like Weeping Angels?

Interesting comparison, actually one of them does a little - the moral of this story, dont blink...!

I've made the decision to resculpt the heads a little smaller, but retaining the headgear itself, this is going to push my own sculpting projects back a bit, though I'll keep the existing versions in production for the time being as long ass demand exists.

However, there is a flip side to this as some other projects I've commissioned or am working on in conjunction with others are coming to fruitation somewhat quicker then I'd expected.

One of the first of these is a 28mm Bike, suitable for non-super human soldiers. Below is a work in progress render of what will be a resin kit. I'd love to hear some feedback on this piece while its still work in progress before it goes off to the printers.

I like the bike, but the tyres end up look a bit 'toy like'

A simple improvement would be to rotate one half slightly compared to the other so you tread block on one side, opposed to a gap on another eg




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a more aggessive look would be to angle the blocks



the blocks 'point' in the direction of travel