I have finished the substructure of ribs for this new dwarven ironclad. I have some pics to show its scale against the last ship. The decks will go next, but I fear I will run out of cardboard soon.
I had everything ready to record the building of the ship in video, but my camera does not support anymore than 15 minutes of video, which is clearly not enough to record this project.
Here you can see some plating, which will be on the inside of the rear area of the ship. It is the simplest plating the boat will have. A similar plating will be made for the inner front area of the ship.
I expect to be able to show it to you in place quite soon:
Now you can see it on its propper place. I have also put some reinforcements for the ribs which will not be seen on the final product, and the main decks are finished.
To be honest, I wanted a small ironclad, of about the length of the smaller ship. But due to it's architecture, the need to have room for miniatures to maneuver between the walls and on the upper decks forced me to upscale the whole ship. I still think it feels somewhat odd.
i think the major issue with the odd feeling derives from the slightly taller structure...than it is long... but that will be totally outshined by the sheer awsome amount of detail you are aplying...
Viktor von Domm wrote:i think the major issue with the odd feeling derives from the slightly taller structure...than it is long... but that will be totally outshined by the sheer awsome amount of detail you are aplying...
I am not sure if I get your point regarding the odd feeling. Anyway, as you can surely notice by now, its design is based on the Dreadfleet Dwarven Ironclad, just downscaled and heavily modified. More straight lines, suitable places for models to stand, no visible cannons nor turrets, and no exhausts (in order to provide the ship with more usable space) and waaaay more ornate.
my comment was in no way meant to be something to belittle your work here... the oddness was something you you mentioned first and i just wanted to say that it was due to the hulking size of that built that the look might be felt as odd...but that is intentional... after all it is a design made by dwarfes adn for dwarfes... so stocky looking people build stocky looking vehicles/architecture and so on...
Viktor von Domm wrote:my comment was in no way meant to be something to belittle your work here... the oddness was something you you mentioned first and i just wanted to say that it was due to the hulking size of that built that the look might be felt as odd...but that is intentional... after all it is a design made by dwarfes adn for dwarfes... so stocky looking people build stocky looking vehicles/architecture and so on...
it looks the part it is meant to be!
I did not mean to confront you, I just did not get the references to height and length. No offense taken, of course. I am now thinking the odd feeling is derived of the long lenght of the central section. Anyway, things will change a lot when I get the hull done...
mxwllmdr wrote:You are brilliant, dude. I figured out how to mimic this construction....
Don't see a need to use this technique in any of my current or upcoming projects but, wow, what a tool for the tool box, this is......
It's really easy, and you can see it if you look carefully at the templates I built. Click to zoom to the left part of the image, where the substructure is located. You will notice vertical cuts on the longitudinal pieces, corresponding with the opposing cuts in the ribs. Nothing groundbreaking. As you pointed out, it's something that has been done for ages in order to create semi-3d structures such as trees for conceptual scale models.
I have been told there will be a wargaming and roleplaying event on my University, and I have contacted the organizer in order to get some Mordheim games in.
Unfortunately there is not a lot of scenery there, so I said I would bring my boats.
But I would like to be able play in a good looking table in that event. They can provide me with two small buildings, but nothing else.
Therefore, I thought this would be a great chance to tidy up my scenery, and turn the foam I usually play in, into propper stone streets, in addition to create some buildings I could use in my garage games.
So I grabbed the foam I have stored (not as big an ammount as I'd like, unfortunately) and started carving the stone. The idea is to create several surfaces of different sizes, which can be even put one on top of another to create different ground levels.
Here you can see ammount of foam I have turned into cobblestone paving. I still need to paint them black (some pieces have already been primed) and then start giving them layers of grey paint in different tones. The rat ogre and clanrat are there just for scale.
I just finished priming all the pieces black, and even did the gray basecoating on half of the pieces. I still need to highlight the stones one at a time, at least partially. That could take it's time... but I want to have the platforms coated with varnish by the 29th of this very moth.
Here is what I have already done,
And here you can see what I have not painted yet.
I have already discussed with a friend about buildings to fit in the spaces among these platforms. I hope we can raise a partial city soon, to play in a cool table with propper scenery!
Viktor von Domm wrote:yep...that is waht i thought too... tho it also still leaves the issue as to how he makes the whole stuff sturdier open ...
The extruded polystirene is quite dense, and we have played at least 6 games using these very pieces of polystirene, prior to carving the stones out of them, and we experienced no problem at all with their sturdyness. I plan to apply a coat of varnish over it, however, just in case, as I have some kind of OCD regarding varnish on my gaming pieces and scenery...
As soon as I can get some games on these platforms, I will post some pics and my impressions.
It is indeed insulation foam (extruded polystirene, as opposed to expanded polystirene) so it is sturdy enough as it is presented. I will, however, give it a couple coats of varnish, since everything related to wargaming that I own has been given two varnish coats (except dice and codices... but some day...)
dsteingass wrote:FANTASTIC! How tall are they?
You could make riser sections with stone stairs too!
They are about 4cm tall.
I have almost run out of extruded polystirene, at least, I have no other pieces of the right size. I have created four small stairs, so I would be able to put risers above others and access them with no problem at all.
Before applying a coat of varnish, I decided to arrange the pieces into a random "river" scenario, just for fun.
I think, besides buildings, I am lacking some cover on the river shores. The boats will act as fortresses, since miniatures can take cover into them and are in a high position, so they will be able to choose who they shoot at. Honestly, I am fine with that, since getting into a boat implies risk of falling into the water and drowning, but having absolutely no cover on the shores may be overdoing it. I have thought about building some wodden crates to mitigate that. What do you think?
that is already a full table! to say it would be easy would be an understandment, but it is made with rather simple items...just that the effort of your work is so much makes it way more than just simple
dsteingass wrote:Yes! Now for the docks, yes (rubs hands together) many docks!
(Jetty's, piers. whatever you call them)
I love the stairs!!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Now How about a seperate set of stairs that spans two risers! - for versatility.
To be honest, I know I should focus now on the dwarven ship. However, now I can only think about completing the buildings needed for this table to be functional.
I want something rather generic, in order to work in several configurations, but I would also like them to be thematic. A couple of stores, a tavern, a warehouse... maybe a church/tower? All built in the same style.
I will probably build them on top on their own 4cm high platforms, so they can be used to expand the table, to be standalone buildings in the river, or be in a higher level on top of the street. Now, if only I had unlimited time... (the ability to stop time withouth aging would also be accepted instead)
Really great scenery mate , love those modular tiles , is there nothing you cant do :-0
i would suggest barrels crates and cranes ,maybe even fishing nets ? and maybe the stone crenelations or posts with iron hoops that are used for moaring up the ships , for cover
It will be used for whatever system the setting is suited for. It will be mostly mordheim, since neither I nor my friends have Warhammer Fantasy Battles armies, nor are willing to spend such ammount of money in that system instead of our main one, 40k. Mordheim is our "fantasy fix", so to speak. I expect the risers to see some use in 40k, however. And if we start any other skirmish medieval game, you can be sure we will be using this scenery too.
Now, regarding something completely different, I am going to make a purchase today, in order to test something I left behind a long time ago. It will be just a test, but I would love to see it working, and I hope you will like it too. I am really excited about it, but I don't want to tell you anything yet because I don't want to raise high expectations for something that might not work.
hmmm... I might create and E-bay account and learn how to use the dakka swap shop...
mxwllmdr wrote:I am sorry, dude, but the last photo didn't help my confusion at all. Are you casting something?
Viktor von Doom wrote:that was what i thought too...tho the setup looks different... we instantly see lego bricks and make a connection to casting it seems^^
talk about new programming^^
It's odd, I expected everyone would be able to tell what am I doing!
Just give a look at the whole thread, and see which project I abandoned would need resin casting to continue...
Yes, it's the gothic tower I started the thread with. I bought enough materials to create a mould for a single piece. The creation of the mould requires quite some time, since each half of the mould takes a up to 12 hours to harden. I am extremely worried, as I fear the cardboard will stick to the mould material and I will lose both the original piece and the mould xD...
How the heck could I have forgotten about those? I have only been planning an entire 40K table around your methodology....
I'm stupid. Of course this will turn out good. The Silicon has too much viscosity to soak into the cardboard and the card board, if it is the dense stuff i am thinking it is, should survive the pulling out of the mold once it is cured. I plan, however to replicate/reproduce/emulate your panels with plasticard and mold them...
Or should I say have someone I know mold them.....
Or should I say ASK someone I am aquainted with mold them.....
I can say that I have casted my first ever resin prototype. I can announce now that the quality of the casted piece is comparable to Finecast
(That is, several really tiny bubbles which are hard to notice, two-three bubbless wich are of nearly 1 milimiter in diameter obscuring some detail, and one bigger bubble at the top of a mayor arch. xD)
I am sure I will be able to reduce these miscasts to a minimum with some practice. I need to experiment with different styles of moulds and different casting methods.
mxwllmdr wrote:
How the heck could I have forgotten about those? I have only been planning an entire 40K table around your methodology....
I plan, however to replicate/reproduce/emulate your panels with plasticard and mold them...
Or should I say have someone I know mold them.....
Or should I say ASK someone I am aquainted with mold them.....
Or maybe I coud get them done and integrated into my modular sistem, and then mail you the pieces you needed, so you would not need to spend any money in silicon xD
I think the casting problems come from the way the mould was built. I was told by an "expert caster" I should have no problem by casting it in this way, although my architecture background warned me against it.
The next mould will be done upside down, as I hope the air will flow to the surface in the same way as the forces travel through the arch structure of a gothic building. Structural efficiency of gothic architecture is great even for the caster of today xD.
2500kgm3 wrote:I can say that I have casted my first ever resin prototype. I can announce now that the quality of the casted piece is comparable to Finecast
(That is, several really tiny bubbles which are hard to notice, two-three bubbless wich are of nearly 1 milimiter in diameter obscuring some detail, and one bigger bubble at the top of a mayor arch. xD)
I am sure I will be able to reduce these miscasts to a minimum with some practice. I need to experiment with different styles of moulds and different casting methods.
Talc powder is your friend when it comes to bubbles, lightly coat the rubber mould in baby powder and blow it off. The Talc powder repells the bubbles away from the surface. You end up with a different finish on the resin but you gain all the detail.
After you pour your casting material into your mold, you should vibrate the mold. A cheap vibrating back massager will do the trick. This will force the air out of the casting material, and up to the surface.
Wow, those are incredible pieces of advice! Thanks everybody! I did not expect I would get such great imput!
I was not satisfied about the first storey wall-piece, since it provided cover, but it did not look as if it was designed to allow someone to hide behind it.
I am talking about this piece:
As you see, it provides cover, but it is not a great place to stand if you want to avoid being hit by bullets.
Therefore, I am building another piece to replace it, I'll show you my progress soon!
I have not sculpted any additional detail yet (not to say there is a lot of room for it, to be honest) But I think we can all say this is a better looking piece for a window-style piece than the previous one I showed.
well...for a lurker you sure put out some damn fine content!
and i wouldn´t want to argue about your quality...except if someone said it isn´t there^^ like the new window wall section...but then i liked the earlier version too^^
mxwllmdr wrote:And pray tell, how many layers is that beauty?
It has about 14 layers in total, 7 layers per side. it's not the most intrincate piece I have ever done. Now, my head is boiling with more ideas for more pieces... will I ever finish and cast my initial tower? Can I create some more moulds to allow for modular segments beyond a tower in my initial work? ARGGG...
I only asked because I wanted you to know I intend fully to steal methodology and probably, at least until I figure out the technique, a little design......
And I just played another game of Mordheim! it was great, since I could display a decent table, and the game was a blast!
My skaven routed pretty early, but I got the most money and none of my henchmen was greatly injured! We used 4 warbands as a free for all. We had barrels of gunpowder mixed with wyrdstone powder, which could be carried by warband members. Each hero with a barrel would gain experience, and a wyrdstone shard. Unfortunately, these barrels were extremely unstable, and would could detonate if you failed a mandatory test to determinate if you accidentaly dropped it while walking or running. It could even detonate if you were nearly hit by an enemy shot! It was a ton of fun.
My rats performed exceptionally, although they were hidden most of the time. One even stood against a strength 6 explosion while holding a barrel. Having no save, my three oponents were very angry when I rolled two ones to wound... And I got two critical hits with my slings, which I only shoot three times, killing a nasty pirate henchmen once and for all.
One of my close combat heroes got a new skill, so I made it an expert combatant. Another ranged oriented hero also got a skill, so I trained him in how to use any ranged weapon, since he would be stuck with slings forever otherwise. I got him a good new crossbow. Let the hunting begin!
Due to my well known curse, I have concluded I need 4 more wall segments in order to have a complete and versatile set.
An open single storey wall (which I showed you not too long ago), a closed, single storey wall (I am doodling the very first ideas for decoration on that piece too), an arch for interior segmentation, and an open two-storey wall.
I still hope to be able to create the last of these pieces by modifying a copy of another piece, saving me a HUGE ammount of effort. I am not sure if it will ve a possibility, however. Only time will tell... but I am not too confident.
... and I have designed complete plans (cross sections, textures, plans, elevations... all in AutoCad) for a huge mordheim tavern to be built by my friends
Here are the cardboard base structures of the new three pieces. I have started to build a fourth one out of cardboard, too, since I doubt I would be able to carve the windows out of the resin one. These still need gapfiling and detailing, of course. It will not be a fast process...
Viktor von Domm wrote:ah.... welll ... we need a good boozehall for quite a long time^^
dsteingass wrote:Yes, you need more variety of elevated areas for Mordheim IMHO, but it looks great otherwise!
I am having a lot of problems in convincing my thralls to build this tavern I designed, however... maybe it's because it measures 60cm * 44cm ? I smell a revolt... I should execute one of my thralls to make an exemple out of him...
DijnsK wrote:are you still thinking of selling that tower that cheep?? seeing the amount of work you've put into it it could be tripled by now
It still depends on the ammount of resin needed for each individual tower, and the ammount of towers I would have to sell in order to make back the money I spend on silicon for moulds, but I am considering something close to that price point. I am confident I will be able to not to deviate heavily from it. Something I am worried about, however, is shipping and packaging, since the pricepoint does not cover that, and the model will be rather heavy.
The fact is my thralls wanted to build a big multistorey tavern for mordheim. I designed it ad drew the plans. Now they chicken away xD.
I would help them, but I am focused on my gothic tower, since I have to rebuild four wall sections. I am also thinking to build the pillars in another way, so the pieces can be slided even more easily and the tower can be built with no need for glue at all.
That new assembly sistem requires an incredible ammount of precission, however, so I think I will leave that to the next stage of the project, with everything I have learn from this process.
For all that sliding and precision you should look at using a little polystyrene. I know you work in cardboard (and it is amazing, btw, what you do) but the polystyrene channels could be used to great affect on the sliding in and out of the panels.....
To be honest, I have quite a lot of experience in Computer Asisted Design, so I was looking at 3d printing a whole new generation of pieces.
It is still a long way ahead, since 3d printing is really expensive and while I can sculpt both organic and architectural-style elements, blendng both with boolean tools seems to be too much for 3d CAD programs to handle.
But if this tower happens to spark interest in people, I will continue looking into that and try to overcome the technical and economical limitations.
3D printers are coming down in price though. I have been reading on them and CNC routers. THe routers are pretty pricey but a low quality and very slow 3d printer can be aquired for a not so unaffordable price. Maybe, your third born......
I want to sculpt a generic scene spanning these four "windows". I was thinking about depicting a siege, or people preaching to a deity of some sort. Any Ideas?
WarMill wrote:Sorry replied but then reread your comment
Nothing to be sorry about. if it is an idea that can improve my work, even if it doesn't apply to the current piece I am working on, don't refrain from posting any suggestion.
I am now on the most boring part of piece creation: ironing out the recesses and innacuracies of the cardboard layers. It takes a long time to apply putty to almost every joint. The biggest piece is yet to be finished.
And I finally finished the cleanup of the pieces, and drew some motifs to sculpt on them. It's not static, just a guideline for sculpting. I hope these motifs will still be in line with the previous pieces.
¿What do you think? I will start sculpting with the upper piece and go on from there, although as you see, I already sculpted some wings on the lower piece, and some flames on the middle one.
yes...me likes too^^ seeing all those small details that need to be sculpted i am enveying you and not enveying you for the work that lies ahead of you... i hope i see the day that this tower sees completion!
Well, after not being able to work propperly, I have finished two of the last four pieces. Both are really similar in both faces, so I am only showing you one face for each piece.
I have started the sculpting in the two storey piece, although it's not ready yet. The last piece I will work on will be the windowless one storey piece.
I have thought about creating a "stairs" piece to be able to create a complex building or fortress. I find that would be great, and not that much of a problem. These are yet to be designed, however, and would require even more silicon. Maybe I could work on it as the first piece I work after the first pieces are casted. Maybe an "open door" piece would be great as well.
dsteingass wrote:I'd love to see a youtube video of your building/sculpting process.
I tried to do that. Unfortunately, I lack the equipment required to record the process. I wanted to build the dwarven ironclad ship and have it recorded and uploaded to youtube.
I finally managed to finish another piece. This had more work going for it, but the next (and last) one will be harder to sculpt.
here are the pics of the piece. I am kinda fond of this one, since the windows prevent line of sight from infantry, but turret mounted weapons in tanks would be able to shoot through them.
Since I have not been able to sculpt for some time but I still had some spare time, I started thinking about what do I want to do with my Space Marine force (my main and only 40k army). I figured out I would share it with you
I am a Codex: Space Marines player and I have been building a Do It Yourself chapter, know as the Snow Leopards, whose geneseed comes from the Ultramarine chapter.
I consider myself a fluff-based player. I don't win often, but I enjoy small victories (my captain singlehandedly holding an ork horde for two turns, or an enemy biker instakilled by a powerfist to the face, for instance) and I mainly play against orks, but some times I also face some eldar or tau.
While I enjoy basing my army on some home made fluff, I tend to avoid Mary Sue cases. I don't pretend my chapter no one has heard about to be a huge force within the imperium. I don't claim it to have taken part on a famous battle, while not being mentioned in any reports from said battle. My chapter is not in league with some of the more elusive organizations of the imperium such as the Deathwatch, the Inquisition or the Grey Knights, either.
My chapter is a chapter of a very recent founding. As it was created in M41, it has yet to grow to its full potential. A small detachment of veteran marines from one of the many ultramarines successor chapters were assigned to command and instruct the newborn Snow Leopards, and they serve as company captains, chaplains and sergeants. During the few decades since the chapter was founded, enough marines have risen above their training as scouts, so the chapter has almost reached its full size, but until there is enough time for recruits to become veterans, there won't be enough of them to create a full veteran first company.
Since Mars and the more advanced Forgeworlds are overburdened with requests from older and more prominent space marine chapters, the Snow Leopards have a very limited access to sophisticated or arcane technology devices such as Terminator Armour, Dreadnoughts. Plasma weaponry, as an arcane and hard to maintain technology, is also very hard to find in the Snow Leopards armory.
Nearby Forgeworlds are always willing to work with Astartes, therefore the Snow Leopards do have access to manufacturing facilities. While these fringe worlds can't handle some of the most sofisticated technology of the Imperium of man, they do provide the Snow Leopards with the easily built rhino chasis vehicles. Since melta is a relatively new technology, melta weaponry is avaliable in several worlds. One of the more advanced Forgeworlds in the subsector is even capable of producing the antigrav plates needed to create Ladspeeders, and laser weaponry is also an option for their facilities. Most of the more exotic Standard Template Constructs are just too complex for these worlds to create.
Therefore, I want to define my chapter by a lack of elite units (quite counter intuitive for a Space Marine army) as I like having a big number of bodies on the field, and I like having them on transports. I envision this as the way a newly created chapter with limited resources would face a huge ork invasion.
This chapter would not be able to deploy veteran units, so it would try to overcome that liability by using greater numbers of less experienced marines and readily avaliable technology. These are not Blood Angels with their expertly crafted weapons, armour and relics from the crusade era, nor are they Ultramarines, with easy access to any weapon or vehicle they need and a full company of finely trained veterans. They have not made a name for themselves yet, so they will have to do with what they can find readily avaliable.
Therefore, I am thinking about a list I would enjoy building and playing even if it's not the most competitive and optimized list I could build. I am restricting myself to not having using any Force Organization elite slots, and I want to keep the list very mobile. I want a list with lots of theme, that can look good on the tabletop and can help me learn strategy, instead of relying on better listbuilding to win my games.
HEADQUARTERS:
Chaplain Ulkesh (with jumppack, crozius, rosarium and combi-melta)
TROOPS:
Tactical Squad Allanis with dedicated Rhino
(1 sergeant with bolter, 8 marines with boltguns, 1 flamer, 1 missile launcher)
Tactical Squad Ivanova with dedicated Rhino
(1 sergeant with bolt pistol and chainsword, 8 marines with boltguns, 1 Meltagun, 1 missile launcher)
Tactical Squad Garibaldi with dedicated Rhino
(1 sergeant with bolter, 8 marines with boltguns, 1 flamer, 1 missile launcher)
Tactical Squad Franklin with dedicated Rhino
(1 sergeant with bolt pistol and chainsword, 8 marines with boltguns, 1 flamer, 1 missile launcher)
Scout Squad Takashima (1 sergeant with sniper rifle, 3 scouts with sniper rifles, 1 scout with heavy bolter, cammo cloaks)
I don't really like scouts that much, but since they would fit the theme, I added that unit to the list, hoping it will help with some utility and backfield objective holding.
FAST ATTACK:
Assault Marine Squad Zachary (1 sergeant with powerfist, bolt pistol and combat shield, 8 marines with bolt pistol and chainsword, 2 marines with bolt pistol, chainsword and flamer)
Landspeeder Aegis (Typhon missile launcher and heavy bolter)
HEAVY SUPPORT:
Devastator Squad Morden with dedicated twin-linked lascannon Razorback
(1 sergeant with bolter and signum, 1 devastator with lascannon, 3 devastators with missile launchers, 1 bolter marine)
Devastator Squad Bester with dedicated twin-linked lascannon Razorback
(1 sergeant with bolter and signum, 1 devastator with lascannon, 3 devastators with missile launchers, 1 bolter marine)
Whirlwhind Charon (Whirlwind missile launcher)
That list is just below 2000 points according to the current codex point values.
My main enemy will be orks, but I don't want to tailor my list to combat them (in addition, it would not be easy to do, since I might face green tides, battlewagons, trukk spam, KillaKan walls or Nob Deathstars) cuestionable choices, such as the whirlwind are there mostly because I like the model or feel of the unit.
Getting to build this list is a long term goal, since I currently lack any income source. But it is what I would like to do. I already own some of these models (namely, two Tactical Squads, the two Razorbacks, the Whirlwind, the landspeeder, the Assault Marine Squad -currently unpainted- and the Chaplain) but completing that list will take more than a handful of years.
fluff wise i´ll give you full marks for your snow leaopards... rules wise i keep my gob shut as i can´t really help you here...
the fluff sounds really good... and i think i have seen some of your marines earlier in this thread... i think they stared as a detail to your cathedral...
As far as the list goes, it looks fun, and pretty similar to the lists i used to run in 4th. Lists like that aren't horribly competitive in 5th, but I give you full marks for making a list that matches your fluff so well.
Anyway, as you know, my main goal is completing the tower pieces in order to be able to create a modular terrain sistem.
Finally, I can show you more progress. This is the last piece I need to sculpt. After that, I will have to make the moulds for all the other pieces and create copies.
One face of it has been already finished, while the other one is designed. I am not too fond of the lack of movement of the sculpted side, so I will go for more movement on the opposite one.
That is the last thing I would have to sculpt to finish the first batch of pieces. I can't believe this phase is finally coming to an end!
If your serious about selling these you might want to throw Ed and Harry from Warmill a message. If they can't strike a deal with you they might be able to offer some advice.
Casey's Law wrote:If your serious about selling these you might want to throw Ed and Harry from Warmill a message. If they can't strike a deal with you they might be able to offer some advice.
I am surelly willing to share these with anyone who wants to build their own buildings with this system. Maybe I could even afford creating more and more pieces for added variety, allowing a wider array of buildings! -As you know, I am now about 20 original pieces away from having all those pieces needed to build a full sized cathedral, which would be awesome xD-
However, I am not that proud about the sculpting on some of the pieces (the last side I sculpted is amazingly well sculpted in comparison with the sculpts in earlier pieces, which I am not that fond of) and Warmill seems to deal mostly with laser cut terrain, not resin.
Do you really think is it worth to contact them? Do you really think there is still a market for my tower in this era, where small terrain companies are already everywhere?
2500kgm3 wrote:However, I am not that proud about the sculpting on some of the pieces (the last side I sculpted is amazingly well sculpted in comparison with the sculpts in earlier pieces, which I am not that fond of) and Warmill seems to deal mostly with laser cut terrain, not resin.
If you aren't happy with some of the older sculpts it would be worth 'updating' them if you are going to be casting them for sale. I think Warmill have the tools to produce these but i'm not certain, you'd have to ask them.
2500kgm3 wrote:Do you really think is it worth to contact them? Do you really think there is still a market for my tower in this era, where small terrain companies are already everywhere?
If enough people are interested already and you haven't done any advertising then it might be worth contacting them. Despite your pieces being really great i'm not sure you'd do too well out on your own without any other products. Linking up with a company like Warmill would be your best bet.
DijnsK wrote:im interested in a set of molds, or just molded product.
are the wall sections the same size as double CoD wall sections?
can you PM me about possible commission pricing if your willing to do that?
I am of course open to commision work, if anyone is interested in hiring me! I calculated a sentry tower built with these pieces, in resin (three storeys high plus terrace, nearly 25cm high, a plan size of nearly 13*13cm -about 1.5 times as big as a Games Workshop Bastion, if I'm not wrong-) would be prized of about... 28€ plus shipping?
I am oppen to any suggestions and/or commision work anyone wants me to do for them, of course.
I'd bet these are bigger than the standard CoD wall sections, but I have never had any of those in my hands yet. Here you can see all the original pieces against a background where each square represents a square centimeter. Therefore, the moulds are quite expensive, because the sheer ammount of silicon required. That's the phase I am now in, getting about 170€ to buy enough silicon for the moulds to be made.
It looks way better as a black and white photo, since everything looks like if it was made of the same material.
mxwllmdr wrote:I am certainly interested in a set of molds for those....
You would be able to get about five/six towers worth of pieces (wich would make a HUGE multi-leveled building) for the money I would need to create any moulds (and then, you would still need to get the resin to build your own towers with these moulds) so I am not sure that would be really wise.
Not really sure that your definition of really wise is something that I would ever apply to my mindset but why don't you shoot me a PM with the amount and let me decide.....
the price is really good, although the size of this might be a little too big for my. ill measure up some stuff (and make comparisons) to see if it will fit in.
im keeping the commission work in mind!!! some CoD sized panels with custom stuff in there will be horrifically awesome!!
im just eyeballing it but it seems the sections i marked in red are about the same hight as a CoD piece, and about twice the width.
if i where to hire you for some custom sections, i would really like CoD sized pieces, gothic looking with Blood Raven iconology on them although i cant really find the correct size...
GW is making it hard to make stuff yourself so they're making it so you wont get a nice round size in inches or cm.
i believe its like 4.7cm wide and 7.9 cm high.
ill see if i can get digital measurements
mxwllmdr wrote:Not really sure that your definition of really wise is something that I would ever apply to my mindset but why don't you shoot me a PM with the amount and let me decide.....
Regarding selling these, I want to make some tests first, to see if the air flows well on the moulds of some of the more complex pieces, or if I would end with lots of huge bubbles in the windowed pieces because air would not flow through the smallest void areas of the mould.
DijnsK wrote:im just eyeballing it but it seems the sections i marked in red are about the same hight as a CoD piece, and about twice the width.
if i where to hire you for some custom sections, i would really like CoD sized pieces, gothic looking with Blood Raven iconology on them although i cant really find the correct size...
GW is making it hard to make stuff yourself so they're making it so you wont get a nice round size in inches or cm.
i believe its like 4.7cm wide and 7.9 cm high.
ill see if i can get digital measurements
Yes, according to the measurements given, the "short" pieces are roughly like two Cities of Death panels side by side, while the "tall" pieces are like two of these pieces one on top of another (four panels) The main difference of this system regarding Cities of Death Scenery is these pieces rely on a wide "pillar" piece to link them, which makes each segment a bit wider.
If you can get the correct sizes, (which I am sure will be the same as Briancj) we could talk about a set of these, that's for sure.
well nothing against Briancj but his measurements are off by a couple mm (metric). ill see if i can get a digital micrometer and get some good measurements
idk what you mean with a wide pillar? each segment does have a 4 - 6 mm bar on the side if thats what you mean.
this doesnt have to be a problem though. each kit comes with 2 extra bars or it can be measured out and put onto the wall segments.
i did some plasticard walls to get some extra panels and without the bar (i glued that to it later) it was like 42mm wide and 7.9mm high. and as long as its not too thick the thickness of the sections dont matter much.
i tried to add some placticard to represent some of the arches you did on your guard tower walls but i couldnt settle on them so i decided not to do those my plasticard walls pale in comparison to your sculpting!
hehe well my ruler has both an inches and a metric side and i dont get nice round measurements on either one of them darn you GW for making this harder then its already is!!!
Sorry for the lack of updates, but real life has been quite time consuming lately. Fortunately, these problems seem to have been solved now, and I shall have some free time on my evenings (I even managed to start painting a miniature from a Space Marine Assault Squad I had laying around, waiting to get painted and assembled since last summer -You know my stance. If it's not painted, I won't put it on the gaming table-)
I figured out I hadn't enough Lego pieces to build frames for the mould creation process (specially if I want to pour the silicon in bulk) so I decided to build some wodden frames. Since I have 10 different sized moulds, I made 10 different sized frames, using nails and contact glue.
Most of these frames will be used to make up to 3 different moulds, for 3 different pieces.
I should have about... 22 moulds to do off these 10 wodden frames.
I should buy silicon and start pouring it in a week or so, tops. Or at least, that's what I hope to do.
On a sidenote, I have heard Monstruous Creatures are getting a big buff in Warhammer 40k sixth Edition! And by having access to allies, I might be able to add one of them to my Space Marine army!
Therefore, I got a Monstruous Creature! Meet Tyrion, a Monstruous Creature we rescued from a car tyre some days ago. He seems to have been produced only 1 month ago. (Hands provided by my wife for size comparison)
Although I have heard I would get more benefits if I had invested into a winged monstruous creature... Bah, what's done is done xD
Bout time, dude. I understand about the RL interference, we all have to deal with it. Sometimes I swear that if the job didn't support the hobby I would just quit.....
Well, today I drove one hour to get to the shop where I could buy silicon and resin for the moulds. Guess what my face looked like when I found it closed.
Apparently, this month they do not open the store during the evening. It's only open on mornings. And I must attend AutoCad lessons every morning, two hours away, for six more months.
I don't need to say I was NOT happy.
I will try to get someone to buy for me the eight Kilograms of Silicon needed for this proyect, but a slight delay on my schedule is unavoidable.
I have finally made some arrangements for resin to be delivered to me by friday. This week seems to be going to become a rather busy week, and I am leaving for Germany in two weeks (I'll be staying there for another week or so), so I am in quite a difficult spot right now. I would have loved to be able to start casting during the last week so I would have much less pressure.
Well, nothing comes out as we expected. Ever. So if life gives you lemons, make lemonade. In this case, if life gives me time, I make more tower pieces.
Since sixth edition warhammer 40k allows the use of bastions on regular games as part of your armylist, I thought I could make some small conversion piece to turn my tower into a bastion (or a bastion and a half, as it's larger than the GW kit). The only thing it was lacking was weaponry, so I built a gun in a heavy bolter style to fit in the window areas of some pieces.
I also built a small "control panel" addition to block the other side of the window where the gun is located, allowing it to be manned. Please, note the control panel should be on the other side of the wall, behind the gun.
Since there is no way of placing the gun in the middle of the way section, I thought about gluing two of these guns side by side in the two central windows of the wall section. Maybe have them serve as a BS1, twin linked heavy bolter instead of a BS2 heavy bolter?
And since I have always wanted to develop a system fully capable of forming a modular table on its own, I have been building some road and ground floor pieces. The ground floor pieces will work as walkways around the buildings as well, being sightly higher than the road pieces. The column pieces will fit on the ground floor pieces as well, to make assembly easier.
And finally, I started building some propper stairs. I was really looking forward to them, since I feel going up and down floors by hatches could get old quickly in a cool looking table. And I am quite fond of the work in progress stairs I started to build.
Unfortunately, as I built these stairs I started noticing they have a very limited use. The stairs would be a very expensive piece to make, and take up waaay too much space on the board. That is fine with a display board, full of custom scenery, but with a modular board, where scenery space is at a premium because of you wanting the module size to be as small as possible to allow for more combinations, these have a very limited use.
Therefore, I might discontinue that section, in favour of some more variety regarding floor tiles. I feel a board built with these pieces would lack some propper area terrain, so I was thinking about road tiles with craters. Do you have any more suggestions regarding area terrain?
really, your work is proof that Spanish people are way to artistic!!! no wonder the Spanish gamesday has the best looking models competing for the slayer sword
I finally started creating the moulds. I hope to be able to post pics soon. I unfortunately had some problems with the moulds, since a handful of the items needed for ensuring both parts of the mould fit seamlessly... floated off the liquid silicon and had to be removed.
I will go on with the other side of these "faulty" moulds, since I hope it is not a capital problem.
Building a mould for the pillar has been as much of a painful experience as I had imagined, since it is a really complex piece for a two-part mould. And the most difficult part of that process (removing the plasticine on the lower part of the piece) is still to be done.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Here are the pics I promised. The Xs mark the pieces that drifted away and were removed. I will try to cut some bumps myself to replace them.
Today, I noticed also the upper silicon wall in the pillar section looked way too thin. It seems silicon has been dripping overnight to the empty lower part of the mould through a small joint between the plasticine and the original piece itself. I will have to reinforce one of the sides of the mould by replacing the lost silicon for it to have thickier walls and be more stable. This means I won't be able to check if the mould is viable until that new layer dries.
The place where the silicon fell is marked with a cercle in these shots.
After trashing the four half-moulds I had made, I started again from scratch, this time listening to the wisdom of the Internet. I was almost sure it was not going to end well, since the silicon refused to cure past 70% strength, and the cardboard originals were destroyed, parts of its surface stripped by the silicon. I almost lost any hope and wanted to cut my losses and let this proyect go.
However, after brushing the moulds with more catalizer, the silicon seemed to harden enough to be able to cast on them .
This was the result:
Barring some bubbles on the very low edges of the mould, the casts are flawless regarding the level of detail. The two storey high window piece had some problems, however, since the mould had warped because of the pressure applied by rubber bands in the casting process, so the piece was way thickier on the center than intended, so the windows that were supposed to be filled with light flash were clogged with half a centimeter of resin.
But after using some wodden pieces to regularize the pressure on the mould, I was finally successfull, and avoided any resin leakage.
These pieces are of a quality way higher than I expected! Two more moulds are now under construcion. A ground floor tile, and another 2 storey piece.
well you live and you learn... of course the learning curve can be expensive in certain jobs... but i think you can be proud of your outcome!!...looks really good!
After getting one copy of one of each of the type of walls done (wall without windows, one storey high; and wall with windows, two storeys high) , I have started working on more moulds for more pieces I have already ready for cloning:
two types of butresses (two and three storeys high), wall with windows, one storey high, and wall without windows, two storeys high. In addition, I have worked on a floor tile and a pillar piece. I am quite nervous about that last one, since it is essential for the modular system I developed.
I have also been working on the originals for some other options, such as paved roads, and a paved road with craters.
Since I am leaving for Germany (Beware, Vik, I am looking for you xD) and I won't be able to work on my projects for no less than a week and a half, I decided to let you with as much content as I could regarding this project.
First of all, I have designed some road tiles in addition to ground floor tiles for the buildings, including a difficult terrain road tile, where meteors have crashed into the ground.
And I have already casted some pillar pieces, so I can start to dryfit some of the pieces. This is the result!
These are just dry fitted. No blue-tac to hold them on place, and obviously, no glue. Just gravity. As expected from the fact that all the originals were cut and sculpted by hand, in order to get a perfect result some minimum gap-filling would be required, but I doubt it will be as glaring of a problem as it shows here once the pieces are propperly glued.
As you will surely notice, some of these pieces have apparent bubbles or miscasts. These are all test pieces, and only the window wall ones have a quality I would consider final, even if they are stained due to being part of the initial cast run (no bubbles but a handful of very small ones on the very edge of the base, which can hardly be noticed)
And finally, as I am forced to be in front of a computer during long times with nothing to do, I decided to use that time to design yet another gaming table, this time using the pieces I am mass producing.
The mockup features 6 60*60cm boards which can be rotated and switch its place with any other board. (these divisions appear in the picture as a continuous black line) All of these feature both several buildings or walls, and road tiles. This division of 6 boards alone allows for more than 18 road (and therefore, board) configurations. In addition, every 60*60 board can be divided into 3 different shaped "miniboards" (defined by the dashed lines within the 60*60 boards) which can be interchanged among several boards, or even rotated on their spot, providing even more variety.
Here you can see the initial 18 configurations of the table (The video shows a configuration that won't be found listed here either):
-Light grey represents roads, blue represents standard paving.
-Darker grey and darker greish-blue represent difficult terrain variations of the previous terrain.
-Dark blue represents buildings. The darker the blue, the taller that part of the building is.
-If a building is crossed by dashing lines, it allows movement at ground level, withouth having to enter the building itself.
I am finally back. Resin casting will not continue until next week, but in the meantime, I am building one more small piece I had neglected that I need to build buildings with multilevel terraces. In addition, I am thinking about designing some more pieces which might or might not see the light of day as casted parts of a building.
Some people has noted the buildings I showed in the video lacked pointy rooftops. Therefore, I am thinking about designing some gable wall pieces/flying butresses and pointy spires to put on top of the “battlement” floors. I was also thinking about more floor tiles, but I guess these will have to wait. If any of you have any suggestions regarding that, feel free to tell me what would you like to see created (river/open sewer tile, for instance). I guess all these pieces will be left for a second wave, but will allow for MANY more possibilities.
In addition, I am starting to think about how I will paint the initial building, I have decided it will be an Imperial bastion equivalent, although the system allows for nearly any kind of building to be built with a combination of pieces.
I am thinking of applying a black priming coat, then a grey-brownish basecoat then 2/3 drybrush levels to light grey, but I am also considering going for the hardcore approach, and forgo drybrushing for a more controlled application of paint, for a much more time consuming process. I might make a test piece from an old miscast during this week. Any advice? Do you think going for a brownish grey instead of a pure grey is a good choice?
Do you think a bastion equivalent will be a good showcase for the system? I am a bit worried about it having 4 identical walls, since I would prefer to have a wider variation of pieces shown, but I am trying to stick to what an imperial bastion equivalent would be. Maybe I will try to make a more complex building the next time.
AnUnearthlyChilde wrote:WHEN CAN I GIVE YOU MY MONIES TO BUY SOME OF THESE TASTY TASTY BITS???!!!
Hopefully, the moulds should be ready for casting all the pieces needed before the end of the month, if anyone is really interested.
Viktor von Domm wrote:
where is the music from? suits the vid just fine!
Just Youtube's default music xD
Viktor von Domm wrote:
and should i look out for a spanish stalker now cheers, vik
I was on Frankfurt, Kassel and some nearby towns. Never found any trail of rivets to follow in order to get to you. But I really enjoyed the gothic architecture and the streets ready made for some life sized Mordheim action.
And just as I was going to continue working on my project, my pc dies, and I need to format it and reinstall all programs I use, which is a daunting task. I think I should have it solved by tomorrow, but it will slow my progress for some days.
Anywere, I started making some more moulds, and designing a “pointy spear” set of two pieces, to create a four sided “spire” on top of any building, based on the feedback I recently got, of buildings being not "pointy" enough.
These are ready to cast, but won't be casted in the first batch of pieces, since these are purelly cosmetic. I will probably wait until all pieces needed for a bastion are ready, and regular buildings can also be built.
Meanwhile, I am finishing another batch of moulds. it's only 3 moulds to go until a bastion can be assembled (just the wall with the gates and the “heavy bolter” counts as)
I am now finishing the two moulds I still need to do to be able to build a “2500kgm3 pattern” Imperial bastion, but on the meantime, I went on and started casting quite a lot of pieces.
These are the finished moulds with the corresponding piece over each:
Next step will be documenting each piece, building the bastion and painting it, With lots of pics, of course, and maybe some videos. Any tips or things you are interested in me showing? After that is propperly documented, I may offer a set of pieces to build that bastion for sale.
And I have been working on somehting else: pieces allowing you to create slanted roofs:
dsteingass wrote:I would like to buy two sets from you at least. Just PM me when you are ready man!
I would love to be a US distributor for the things once you're up and running... (sending a single set of molds would be easier, and probably cheaper than repeated sets of resin components)
The next step I want to take is filming and editing a video of me assembling a sample tower, so you can see how the pieces work, and the size of the building (which I found impressive in the last dry fitting I did) Any suggestions regarding the video? I have never worked on that medium before, beyond just moving my camera around a static point xD
dsteingass wrote:I would like to buy two sets from you at least. Just PM me when you are ready man!
As you know, my main concern is shipping the towers. I will try to get as low as a shipping fee as I can. Any tips?
Casting has started, and I have nearly enough pieces to build two towers (I am about 7 pieces short, which are still being casted). I want to have the first one built in video, so everyone can see how it works. A visual instruction manual, if you want, and then have it painted. After all, I will release any more towers I build for sale, since I don't want to get too many orders at once, since I would not be able to fulfill them in time. Since you have been supporting me from the very begginning in this thread, If you are still interested after I settle on a price and add shipping fees, you will be sent one -or as many as you want- of the very first sets of pieces I release. I will keep this thread updated and, when I'm ready, I will contact you.
These is the first incomplete batch of casted pieces. With 7 more pieces -two gate pieces, four pillar pieces, one short pillar piece-, it shoud be enough to build two different towers (one with windows on the first floor, the other with windows on the ground floor)
And yes, you can find on that table tenis table the very first space marine I ever built and painted, to give a sense of scale to the pieces.
Galorn wrote:
I would love to be a US distributor for the things once you're up and running... (sending a single set of molds would be easier, and probably cheaper than repeated sets of resin components)
Creating the moulds was a NIGHTMARE I would not wish to my worse enemy. Some pieces are extremely hard to make a mould for, since they have details in all six faces. And it costed me more than 350 dollars in silicon to make a single mould for each piece. I am really not willing to create another set of moulds until some of mine break. And I really hope they don't xD
2500kgm3 wrote:The next step I want to take is filming and editing a video of me assembling a sample tower, so you can see how the pieces work, and the size of the building (which I found impressive in the last dry fitting I did) Any suggestions regarding the video? I have never worked on that medium before, beyond just moving my camera around a static point xD
dsteingass wrote:I would like to buy two sets from you at least. Just PM me when you are ready man!
As you know, my main concern is shipping the towers. I will try to get as low as a shipping fee as I can. Any tips?
Casting has started, and I have nearly enough pieces to build two towers (I am about 7 pieces short, which are still being casted). I want to have the first one built in video, so everyone can see how it works. A visual instruction manual, if you want, and then have it painted. After all, I will release any more towers I build for sale, since I don't want to get too many orders at once, since I would not be able to fulfill them in time. Since you have been supporting me from the very begginning in this thread, If you are still interested after I settle on a price and add shipping fees, you will be sent one -or as many as you want- of the very first sets of pieces I release. I will keep this thread updated and, when I'm ready, I will contact you.
These is the first incomplete batch of casted pieces. With 7 more pieces -two gate pieces, four pillar pieces, one short pillar piece-, it shoud be enough to build two different towers (one with windows on the first floor, the other with windows on the ground floor)
And yes, you can find on that table tenis table the very first space marine I ever built and painted, to give a sense of scale to the pieces.
Galorn wrote:
I would love to be a US distributor for the things once you're up and running... (sending a single set of molds would be easier, and probably cheaper than repeated sets of resin components)
Creating the moulds was a NIGHTMARE I would not wish to my worse enemy. Some pieces are extremely hard to make a mould for, since they have details in all six faces. And it costed me more than 350 dollars in silicon to make a single mould for each piece. I am really not willing to create another set of moulds until some of mine break. And I really hope they don't xD
Huh. How thick are your molds? In that case I'd gladly pay for a single set of 1 of each component... IF I can get them to mold up, I'll let you know and we can discuss from there.
I just went to my local post office and asked about shipping. No problems for delivery within spain, as expected. About 25+ euros of shipping to other countries such as Germany. 50+ to the United States. And it seems mailed boxes have been having trouble through US customs lately (and other EU countries too), since customs opens the box and if they deem the contents "commercial items" (anything can fit that definition) they charge whatever they want extra for them, and they told me there have been instances where that tax doubled the price of the item sent. I imagine the most they can charge is an extra 20% due to VAT, but I have no idea of how that works.
If a tower is sold for 45 euros, plus 50 of shipping, plus customs... you're paying more for shipping than for the tower itself! not taking customs into account. I find that outrageous.
I know if the seller was outside the EU and sent the box to Spain, the cost would be of 18% of the price of the box contents plus 14 euros of bureaucracy, but I'm not sure how much can they charge the buyer in the United States.
I really need to find a cheaper postal service, or have some other options. Maybe I can avoid unexpected custom costs by declaring them as commercial items or something? Would using E-bay solve some of that shipping shenanigans or do you have to deal with shipping yourself?
No matter how you sell them, you have to ship it yourself.
I would look into DHL, FedEx, and other commercial shippers, it sounds like Spain's Economic Crisis has gotten to the point of rampant fraud and graft within state-run organizations.
The english version of the video is finished. Editing was a nightmare, since the camera I borrowed is not that good, and I had to get audio three times until I could use it, and even then, it's not of good quality.
I will refrain to post the link to the video until I can edit and upload the spanish version of the showcase, which I hope will be ready by tomorrow.
Listening to my wife's advice after four days of nonstop shooting video and editing that video, struggling to get something of a decent quality with my terrible equipment, I decided to take some free time, and we are going on vacation during the weekend. Therefore, I won't be able to answer any mails or comments to the videos. For that reason, I decided to pospone publishing the videos until I get back from that free time (on monday).
However, as I think I should not leave you without anything to look at, I took a pic of "something" you can see in the video, and used a photoshop filter to avoid revealing way too much...
I want to warn you beforehand. In spite of spending almost a week recording and editing the videos in both english and spanish, these videos don't have a good image and sound quality. The only camera I could get was not capable of handling anithing beyond 480p for youtube, and my microphone was garbage. Therefore, the sound and video quality is garbage.
I hope I will compensate it with the contents of the video, however. Everyone asking himself how do these pieces interact, will be able to watch me assemble them in real time, and will know wich steps are needed to assemble a tower (I refer to it as a "tower" because an Imperial bastion is quite smaller than this structure). Spoiler alert: It can be easily assembled in under 8 minutes with almost no effort. I thought of it as a tutorial video.
Since this is a modular system, after building the tower, I allowed myself to show some bigger buildings that could be built with up to two tower kits worth of pieces. Don't miss that, even if you don't care about the assembly process! xD
Of course, more kits would allow me to build even bigger buildings, but I hadn't casted any more sets by then.
Here is the video:
And to compensate the bad quality of the recording, I will leave you with some images with better resolution:
Here is the spoiler pic without the photoshop filter. As I'm sure you guessed, it's the full tower next to a regular space marine.
And here is the tower besides a Rhino, in an improvised game with some friends. I hope some day our table will be all made of buildings using these resin pieces, instead of unpainted cardboard.
I will sell these kits at 50€ plus shipping. After discounting the 23€ of pure resin the kit includes, that leaves me with a 2€/hour wage for each hour I spend casting the pieces for each new tower and getting rid of flash and excess resin. Although I will get no benefits until I make back the 350+ euros I spent in silicon for the moulds.
The next step of the plan is assembling a tower using discarded pieces. I will fix them with putty and then paint the tower to use it with my armies. I hope you will continue following that new stage of this voyage...
Brava, 2500!!!! You have done very well on the video. I am wondering what it is gonna cost final for a set of these tiles. I am hoping we can figure out some not-as-expensive shipping ideas..... I will be following with eagerness.....
After uploading the video and starting taking orders, I got some time to assemble my own tower, using miscast pieces. As you can see, there are gaps among pieces and they don't fit seamlessly. I have been told Forgeworld has the same issues. My excuse is I used cardboard to do the original pieces and they were sculpted and cut by hand. I don't know which is Forgeworld's excuse xD. I am using dense glue (contact glue in my case) to work around it, but I've been told dense SuperGlue works well too. Then, I am filling the gaps with cheap putty.
As you can see, I am not done yet.
On an unrelated note, I just managed to get a game of Mordheim with my local friends, and it was a BLAST. We started a new campaign and rolled the scenario where our warbands go into a graveyard where no one can see anything 10cm ahead due to a magical mist, everyone can be lost in the mist if they go too far from the other warband members, the graveyard is populated by mindless zombies unaffected by the mist who attack anyone who enters the graveyard.
The mist was a great change of pace, allowing us to advance without fear of being shot and closing into our objective.
We played on our usual scenery, so the zombies were undead pirates, Pirates of the Caribbean style. The center island was the graveyard area. The four warbands reached the treasure on turn nine, and only one (tilean mercenaries) managed to get a wyrdstone token. My warband, the Skaven Cheese Chasers, got to kill 4 zombies which attacked them early on, and didn't lost anyone by keeping everybody close and moving as a block and having some luck with the dice against zombies. The warband of forest hunters were decimated by zombies who fell from the cementery area and swam into the ship the warband had settled in, and the few hunters that were left fell unconscious when trying to jump into the cementery from the ship, so the warband routed. Fortunately for the warband, most of the warriors recovered to fight another day.
On the last turn, one of my humble verminkin was charged by a magister from a cult of chaos. I thought I was dead, but my humble clanrat smashed the mighty magister with his club on the last turn of the game! The magister was left unconscious, but he recovered and is now fearless! He distracted the clanrat long enough to prevent me from digging for wyrdstone, however.
I got no wyrdstone, but I lost no warband members, (the chaos warband lost two heroes) I got a good exploration roll, and I got a ton of experience points because of not routing and killing 5 enemy models. I'd say I won!
On the exploration phase after the game, I found a tavern and wanted to scavenge it and sell all the wine. My clanrats, however, failed the leadership test and proceded to drink all the wine, leaving me without anything to sell. Damn leadership 7! Well, I guess the clanrat who faced the Chaos Magister and defeated him against all odds earned the right to have fun after his epic duel.
After gapfilling, I started priming the tower. I have not fully assembled it in order to paint the interior of the tower easily. I think I will go with a yellowish-grey for the floor tiles and a grayish-brown for the tower walls.
Do you think it will look good?
On an unrelated note, I have finally packed the first tower pack!
Walls are basecoated on one side, and the ground area is basecoated too. I still have to apply ink it and give it two drybrush layers.
I then applied a black ink. After that, it still needs a not-so-dry drybrush of gray paint, and a drybrush of white, "killing" its yellow-ocre basecoat colour.
The Euro is only slightly higher than the dollar right now
1 euro = 1.2535 US dollars today
US Customs may open packages for security purposes, but they don't have the authority to charge taxes, either to the foreign shipper or the domestic recipient. We have no VAT here in the US, each State/county has their own sales tax (usually 6-7% on average), but that only applies if the product was sold in the same state it was bought. Anything across states or Nations is not subject to Sales Tax in the US, at least not on mail order/internet sales.
I dunno it depends on weight. Vik's prize box (with a big box of playmobil for his kids) weighed 7lbs, it cost me $50+ to ship it to him Priority Mail. How much does a set weigh with packaging?
A packaged 70 piece set weights roughly 5.3lbs (about 2,4 kilograms) I charge 23 euros for the resin, plus 2 per casting hour, which makes a price of 50 euros (61.5 US dollars) plus shipping from Spain. I have been told by clerks at my post officie it might cost up to 45 euros (55.34 US dollars)
If dsteingass is right (and I really hope he is) getting a tower to the United States would cost 116.84 dollars. If I keep the weight down when packaging, I might be able to ship 140 pieces (two tower kits) for 199.28 dollars.
I have almost finished painting the showcase tower. I will take pictures as soon as possible. Maybe, I could make another vid. As sound would not be required, I could use my photographic camera to record it, which has a much better video resolution.
And I bring you hi-res images of the base for this building! I am quite proud of the result, since I am a pretty bad painter. I think I won't be able to make it justice with the rest of the tower, which will be just drybrushed.
And why would you need floor tiles if you didn't have anything to be built on top of them?
I have finished painting the interior of the building. As I gave my tower heavy-bolter-like weapons, I used some control panel pieces on the inside of the tower.
Any feedback? As always, click on it to go to the gallery page and zoom on the picture
Some people say a picture is worth a thousand words. What about a video then?
mxwllmdr wrote: This is fantastic, I am planning my order some time in January. I wish it could be sooner......
Thanks a lot for your support!
After casting about 60 pillars, my pillar moulds cracked. I will start creating new ones tomorrow, using some of the first pieces I casted. I hated creating that mould xD.
That.....is...... Beautiful! :-) I've been following this for a while now and it's really great! the video is an excellent way to showcase your skills and talent, I shall also be purchasing one as soon as i am able to from you, it fits the grim darkness theme like a glove!
While I think the tall buildings would be cool, I really really want to see that ironclad, it looks really really cool from drawings and such, have to see the finished product.
Legoss85 wrote:While I think the tall buildings would be cool, I really really want to see that ironclad, it looks really really cool from drawings and such, have to see the finished product.
mxwllmdr wrote:I think that whatever you do will be cool enough to market. Stay creative my friend......
To be honest, I thought about Mordheim buildings because after all this work, I feel like taking a vacation from "BIG" projects doing something easy, simple, and quick. A Dwarven Ironclad is the opposite of that definition xD.
I might work on some small Mordheim ruins (since our board has three huge ships, but not a single ruined building) in order to rest my mind a little bit.
Rogue Wolves wrote:This is amazing, its the perfect blend of gothic to be great for fantasy or 40k!
Thanks for the compliment. Maybe some time, I will be able to create a whole board using these pieces. That would be awesome for a Cities of Death game.
I fear running out of cardboard for the Dwarven Ironclad with the ammount of it I have left.
You know I love Mordheim, and our table is way too empty of multileveled buildings and ruins to hide in. We have been able to get going with some unpainted cardboard buildings that my friends bring to my home, but as you can see, I have almost no hope of my playing partners painting said buildings, and I don't like relying too much on outside terrain.
The ships add a lot of flavour to the board, but I'd like to have 3-4 generic ruined buildings to populate the board with, and are quite easy and fast to create.
I have a Mordheim game tomorrow, and I was able to build and paint, and some fast scenery pieces to add to our table, including some sample buildings. I will take pics tomorrow as we game on.
I'd hate to run out of cardboard while building the ironclad, and having nothing finished. So I will probably finish off some more buildings, and then, if I run out of cardboard while building the dwarven Ironclad, at least I will have some buildings.
Here you can see the fast new scenery items I built for yesterday's Mordheim game.
The rocks were thought as a way to get terrain to stand on the water and jump from ship to ship. The small wodden shed was thought as an experiment regarding getting some structures on these rocks.
Building these ruined houses was fun and quicker than I thought, and we really need more buildings. I feel I can do some cool things with that, such as buildings with different features, including a bridge house, and I can build them with the small ammount of cardboard I still have at my house.
You know my style: Clean, simple and cartoony functional terrain.
Therefore, these buildings won't be extremely detailed. Not as impressive as most of the scenery you might have seen, but I am aiming for a fully painted mordheim board which is easy to storage, minimizes the rules arguments when playing (can you charge over that? isn't that broken cart difficult terrain?), and does not take a lifetime to build, so hopefully you will see it finished.
Right now, we can build a quite barren harbor area. My goal is to be able to create buildings in order to extend that area further into the city, including some interesing features such as bridges and so. We really need both more cover and more high places to stand on, and ruined buildings provide both things to our table.
It's just extruded polystirene, with a light coat of spray metalic paint, which melted it, allowing for a much more natural look, while still keeping the hard, long edges I had cut with a knife that give the rocks the cartoony feel.
I am working on more buildings, and I hope I will be able tp take some pictures of the bases I got for those buildings soon. Unfortunately, my PC decided to just stop working yesterday. I am guessing it is the Graphics card. Summer is non-forgiving where I live, and I fear my PC cooked itself. That's not good news.
But I have some better news too. I just received some second hand space marines a friend of my father had laying around on his house, probably from some of his sons, which were old friends of mine more than fiveteen years ago. These are really badly painted, sprue parts still attached to the pieces, and all parts glued with a mixture of plastic cement, contact glue and superglue. I will have to strip them, cut them to pieces, and reattach all pieces after cleaning them. There are about 11 marines, one of them with a missile launcher, evaryone else with bolters. Another one seems to be a quite old plastic model: It has no base, and is an easy fit plastic model, with an old style bolter and backpack. I hope I will be able to salvage a tactical squad, and do some conversions, including arming the sergeant with a custom combi-plasma (I don't like plasma that much, but I have some plasma pistols gathering dust xD) I don't really like the fact I have no special weapons avaliable for them among the few bits I have hoarded. Any suggestions?
At the very least, I will turn them into a devastator squad. Maybe I will be able to cut them to pieces and assemble some special characters using my bitbox, such as a librarian. I will need time for that, and time will be a very scarce commodity soon. I'd love to finish the five man assault squad I have yet to paint, then do something with the squad I was gifted, and take some army shots with the bastion and some generic scenery.
And finally, more news. I just played a new Mordheim game against my friends! And one more friend came in, so we had a guest warband of Shadow Elves!
The game type we rolled was the central bridge. There is a river running all across the board, dividing the land. A dense mist surrounded the bridge, but since it was just created by the river, and was not magical in nature, unlike in the previous scenario, we were allowed to shoot up to half range. We created a “bridge” like structure (I’d love to create a proper bridge, full of hanging houses and the like after I finish with the buildings I am working on right now. Again, I really fear I won’t have time to do so) and we put some buildings on each side of the board.
The main goal of the scenario? it was to take out the giant mutated troll living under the bridge. Any fighting on the bridge had a chance of waking him up to tear us to pieces, and he was a BEAST. Lots of wounds, high toughness and strength, regeneration, he never fell unconscious but lost attacks instead... A fearsome enemy, and an amazing trophy to hang on our warband hideouts!
In addition, we rolled random weather, and there was a deadly ice storm! Any miniature not hidden under some cover could be hit by a block of ice falling from the skies!
Five warbands were there to fight for the bridge: Both Stirwood Outlaws and Possessed came into the board on the left shore. The Shadow elves disembarked from a galleon on the right side, while my cheese chaser skavens came out from the sewers on that same shore. A big ship on the center of the map had reached the bridge, and the tilean mercenaries were onboard, ready to take the bridge by force.
On the random event charts, we rolled that one warband was going to throw a party after the battle, so they would skip the exploration and buying phases until the next game! But we did not know which warband would throw the party yet…
Unfortunately, I took very few pictures of the battle, since I thought one of the other players was documenting it, but he gave up recording right after the brawl started.
While the Possessed kept themselves entrenched in a ship and fearing to get into the fray, fearing the firepower of the Tileans, Outlaws… and ice falling from the skies, the Stirwood Outlaws soon came out of the building they were on and started shooting at the Tileans while going for the bridge. The Shadow elves disembarked soon and exchanged some shoots with the Outlaws… only for one of their henchmen to be hit by a falling brick of ice and being stunned. I pictured a full size fridge falling from the skies and crushing the poor elf. Hilarious. The Tilean mercenaries decided to split and held some mercenaries with crossbows ready to shoot anyone in the bridge, while the rest of the warband ran into the shore I was on.
As the Shadow elves started coming closer to the bridge, they were also closing any access to the bridge, and the Tilean mercenaries were coming from behind, making sure I had nowhere to retreat to. These dirty tileans and their unjustified hatred for us, humble and lawful rats...
As the cowardly rat I am, I hid in a ruined building, where I was safe from the ice, but I was on a difficult situation. I could not hold there forever, so I would be forced to come after the enemy. I could go against the close combat specialist of the Tilean warband, but I would be completely open to a turn of elven shooting with no cover. On the other hand, I could assault the elves without being shot, although they were slightly more numerous.
While I was having this dilemma, only the Outlaws had reached the bridge, and there was a shootout between them and the shadow elves. No one had fallen yet, but I thought I should take advantage of it and jumped out of my building, running from Tilean pressure into the elves, since I had already lost a henchmen to elven fire.
The Shadow elves closer to me hid on the small wall he was embracing, and positioned all the miniatures he could not hid on the other side of that wall with all the miniatures he could not hide.
I declared charges with 5 of my heavy close combat rats, who were in range, and 3 of my henchmen who had achieved a +1 weapon skill advance, and then proceeded to shoot all the sling fire I had left. My Rat sorcerer throw a plague of rats spell on the closer elf that could be targeted. 11 hits at 1 strength. I did not roll a single six with these eleven dice, and the elf was unscratched.
One elf fell to the ground due to a sling shot. Unfortunately, I had not targeted him with my charge, so I could not take him out of action with close combat attacks. I moved my angry mob of assaulting rats…
Just to find out he had left a very small space between the miniatures I could charge and the wall, in a way I could not fit any more than 3 bases. All other miniatures, who could not fit between the elves and the wall were considered as if they had failed the charge, including my assassin leader. What a bummer.
But hey, Harzer and Gouda, my rabid black skavens, equipped with fighting claws and a pair of swords... and a verminkin with club and dagger, were in base to base with the shooty and perfumed elves! It was time to cut them to pieces!
And then, I missed all my attacks but one. The nimble elves dodged everything but the dagger my henchmen was carrying, who got one elf knocked down… I got not a single six on all these throws, and only one five.
But then the elves reacted and shoved their daggers into my henchmen’s throat. He was taken instantly out of action. Harzer stood against the elf trying to hit him with his bow, and was able to hold him. Gouda, however, failed his parry throw, his lucky charm throw, suffered a critical hit, and was left laying on the floor, just for the elven wizard to charge him on the elven turn and take him out of action.
At the beginning of my next turn, I had to take a rout test, and failed it, so my warband was the first one to rout.
That seemed to press the Possesed into action. They ran to the bridge from their ship… just to be torn to pieces by Outaws and Tileans, and forced to rout. Finally, the elves shot down two Outlaws, and we all considered the game finished.
We all rolled one dice and the Possesed rolled higher than any other player. Therefore, they were throwing a party, and missed the chance to sell or explore the city. A “worst warband ever” themed party, according to the words of the Possessed player xD
Of the two out of action henchmen I had on the warband, one died, so I had to replace him. Gouda, the Black Skaven that was taken out of action rolled multiple injuries with a 16. One less pip on the dice and he would have died. He was hurt in an arm, so he will miss the next game. And he also was robbed, so I lost all his gear. It’s funny, because on the exploration Phase, the elven player found a corpse to loot.
My warband had a lousy exploration roll, getting barely any wyrdstone, but I got triple 1s, so I got to visit the tavern again, just as in the previous game. This time, however, Tyrolean Grey, my warband leader, was extremely upset with the performance of his rats, and did not allow anyone to touch the alcohol, so he sold it for 16 gold crowns.
One of my night runners got a +1 strength advance (which is not really useful) and the other one got the ability to use any ranged weapon he came across, so I got him a crossbow. My leader got a skill too, so I got him Art of Silent Death, to make him really deadly against the enemy in close combat. My wizard got a new spell too. I bought Gouda some weapons back, although he now lacks his lucky charm, since I had no gold crowns left.
All the sixes and fives I did not get during the game came out when I needed them the least. When rolling for my henchmen who had gained an advance, rolled a “lad’s got talent”, and had to reroll, since I already had a max of six heroes… only to roll a “lad’s got talent” again. And Again. I rolled four “lad’s got talent” in a row before rolling a +1 ballistic skill advance. So in the end, my dice balanced themselves… in the only way It could not benefit my game. Talk about bad luck…
I was kinda worried about our Shadow Elves guest warband, since I had been told they could be very cheesy. The player didn’t took the max number of heroes, and took some expensive gear at warband creation, in addition of not gearing everyone for ranged combat, and was a fair player. I fear the shadowweaver spellcaster of his warband, however, since he has obtained a spell for hiding himself and avoid being targeted, and a skill to avoid revealing himself when attacking. On a running mission to get wyrdstone and get out, he might be impossible to stop.
After all, it was not a bad game, although the troll not showing up was somehow disappointing. I guess that’s what we get from playing a 2 player scenario with 5 warbands, instead of a multiplayer scenario. With two warbands only, we would have been forced to fight on the bridge, which would have weaked the troll up.
Here you can see the miniatures I received, along with some barrels and jungly bits of green-brown plastic that could very well belong to a toy set. I got into Warhammer at the very dawn of 5th edition, so many of these items I am not familiar with. Could anyone tell me something about the story of these plastic barrels? When were they released? What about the plastic plants? Are they truly GW bits?
In addition to 10 standard marines (which are really similar to current ones, although they obviously are not the same set as it is sold today) There are also two older marines on that box, one of them is painted as an ultramarine, and both have old-style bolter. Could you tell me what edition are they from? I'd love to take these two old miniatures as sergeants, but I fear these would be a pain to convert into dynamic posed sergeants (as old models should be revered with an important role on the battlefield), since they are two piece easy snap fit models (whole body + bolter and hands)
And I have also worked on some more Mordheim scenery. Two buildings, twice as big as the previous ones. This time, they will be much more complex. I have started painting the bases, and the different wodden floor sections. I have no walls yet, however. I hope these will be enough for a decent Mordheim board, although I might start a pair of bridge-like structures colonized by buildings in order to spice up my board. It depends on how I feel after these buildings are finished, and if I prefer go finish an Assault Marine Demi-Squad I have yet to paint.
Dark Eldar Warriors used to come with them (I think possibly some other things, and you could buy them seperately). The old-fashioned palmtrees got replaced by the citadel wood.
The marines might even be from the old 3rd ed starter kit (Black Templar vs Dark Eldar if I remember rightly... certainly DE vs marines.)
After a long time of complete inactivity, I have found the will again to work on some more Mordheim. In fact, I have written a short narrative campaign for my group.
The document I compiled describes 5 moderately customized scenarios in a 31 page PDF. These scenarios are linked with narrative text for the players, so you get a narrative campaign ready to play just after downloading.
It's in Spanish, so if any of you can speak Spanish, feel free to give me feedback on it and use it in your gaming groups.
Since for that campaign, I would need some more terrain, I decided to work on it on my spare time. For starters, I do need some more buildings, since I only have 2 medium sized ones. I have been working on 2 big sized ones, and plan to build 2 more medium sized ones. After that, I'll need a few things, such a desecrated area to enact an unholy ritual, and I'd love to create some kind of bridge to complete my scenery.
I used the bases I had already built and painted, then added the building walls on them. I have not glued them in place yet, as I'm sure you will notice.
Briancj wrote: Very nice. You may have answered this before, but what do you use for your stone bases?
It's just extruded polystirene, cut and indented using a pencil and a blade. It's extremely easy.
I finally painted those buildings I showed, and started working on some more scenery. Here, I took a few pieces of terrain and arranged a small display to take some pictures for the campaign document I'm working on. I love the way they look, and I'm eager to finish the 4 other buildings I am working on and take a picture with these eight builidings, three ships, some bridges, and lots of streets and squares on the table!
For my campaign, I also need a piece of terrain where a chaotic ritual takes place, so here I go, with an 13 sided star.
And with the inner glow painted (the not-molten stone floor has not yet been finished):
Really like the work that you've shown us. For your silicon rubber what brand do you use? I use either Aeromarine or Alumilite High Strength 3 and have had really good luck with both. For resin I've used a few different brands but I found that the Alumilite RC-3 works very well. Not sure how the shipping would be to get it overseas.
I made some progress with the painting of these bases! the wodden areas will be surrounded by walls in order to become buildings.
rustbucket wrote: Really like the work that you've shown us. For your silicon rubber what brand do you use? I use either Aeromarine or Alumilite High Strength 3 and have had really good luck with both. For resin I've used a few different brands but I found that the Alumilite RC-3 works very well. Not sure how the shipping would be to get it overseas.
I just got it from my local supplier. Nothing fancy, but does the job, and I get good results... and allows me to buy in bulk.
What brand is the silicone you're using? The Aeromarine stuff is pretty cheap > almost 5lbs for around $80 USD including shipping for the small package. I've had really good success with it but you do have to use a digital scale to use it.
rustbucket wrote: What brand is the silicone you're using? The Aeromarine stuff is pretty cheap > almost 5lbs for around $80 USD including shipping for the small package. I've had really good success with it but you do have to use a digital scale to use it.
Ouch! That is expensive. I use Mold Max 20. It is a lot cheaper and very good.
Yeah I'm going to have to check that stuff out. There are a few of us in a hobby/gaming group here around Raleigh that all get together and mould up prototypes/variants of things.
Yeah I'm going to have to check that stuff out. There are a few of us in a hobby/gaming group here around Raleigh that all get together and mould up prototypes/variants of things.
Remember that this is professional grade stuff. You can buy it in 5 galleon buckets even cheaper. I pressure cast molds at 95 psi and bake them for 6 hours at 225F. It gives me about 500 pulls from the molds before I have to redo them. If the molds are used beyond usability or miscast, you can grind them up and mix the material into the new mold at a ratio of up to about 50%, saving you a ton of cash.
I finally finished the seven scenery pieces I had been working on. I still have to cover them in varnish, however.
That means I already have everything I need to play the campaign I designed. I was not going to get any pictures of the scenery until I managed to get the battle reports from the campaign playthrough... but some of my friends visited me and convinced me to put all my mordheim-specific scenery together (sans the ritual piece) and take some pictures.
The board in general:
A pirate looks at the city from an isolated guard post:
Then, his band of sailors get off their galleon:
Crossing some small bridges, they seem ready to claim that portion of the city as their own:
The band divides to cover more ground:
But they don't notice they are being watched!
As the first mate finds a book laying on the ground, some skaven stalk him on the background:
But he is not the only one who is in trouble, since the cannonner of the ship is outnumbered...
Soon, most sailors are in real trouble, cornered against the rubble, trying to defend themselves with whatever they can use as a weapon...
Some pirates try to retaliate, taking some skavens by surprise:
Soon, a full battle begins!
I am glad I finally have enough mordheim terrain to not to need any more for some time. Now, I can devote myself to other projects, such as finishing my Space Marine army.
-This was previously posted on the Misc Scifi forums, but I decided to add it to my showcase thread-
I have been working on some gaming mats for a local wargaming club. I started working on cloth playing surfaces because I was sick of watching them play flames of war in a lush green field while forces more suited to the Russian steppes were clashing. I noticed there were not many stores selling mats beyond 1:28 and volunteered to work on something that worked in 1/100 scale. I dusted off my little knowledge of photoshop and came up with these two images: a muddy, war-torn area and a frozen battlefield, for someone whose soviet troops had snow as a main element in their basing. To be printed in 100dpi, 120*180cm.
Then, people from the club started asking me for other mats, such as a sea map for Sails of Glory and several city maps for games in the 28mm range. There are some out there, but I guess they liked having mats tailor-made to their specifications for free instead of buying commercially available ones. No, I'm not shocked either xD
One of the 28mm mats was themed in near-future zombie dystopia, so I went for the standard city planning style you find in modern european areas or american cities. The second one was intended for a World War Two ruleset, so I went for an old european city style of planning, no roadmarks, and included paved areas easily turned into ruins by adding just one or two broken wall fragments, in addition to extending the sidewalks for intact buildings as usual. I pushed to 150dpi in these, 120*180 cm as well.
And now, someone asked me to create a map for Battletech. I've never played myself (I have always been deeply tempted by the universe and the genre, but I find the quality of the plastics really lacking. Turn the Mechwarrior Online models into plastic battletech miniatures and you will have my money, game company!) but since I've been playing Mechwarrior Online since open beta started, I was dying for such a commission. The catch was the person who asked plays in a weird scale, so his hexes are twice as big as those in the usual mapsheets. 30*30 or so hexes are the most a table can fit in that scale
Since I know most people in the gaming club use standard size hexagons, however, and I'd hate to design something only one person would find any use to instead to providing for the whole club, I decided to design a map 60*60 hexes in size anyway, at 300dpi and cut it in four, so the club can use it while the person playing at twice the scale can print it whole at 150dpi and either have a huge map 300*360cm in size or choose any of the four quadrants to print, getting four differen mats instead of the single one he asked for. That meant going the extra mile with detail so the scaled-up 150dpi 30*30 hex mats don't feel lacking, while avoiding things so small that would be lost when printing at standard size.
As usual, only ground level features are... featured. Any mountains or buildings are to be added by the players in the form of 3d scenery as they see fit. This is only a canvas to make the table pop with as little effort as possible (and incorporating the hex grid into the playing field)
I was given little direction by the club member who asked for the mat regarding the lore of the planet he intended to fight for, so I went for a small colony, an agricultural one with little value and limited infrastructure. Mainly farming grounds with some very small industrial areas and population centres.
I decided I wanted at least two groups of buildings connected by a road system. I thought one of them could be an industrial area taking advantage of a river to dump waste and distribute cargo. Or maybe the water in this world has some component the industries extract and export.
The second one could have originated organically around a small spaceport. Not a big spaceport, barely enoug for a Leopard to land, but capable to receive and launch cargo to orbit. This spaceport is be the main hub where technology, luxury goods and spare pieces for machinery would come in in exchange for foodstuffs and whatever the industry extracts from the water. The planet has low population, but the hypothetical thing that makes it worth fighting for provides money for good infrastructures.
The industrial river area, the spaceport area and whatever other important places scattered over the planet surface would need to be connected by a motorway, while the rest of the zones would have a much more humble road network, shrinking progresively up to a single lane for farmland.
Said farmland would also need a network of irrigation conducts bringing water from the river. That's something I had not thougt about until I started writing this summary, but it feelt mandatory. I went for an open-topped look, in the style of the irrigation networks built in Spain during the muslim occupation. They were a ground breaking innovation back in the day and are still in use, nearly one thousand years later.
I intended to design the two populaton centres in ways that encourage different playstyles. The spaceport lanes, in the south, will be an open area surounded by buildings, while the industrial area, in the north, will be smaller and tighter, with buildings located in the centre of its quadrant, surounded by open space.
The other two quadrants will be much simpler. Farmland for the first, with no features past some roads, hoping the players will add mountains to the open spaces. The last quadrant will be similar, but a river will be splitting it in two, hopefully encouraging players to aproach it in a different way.
I am by no means a photoshop wizard. I barely used it during my education beyond the most elementary photo manipulation. Anything I do is new for me. (I had no clue of how to create a water surface for the river, for instance) so I was learning on the fly following any online tutorials I deemed suitable for this proyect. In addition, working with files this big (180*150 cm at 300dpi) is not something my computer can easily handle, and the "2gig max psd file size" limitation prevented me from working in a single psd file, forcing me to split several layers as individual files.
In the end, here it is: Full gaming surface:
Some closer shots:
And finally, some detail shots:
I was pretty proud of it.
Then I finally got around to get the mat printed and build some scenery for it:
I painted a small part of the scenery in order to see if my planned paint scheme worked and my terrain propperly fit the mat colours:
I was really afraid my mountains would clash with the color of the mat, but I was pretty happily surprised with the results. Then I got around to paint all the buildings I created to fill the paved areas on the gaming surface. Here they are, waiting for a layer of varnish. I'm trying shiny varnish on the buildings. Maybe it ends up looking ok.
So... here it is: all the scenery I built, on a quarter of the whole gaming surface I designed.
It is obvious I did not build enough scenery for the whole gaming surface. Buildings and mountains barely fill the big city. They make this portion of the full mat pretty playable (It's equivalente to 4 standard battletech maps), but I won't have enough scenery to play with 2 to 4 times the ammount of gaming mats, the full gaming surface.
I'd like to add some forests but these hexes are already tight to fit a miniature base. I don't really know if it would be feasible due to the lack of space to get something built that was sturdy and durable as hell (thats my priority when it comes to scenery) If you have any ideas, I am all ears.
In the end, unless I build more and more scenery, I am quite confident that I won't be able to play with the full mat, but I feel a single quarter of the mat is a pretty good surface to play, and that gives me four different surfaces to play on. If I ever try to build more buildings, I might make a tutorial out of it, but I am pretty tired of building scenery by now and would like to let it go for some time, specially as I have enough to play comfortably.
Next is building something to safely transport the Battletech miniatures I ordered!
During the last weeks I built and painted an awesome and a Wolverine, closing my medium mech bracket and second lance and starting with assault-class mechs
Only four mechs to go; two heavies, two assault, as you can see in my carrying case (a case which I nicknamed "the dropship", of course):
I'd also love to make some lance photos in terrain, but since I have nowhere to display them home, I'll wait until the company is completed and take pictures with scenery at my job lunch break.
Thanks for your appreciation. I am discovering Battletech is an amazing game. It quickly became my favourite miniature game. I guess the lore and themes are the main reason, but the game itself is fun too.
Thanks for your appreciation. I am discovering Battletech is an amazing game. It quickly became my favourite miniature game. I guess the lore and themes are the main reason, but the game itself is fun too.
I've only played the video games and the pen-and-paper RPG, but I agree it's a great universe. That thunderbolt is lovely (always had a soft spot for them, though I'm a light pilot at heart). I seem to have missed your second assault though, or did you paint two awesomes?
I also love the universe. These miniatures will face the Ghost Bears in the Clan Invasion pretty soon. Wish me luck xD
I have been changing my mind regarding painting order, and I've painted lighter mechs before going for the bigger ones. Now, only assault mechs remain unpainted, so the two next mechs will be 90 and 85 tons.
I cannot do that, since you are talking to a clan Ghost Bear Star Captain. Filthy freeborn.
On a more serious note: close the distance, watch your heat, and consider close combat; a hatchetman would do wonders for you if it can get near the enemy. Oh, and stick together; one-on-one your mechs are hopelessly outmatched.
CommissarKhaine wrote: I cannot do that, since you are talking to a clan Ghost Bear Star Captain. Filthy freeborn.
On a more serious note: close the distance, watch your heat, and consider close combat; a hatchetman would do wonders for you if it can get near the enemy. Oh, and stick together; one-on-one your mechs are hopelessly outmatched.
Really? A Ghost Bear Star Captain? You bottle-born scum!
I know it's almost suicidal to go against clans with IS mechs, I don't expect to win any engagements (being a mediocre general doesn't help). If I do, however, by sheer luck, take any clan mech down, you can bet I will buy that miniature and paint it in my colours, as battlefield salvage. I can't wait! I hope your buddies bring lots of cool clan mechs for me to drool over and try to take out.
By the way, I just learnt that catapults of 3050 can carry Arrow IV artillery missiles. Should I give them a try?
And on a side note, I hope many Ghost Bears look into the barrel of the the Gauss Rifle in this Highlander.
Only the Stalker to go! (one of my favourites, aesthetically)
I finally painted my last mech. And honestly, I feel it is by far the coolest model of the bunch. I love the design and I'd love to have painted it earlier, but it being the very last mech of the company has left me with a good feeling of satisfaction regarding the whole enterprise.
The Mechwarrior Online Stalker redesign is amazing. I really love it and I'm looking forward to field it. I, unfortunately, lost my chance to face Ghost Bears last weekend because of increased workload at my job. I hope to be able to join the battle in the future, maybe as delayed reinforcements!
This last mech is my twelfth, and this means the first company of the Tyrant's Tercio is completed. I hope to be able to build and paint more of these mechs in the future, but they will have to wait. Eventually, I can see myself with a second company or a clan trinary. Maybe another lance and a binary? Who knows, I may ask for input in the future.
I hope to be able to take pics of the whole company, but it will take some time, as I am moving into a new house. The new one has a propper table, and doors to keep my daughter and cat away, so I might be able to take some better pics!
I have been able to take pictures of the company I painted during the last months. Here it is, the twelve mechs of my mercenary company taking control of a spaceport in the early stages of a planetary invasion. I am eager to have a chance to use these miniatures in a real game soon.
Honestly, when I started painting, I thought the Awesome and Orion would become my favourite mechs (Due to the lack of a Hunchback, that mech is a real beauty) but the Stalker has stolen my heart.
Maybe in a far future (a year or two from now, due to lack of funding) I'll be able to add more mechs to my mercenaries. My current plan includes:
-A new lance with a light (Commando), a medium (Blackjack), a heavy (Rifleman) and an assault mech (KingCrab). I will still have no hunchback :_(
-A clan binary, composed of: Puma/Adder, Ryoken/StormCrow, MadCat/TimberWolf, Blackhawk/Nova, Gladiator/Executioner, Uller/Kit Fox, ShadowCat, Thor/Summoner, Ebon Jaguar, and, of course Daishi/Direwolf
It is my intention to paint the clan mechs in mercenary colors as captured/salvaged equipment (unless any of you can suggest me a better scheme, I did not intend to marry myself to any clan and single galaxy, since I do not know their lore extensively, but if you suggest a cool galaxy with great lore -I tend to prefer non-elite units- I can be persuaded)
I have been painting some more Panther tanks for a Flames of War army. I started with a batch of four:
(Some closeups)
Then followed with four additional panther tanks. I really liked painting them in my cartoonish style. Hard edges and no large curved surfaces go very well with it.
As you can see, the lower shelf of my two-shelf carrying case is finally full of painted miniatures
Here is a sneak peek of what is to come in the future: the first of the eleven panzer IV tanks I have to paint next.
Apart from these 11 tanks, I only have one other 15mm WW1 tank to paint, but I'm trying to build something special to lead the German infantrymen into battle I have 3d modelled it, but I'm not sure I will be able to get it printed, though.
Impressive work.
