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A bit of asian flavor with a katana. Will also be doing a wakazashi and a two handed no-dachi.




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Being that the katana was complete it was a fairly simple job to resize it to get the other weapons.



From top down:

Ogre-Dachi 65mm for 54mm scale models

No-Dachi 40mm two handed great sword for 30-40mm models

Katana 33mm for 30mm models

Wakazachi 26mm for 30mm models

I recieved sprue shots from the printer today and should have the parts onhand in the next couple days. Had the tower shield done finally and I also reprinted the round shield to correct a minor issue with the handle to make it more suitable for casting. I'm anxious to see how the hilt details came out on the katanas and how they cast in resin as the detail is pretty tight compaired to the earlier weapons.

Not sure if it's been asked but, what 3d file format are you using when finalising the model for the Prototypers?

Nice Swords, look good on Mantis Warriors and just about anyone else.

I've been using maya for building which saves uses the maya binary .mb format, and I'm planning to start experimenting with autodesk mudbox as you can port files between the two. When having the final file printed it gets converted into .stl format which is standard for most 3-d programs (same with .obj files) Most CAD programs utilize .stl as do Rhino and Blender. Blender is a free downloadable modelling program which gets some great reviews and from what I understand has simular capabilities to Maya at least for making the wireframes.

Just finished the last details on this model and emailed it to the printers along with the mini-gun and missle launcher.

Will post pics of the parts as soon as they are onhand.







A personal project I'm starting on, got a downloaded model that I need to clean up so it can be printed. (finished taking it apart but tons of work to do still)

The katanas are really cool. So are those guns. How big is that mech model?

Very nice stuff, the rifles are looking good. I'd wondered where those went, haha.

The rifleman looks fun too, is that just a little something you're working on for yourself?

The rifleman I'm going to have printed in two sizes, probably 40mm and another version at either 60 or 90mm. I have a few old riflemen from battletech but they have seen better days and finding ones in good condition is pretty tough so I figured I'd see how it'd come out in 3d. I also found several models of the other destroids so I can use them to recreate some of the classic battletech/robotech mechs. They are all going to require a bunch of work as they were modelled for looking nice in renders but are a total mess for printing.

Ah, very cool. Does that include any of the Veritech/Valkyries/Whatever they were in battletech (not nearly as familiar with that), or the Monster?

Currently I have the Tomahawk/Warhammer, Defender/Rifleman, Spartan/Longwbow, and the Mac 2 Monster. I've yet to find any models for the Gladiator/Archer, there are some models for the valkyries available but most of them are pretty bad and the 2 decent ones I found aren't very cheap.


I've had one of my friends working on cleaning up a terran marine model, we finished the early test model last week and sent it to the printer. The Marine model arrived today and here's a couple pics.








It came out fairly well but is going to need a bunch of changes in order to be reprinted. The scribe lines on the armor are very weak if they show at all, hoses need to be snugged up flat against the joints in order to cast them properly. Back of the helmet is hollow and broke through while being cleaned, will have to be made completely solid. Thumb on left hand broke during cleaning. Pose will be adjusted once we get the details corrected.

Overall not a bad first run as we didn't really take the time to fuss around with the getting the details set at proper depth for printing. Gave a great test piece for figuring otu what we need to tweak.

That is Awesome! Are you thinking of doing a Firebat variant?

Eventually I'd like to do several other pieces, firebat, marauder and some zerg.

Looks great. Would love to see a different pose as well as more variants. Or better yet see some Protoss. Whats wrong with that SMs backpack?

So are the tri-thruster jump packs totally dead? Just wondering if I should look elsewhere for my honorguard.

I've been insanely busy the last two weeks so I haven't had enough time for models.

Still touching up the terran marine. The rifleman/defender model had way too many problems for printing so I had to scrap it and start from scratch. The upside is that I can use the model for references and measurements so it has been helping speed up some of the work.

Here's a progress shot, still more work to do on the hips before I start on the legs. Details are intentionally on the blocky side as fine details and smooth edges will be lost when printed. About 18 hours or so on build time so far.

The rifleman is about 90% complete now, just a few areas on the back to touch up and it'll be ready for printing

I've been referred and really would like some of those hammer on one side axe on the other bits, but I noticed your backed up, any chance you could let me know when you can deliver?

Great stuff so far,those Katana's look great imo.The Terran Marine looks really cool too.

Wow this is all sorts of win. Why can't miniature company's produce product to this standard ?????

Warflake wrote:any chance you could let me know when you can deliver?

There was an error with the inventory, they should be listed as available again.



In progress shot of a warhammer / tomahawk model.

These are done, they need some cleaning but I'm hoping to have them molded by end of next week. Re-printed the swords, the old ones had great detail but the handles seemed slightly too wide when viewed from the spine of the sword and I figured I'd resize them slightly.

I'm really liking how the mech gun and missle launchers came out.

Whoa, hey, those are all looking great. I'm really liking the rifles. The autocannons are looking pretty promising too. Are those ammo belts next to them? And will these all be going up on your store?

Yes, those are ammo belts next to the cannons, I don't have an ammo canister done just yet but the cannons and belts are finished.

All of these should be going up in the store once I've gotten the molds taken care of, I'm expecting to have them ready by mid August.

How much do they cost to make?

how easy will it be to bend the ammo belts into a realistic drape/swing I'm pretty sure that an ammo belt would swing slightly with weapon tracking and recoil.

The prices on the printing can vary quite a bit depending on the company and how high of resolution you wnat. A single part can be as cheap as $2-3 and go up well over $200 for an ultra high res print. The starcraft marine I had printed earlier in the thread ran me about $60.

Reproducing the parts in resin is much less expensive, it's the original master parts and the molds that run up the costs.

The ammo belts will be able to be shaped in whatever posistion you want. You can soak resin in hot water and it becomes very flexible which would allow you to add a more natural sway or loop shape to the linkage. That will allow people to adjust it to fit the individual models they want to attach it to.

This particular version is designed with vehicles and mechs in mind, at a late rpoint I will also be doing a smaller version that could be used by infantry scale minis which will have hand grips scaled down belts and likely an ammo pack.

Thanks, how did you reproduce them.

You can reproduce just about any part by making a mold out of RTV Silicon, once that's done you can use resin or pewter to make cast copies which if done correctly should be identical in detail to the original part. There's lots of online tutorials of how to do casting. www.tapplastics.com has some videos. IMO the best place for casting material is www.smoothon.com

I make a range of resin add-on parts, my store link is in my sig.

Thanks for the help, keep up the good work on the parts!

Here's some close ups, these have not been cleaned yet so they are pictured as they arrive from printing. Photographing soild white pieces seems to give my camera fits so they are a bit blurrier than I'd like.

The large missle launcher is quite a bit bigger than I had anticipated, will work great for tanks and really large robots but I think I am going to need another launcher scaled in between the current two sizes.