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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.

am i right inassuming you get the hang of casting now... those look very good and even more improved the the first ones...

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.

In case the video does not work, just check the url: http://youtu.be/KLfRLglkxiw



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.



See you in a week and a half!

WHEN CAN I GIVE YOU MY MONIES TO BUY SOME OF THESE TASTY TASTY BITS???!!!

that video is looking highly promising...

where is the music from? suits the vid just fine!

and those walls together look so coooool! i hope you feel proud about this work of yours!... that hopefully will make you a very rich man indeed!!!

oh...almost forgott...

those tiles...holy gak! great looking doesn´t cut it...


and should i look out for a spanish stalker now


cheers, vik

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.

trail of rivets... lol...

and yes... some of the smaller towns are really straight from a mortheim scenario^^

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 so excited to see this come to fruition. I hope it all goes very well for you.....



Looks amazing...

Yes! Exciting stuff!

And I'm finally making huge progress!

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:

Very freakin cool, 2500. Very cool.

I would like to buy two sets from you at least. Just PM me when you are ready man!

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

I am def in for a set, should you not become overburdened with filling orders.

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.

It will be worth the shipping cost! You can pack them in those cool cardboard castles!

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?

And I thought we were living in a small world...

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.

Here is a pic of the improvised recording studio I assembled on my garage for a video showcase. You can't say I'm not trying xD

you certainly have enough room^^

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.

and i was already wondering why i didn´t get where the link was

Wow. Your garage is huge!

Can't wait for the vid.

D

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...



Sorry for the extended waiting time!

Oh, sure, that helps a lot with the anziety....




Jerk....




LOL, that's awesome... I think that is some funny gak right there......

Man, you're such a tease.

D

tstststs.... man... enjoy your freetime...or else

what a tease man!!!

In case you didn't notice, I love teasing xD

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...