Hobby Accomplishments

It's been awhile since I posted anything about my hobbying that didn't relate to the GMing of my Rogue Trader campaign. While GMing takes up a large part of my spare time, I do have a few other geeky events of note.

The Kickmaster

After

Before

My Reaper Bones Kickstarter minis arrived. I have long enjoyed reaper's excellent range of metal minis. When I first heard about the bones Kickstarter I was very interested, a huge assortment of great sculpts for an unbelievable price. I instantly backed it at the Vampire level and eagerly awaited for the arrival of more RPG minis then I could ever use. At first I was overwhelmed with the sheer number of figures that were supplied. But when I had the chance to sit and check over each of the miniatures, I noticed some imperfections. Nothing serious just some warping of blades and barrels, and some loss of detail in the sculpts. I already had several metal Reaper miniatures and they were far superior to the bones versions of the miniatures. The warping bothered me a bit so I endeavored to see if I could straiten the new plastic material that Reaper used to produce the bones.  I used hot water to soften the plastic and as I held the plastic straight I dipped the figure into a bowl of chilled water. So far the miniatures have remained straight even when subjected the tropical North-Queensland summer. I am still a little concerned about the strength of some of the thinner bits like spear shafts and ankles on some minis.

some very nice sculpts

Kickstarter contents 

Another box of minis from a different Kickstarter also arrived. Wild West Exodus, I liked the idea of WWX as soon as I heard about it. The brain child of Romeo the owner and host of 40k Radio &  Battle Foam. I first heard about it on 40K Radio and The D6 Generation podcasts. A Weird Wild West setting consisting of an alternate history infused with SiFi technology. I think Romeo really liked the movie John Carpenter of Mars, there are a few similar themes and the WWX Dark Council bare some striking similarities to the Therns in the movie. Romeo regularly talks about some of the business practices that GW employ and why they mystify him. Outspoken criticism on how GW does things and how they should be done is one of the reasons I enjoy listening 40k Radio when Romeo is on. It's great to see him literally putting his money where his mouth is, employing modern plastic injection moulding and detailed resin casting practices to produce miniatures with as much detail and character as Games Workshop's. WWX also employs some nifty retail practices, $5 minis and neat a return policy for retailers. Unfortunately no one locally besides myself backed it. I hope in the future it gains a local following.

Role Play Shenanigans 

Beyond the Thunder-Dome

Attack on a hill top emplacement

Recently I GMed an extra long session of Rogue Trader. The plan was to bring the current story ark to a satisfactory conclusion, before two of the players moved away. It was a great day and I got to use a bunch of my old 40k Ork minis as they rampaged over the world of Damaris. Unfortunately we did not get to complete the final grand space battle that would sever the Ork Warlords control of his forces I did get to run a couple of other encounters that included some vehicles. An Ork junk fort full of looted equipment that had been re-purposed into Killa Kanz, and some high speed highway Madmax themed combat. The players pulled some shenanigans and circumvented my brutally hard combat challenges. First they requisitioned some mining explosives and jerry-rigged them to use in an airstrike. Second while being chased by speed crazed aliens on an assortment of ramshackle vehicles the party's navigator used his lidless warp infused third eye to melt the drivers faces. At first I was a little peeved that the players bypassed all my work, but the spectacle of the crashing Ork trucks still loaded with boys & the plume of a flame filled oily mushroom cloud rising from the ruins of the Ork fort were great role-playing events.

Print is a dying Medium

So I have previously talked about the fine people at Urban Laser Craft, and how they were nice enough the reward me monetarily for my CAD work with MDF & acrylic terrain. I was very pleased when the owner Will informed me that his product line would be featured in the Cool Mini Or Not magazine Ravage. So despite paper being a vestigial method of information dissemination I am still immensely proud that my designs will be immortalized in a physical medium. I do have a little pang of regret that I signed over my copyrights when I sold my designs, it would have been neat to see my name in the article. 

In Capitalist America Hobby Earns You Money.

Streetscape Props

So last time I spoke about lasers, I talked about the fine people at Urban Lasercraft that wanted to use some of my designs. Well my designs are up on the laser craft site and for sale, check them out here. I did the smaller stuff, the buildings were all done in house. There is still another wave of my stuff to come. I will post again when the next wave of designs are released. 

more Streetscape props

Classic corner Saloon

In related laser capers I noticed that the founder of laser craft has been experimenting with some Wild West designs. He has themed  them for the upcoming Wild West Exodus. He posted a couple examples on the Lasercraft Facebook page, some nice looking stuff. I also backed the WWX kickstarter but I didn't pledge enough to get the excellent terrain packs from Micro arts Studios that were on offer. I did however start to design some of my own. First up I decided to design standard Wild West buildings. Easy enough as there is a tonne of reference material out there. Then I just needed to add a sheet-metal pattern of engraving on the roofs and cut the sign lettering out of acrylic so they look like neon tubes. Put it together and wallah you a have steampunk wild west  architecture. So I offered to share a bunch of my designs. I hope they help inspire Urbanlaser to release a new line of WWX terrain.

It was tempting to build a whole
town of 3D renders 

Standard Old West shops

Check out the 3D renders I did I think they look cool. They are lacking the detail of the engraving, but cool none the less.

Old school open air train platform and
with attached warehouse. 

Some tall skinny shops just because

Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

So lately I've continued with my dabbling in the use of lasers to produce wargaming terrain.

I contacted Crag Gallant from the D6G and he put me in contact with some of his mates who have lasers and sell there designs online. 

I was just enjoying the exchange of information with someone who was interested in laser cut Terrain. Turns out that one of them liked the cut of my jib and offered me money to provide some designs. Who was I to refuse this opportunity? Normally my hobby s just cost me money, usually too much money. So now I had a chance to get payed for something I was literally doing purely for the enjoyment of it. I actually feel a little bit guilty about it. 

The coolest thing about this is my designs are going to be sold online. The image in my head of gaming tables around the world filled with my terrain is kinda ridiculous. 

My stuff is still not ready yet but when it is it will be on Urban Lasercraft  in the meantime they have some very neat looking templates and tokens for X-Wing and Malifaux. Check them out.

So here are some of items I've been working on. They are meant to be street props for generic 28mm SiFi gaming.

All of these designs are protected by copyright.  

Steampunk behemoths turning with laser precision 

I am starting to really enjoy Dystopian Wars. Like a lot of people I noticed in the rule book there is a photo of some acrylic turning templates. The only way to get them was when they were being given away as promos, or to win a set. So I decided to draw up my own and send them to be fabricated. Carlos at Mechanical Warhorse fixed me up and now my fleet is making turns with laser cut precision.

There is nothing wrong with the free cardboard ones spartan supplies in the boxed sets, but the acrylic ones are superior. The raised edge acts as guide to aid in the turning of the models. The transparent nature allows you to see the position of the other models in a fleet to avoid possible collisions. 

There are a few other suppliers of similar templates but they didn't look very steampunk. I am super proud of my cog design.

Pros

Looks cool

Templates with personal design

Transparent

Raised edge to aid model movement

The firing ark template helps when targeting with multiple turrets 

Cons

Not free

Had to draw the design myself

Firing ark template is missing one minor line

The edges have been buffed smooth reducing the sharp look

laser cut goodness

flash+light blue sheet= invisible

they look better on the green

this is missing a line near my thumb

I like design more than the Spartan ones

transparent, I like it

I should have made the top edge 1'' 

helps with using multiple turrets

overlaid on the originals perhaps
a 0.5mm difference 

 edge of the template aids in movement

I like it

It Came To Me In A Dream 

Back a little while ago I was quite sick. Fevers chills aches and pains typical man flu stuff only worse, I needed five days off work. During a particularly bad fever racked sleep I had a vision dream. Stretched before me was a tabletop battlefield, covered in a system of twisting platforms and walkways. Ladders, ramps, platforms all modular and with the ability to be dissembled and reassembled like some kind of 28mm Ikea terrain, minus the allen keys. As I awakened I rushed to the shower  to soothe my fever and pain, the image lingering in my mind. I begun to sketch with the only tool I had at hand, a bar of soap on the glass shower screen. 

Below is a slightly more detailed version of that first sketch. The material used would be 3mm thick MDF custom board. The whole thing would be cut using a CNC laser perhaps even with some fine detail engrave over the surface. Each piece would have slots cut to fit a corresponding slot in another piece.

An image showing some of theme of my dream.

The platforms twist and turn, crossing each other, ladders and ramps allow movement over multiple levels.

Detail view showing some of the individual components.