Monday 31 May 2010

A stable is born...

I finished the assembly of the Stables prototype kit today, so I thought I would post a few pictures. As is typical with prototypes i have a list of improvements and snags to fix... but this list is 27 items long! so quite a bit to fix.

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice that I haven't added the dreaded helical handrail. I made a complete mess of designing it and put the wrong number of railing holes in it and made it too short - must have been an off day!

I'm also not happy with the main door to the ground level stables - its too low, so I shall redesign it to lift the apex of the gable end up a cm or two above the horizontal railing - that way a mounted figure can actually get in!

I'm pleased with the dormer window though and the structure of the stairs and top railing is very strong and solid.

And a final picture with the stucco/render texture applied.

As always comments and suggestions are very welcome!

Hello to Andy and Krasnopalcy our 64th and 65th followers. Welcome, make yourself comfortable,there's beer in the fridge and plenty of pringles... dont throw the tubes away though :)

Saturday 29 May 2010

Stables WIP I

Welcome to three new followers... a record for a single day around here... i'm almost becoming popular! Hi to Lord Abbaddon of Wormwood and  Nick and Ragados. I hope you find much to make you buy stuff! :)

Along with all the Pryn-Gul Tower kits and sheets of shingles I alos had a couple of sets of prototype kits for TWF-02 codenamed "Stables" cut, and I couldn't resist starting to put them together tonight.

I'm certainly pushing the cutter and the material further on this kit than I did on the Pryn-Gul Tower. What surprised me was how well the stairway went together. A few minor teething problems and I need to allow a little more in the geometry for losses in the laser but this went together remarkably well.
The doorway Is double the width of the one on the Pryn-Gul Tower, and is supposed to be a stable door. But squeezing it into just one storey height has left it too short - so a re-think needed there. Have to find space on the sheet to make it taller - already a bit cramped!



here you can see the intricate treads and risers with curved supports under the stairs... I'm quite proud of that!

Friday 28 May 2010

Available Now.

Thanks to some speedy Royal Mail delivery I have the kits in my hands NOW, and have just put them up on eBay and they are available to buy NOW!!!!!!!!!

Just click on the subtle laser cut kits logo over there >>>

:)

Wednesday 26 May 2010

Countdown

Well it seems as though my first order of laser cut building kits is in the hands of the Royal Mail and I am expecting them this week.

Brandlin Towers has been converted into a packing and posting station and all family members are equipped with sticky tape.

Starting small I have 20 PrynGul Tower kits and 12 sheets of slates/shingles to sell, and expect to have them on eBay on Monday 31st May.

To support this there are some more pages going up on this blog which you'll see by clicking the very subtle laser cut kits image over there>>>

Bear with me for a few final days while I sort out the last bits and pieces.

These kits are designed in association with the World of Twilight game and they have a fancy-schmancy new forum for discussion of the game, the figures and my scenery.


Oh, and welcome to my latest follower FantasyFish - you picked a good time to come and join the party I think!

Monday 24 May 2010

Twilight Scenery XX - Watchtower

Whilst waiting on the first production cuts for the PrynGul Tower and the Prototype Stables I started work on potnentially third kit in the series... The Benan Watchtower

Based on a 500ml Ben and Jerry's ice cream tub. the butress will attach to either fortified walls and walkways - Yet to be designed or the end of the Tew-Fah Bridge.  still a lot to detail - beam work, hatches, doorway, roof cladding etc.

I don't know when it will be finished or how much it will be yet! (everyone always asks those two questions!)

Friday 14 May 2010

Twilight Scenery XIX - Assembly Instructions

"So, what's so fascinating about assembly instructions then?"

"err... well nothing really!"

Except of course, I am sure we've all had a kit where a lack of clarity in the instructions has left us scratching our heads or swearing at the box that "there's a bit missing!"

So, I thought.. I have all the geometry for the Building Kits in CAD, I must be able to do pretty good assembly instructions just by exploding the model, and taking snap shot pictures of various sctions and publishing them in a pdf file for people to download.

Simple!

Well, its not quite that simple, but I thought I'd share some look and feel. This is a sample image of the construction of the "Bump-Out" section of the Pryn-Gul Tower building.


Now I have the process sorted its only slow rather than glacially slow... 

Baby steps...

B

Tuesday 11 May 2010

Grymn Flier - DIY

2 posts  in one day! Welcome to new followers David Drage and MacVurrich - dont get used to multiple posts in one day - i'll never keep it up - but have fun anyway!

I've been meaning to do this for about a year and today i finally got round to it.

I'm hoping for the release of fliers and grav bikes from Hasslefree miniatures and fenris games, and I believe there is more planned from Old Crow too! But in the eantime I decided to make a DIY version.

This is my simple view of a single seat strike craft, small, maneuverable, agile and mobil enough to be operated from a forward mechanised unit and a temporary airfield.


EDIT: sorry the pictures are a bit grainy these are from my phone. Will post more when I get a chance.

Its not finished! It needs landing gear, plenty of small finishing details and some weapons. I was thinking wingtip mounted air to air missiles with 2-4 air to ground missiles side mounted/underslung. I don't think such a craft would have an underslung remote cannon but some small fixed forward machine guns would enable good infantry strafing opportunities.

This was pretty simple, and consisted of amalgamating a parts from a couple of Revel easy snap fit Sar Wars kits. I have enough to make another pair of these. Will finish all three before deciding on a paint scheme.


B

Monday 10 May 2010

Twilight Scenery XVIII - Finalised Geometry

It's a good news day!

But before I don my happy face and force my bitter twisted paranoia into submission to tell you the good stuff lets welcome 2 new followers. Hi to ilyandath and TheMightyFlip, I hope you find something interesting here.

In response to some comments at Salute I have updated the geometry on the Pryn-Gul Tower to include shingles/slates of variable width rather than fixed width as before. This involved re-drawing all those shingles on the curved sections ...Aaaargh, but I thought it was worth doing.

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This will go to the laser cutters tomorrow! 
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Baby steps though,  I still have to sort out assembly instructions and pictures, packaging and ebay etc but we are getting there.

Pryn-Gul Tower Geometry revised!

In even more good news, I completed the second sheet of the Stables building. OK, so it was a bit of cheat as this has common components with the Pryn-Gul Tower - the main conical roof is very similar, except the stables is marked out for the dormer window rather than the cut-out for the turret in the Pryn-Gul tower kit. The roofs and all other elements are interchangeable though so you can swap amongst these kits to your hearts content.

Stable Geometry Now finished!

The roofing sheet for the Stables is smaller than A4 sized (about 2/3 of a sheet) so the kit will be a little cheaper than the main tower!
EDIT: for some reason the picture here is being shown narrower than the other sheets - thats just an effect of the blog honest!
 
Continuing today's theme of progress and good news, the stables geometry will go with the Pryn-Gul Tower geometry tomorrow to have prototypes cut! Then all I have to do is test assemble a couple, fix any geometry problems, paint a display version, take photographs, write assembly instructions,  and order multiple kits for sale... Simple!

Yet more positivity (is there no end?) the first sheets of shingles will also be going to the laser cutters!


In other news Twilight now has its own forum, and those nice people there have given me my own little corner and made me a moderator [insert manical mad scientist world domination laugh here]. I've also added a link to the Forum from my blog... it's over there >>> somewhere. Pop along and say Hi.

I've included a little chart in a thread there which shows the ten stages I have for producing a laser cut kit, and as soon as I figure out how, I'll include it on this blog too. In the mean time here is a snap shot of the steps in making kits and where each one is now.



I might be slow in getting these things kits made but I don't think I can be accused of not communicating about them!

Feel free to make suggestions of building types here or on the Twilight Forum. If I like the idea I'll add it to the list. If I love the idea it wont go to the bottom of the pile either!

Finally I have been accused by a couple of people on line of neglecting my other projects particularly the ones about my Grymn. So next post - GRYMN FLIERS!

B

Wednesday 5 May 2010

Twilight Scenery XVII - Stable Geometry

Welcome to Thadrin and Darth Tater, the latest 2 followers of my rambling and misguided blog. I hope you like what you see! Thadrin has just started a blog all about Hasslefree Grymn - so I've put a link to his new venture called "Grymn and bear it "over there >>> that way >>> and down a bit ... you'll find it.

A little more progress. The 2D geometry for the 1mm Stable sheet is complete.


I am working on the 0.5mm sheet geometry which comprises the shingles, windows, tiles and a few other small details. Put together with a cut down pringles tube they make this.

It seems that my laser cutting supplier is overcoming a post Salute 2010 backlog so I've been unable to order kits or to nail down prices. Apologies for the delay.