Weekender XLBS: DUST Adventures & Custom Hero Forge Minis!
December 21, 2014 by dignity
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Whoa? First reply on Weekender XLBS? I knew there was a reason I stayed up late! 😀
Happy Sunday!!
Death to Ming the Myopic!
I thought that the TAG crate was being released as part of Antenocities Forward Base Kickstarter?
It is, but they probably won’t have it on their site until they have shipped the majority of backer rewards. They said in the KS the new items won’t be available for retail until the backer orders are completed. It sounded like mid 2015-ish but we will see.
Really looking forward to the PDF’s for converting household stuff into scenery. I saw that done for the first time in the 1990’s when a can had been converted in to a Space Marine drop pod. Back in those days GW did not have a model for drop pod, so we just had to come up with something and besides no one really knew what a drop pod might look like. So I also started making 40K scenery from “junk”, some of it looked pretty cool as I quickly realized that you must do something to break the shape and then it starts to rock’n’roll. Well, I stopped 40K years ago but now I’m thinking of for instance a Skirmish Sangin scenario in an industrial compound. Those have lots of tanks and silos for liquids, pipes everywhere etc. So thank you for putting those ideas back to my head, and looking forward to the PDF’s!
Terrain from food containers takes me back to the olden days too. Other options, Take 2 litre pop bottle, slice the bottom off and flip it over. A lot of food packaging, particularly things like frozen desserts, can make for nice buildings when flipped over and sprayed.
Just dug out my old copy of rogue trader and on page 256 there’s a whole bit on modeling with household packaging. There’s even a bit about the problems of the hoarder impulse and how you have to develop an iron will to control the urge to save that new piece of polystyrene packaging. With crimbo around the corner, me thinks Lloyd (spelt correctly) could be living in the shed come Boxing Day?!?!?
Rogue Trader top tip of the day (especially for Lloyd and they are small so I can’t be blamed for any relationship break up!):
Save your plastic medicine spoons, as they can be used to make cockpit canopies or domes. I’m thinking that the clear sets you can pick up at M&S or motorway services would be the dogs nadgers for this.
I’m a Hobby Hoarder too 🙂
Hey Lloyd, I also collect bean tins, you not alone.
I used to cut up cardboard boxes in different sizes and shapes and layered them to make hills and then covered them with poly filler. Once dried painted them and then flocked then. Cereal boxes I turned into movement trays and for the bits on the front and sides I cut up the foam you used to get in GW minis – paint it green and super glue it to the cardboard lol very effective – I even used dried spaghetti if I had no foam long enough 🙂
The hero forge app seems like a brilliant idea, just hope they bring in options to get the prints at different scales!
Hobby Hoarder and loving it. Check out my Ventilator using cassette tape, pegs, travel size shampoo bottles and some plumbing supplies.
http://aureliuslegion.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/terrain-40k-ventilator-completed.html
That’s really cool, and a good example of how disguising the shape of the component(s) allows you to use simple bits to create something really atmospheric.
The Hero Forge thing is a lot of fun to play around with and the only thing it is really missing right now is a way to assign both hands to the same weapon (this is particularly true of the rifles / shotguns etc). Hopefully they will add more material options soon because they are actually doing the printing through Shapeways and they certainly offer more than two types.
Nice idea with the bean tins Lloyd.
I would cut a Ork face out of the tin and put those plastic glowing candles in them for Orky glow face.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Hero Forge is the way to go! Whats Warrens take on Hero Forge? Seem to remember him talking about this a few episodes ago.
Happy Christmas everyone!
Merry Christmas all, All i want for Christmas is to be invited to a tournament at the BOW studios.
Join the club!
Merry xmas and a happy new year to all at BoW and to all of us who love the weekenders.
Poor Justin he just doesn’t understand the concept of terrain making and material hoarding bless his little cotton socks 😛
i hoard loads of stuff too as you never know when you might need a bake bean tin or cereal box or a tonne of other bits and pieces, i have a whole room full of stuff for making terrain its awesome 🙂
The Hero Forge create your own mini looks amazing there is a lot of potential in there from making rpg minis to your general of your army in warhammer or Kings of War and so on. 🙂
Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year 🙂
@lloyd Iagree with you! Hoarding “junk” is great. It’s making use of it that is difficult, but like you say, breaking up the shape makes it less recognisable! I’m currently working on a tonne of infinity terrain using cereal box card and other random odds and sods! I don’t know if you would like some pics, I don’t have a blog or anything to link.
Also, worst thing is, I don’t even have room for a gaming table, but I seem to have just gone off at a tangent with my hobby lately with a love of terrain making….funnily it coincided with about the first hobby lab I watched!
I still remember the coke bottle eldar vehicles white dwarf gave instructions for back in the day. How things change.
I like the various oddly shaped yogurt tubs you get these days, they are always useful for something.
Thanks for a great backstage weekender. That Hero Forge stuff seems really nice. Will create something that might be used in fantasy skirmish/rpg setting.
My dad used to make train set terrain from cereal boxes, but he glued 3 or 4 sets together to make thicker card. Throwing a cereal box out was time spent on the naughty step.
Clothing Catalogues were poured through, and suitable bits were cut out for curtains in said terrain.
Clear plastic was kept for windows and skylights.
These days, I prefer to spend my time painting models than building terrain from coke cans but with time and effort you can make some great looking things.
Merry Christmas guys! Love your work and show. I was watching most of your shows etc. through my X Box/You Tube link, however, for Christmas I have equipped the houses flat screens with the new Amazon Fire TV and the kids, wife and I with the Fire Tablets. Totally amazing! Now I can always catch your videos anytime anywhere. This also raises the point you guys previously raised about the I Books and E Books for wargamming rules etc. This is the future but Games Workshop only has the 40k books and the Fantasy rules I have put on my Fire Tablet. ALL gaming companies need to get with the times and publish everything with a tablet format. It was nice to see Mantic is seeing this and staying ahead of the curve. MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Lloyd sounded like a crazy bean can collector, lol, but he’s right. You need to imagine what your cans and whatnot could become with a bit of creative thinking.
I’m looking forward to the Dust RPG stuff for the extra background too, as I’ve just got the new Dust rulebook and after reading the short intro of the war, I’m trying to glean more background from the description of the platoons further on in the book.
There are Dust comics available, but a fully fledged book that contains a lot more info is much better.
That Hero Forge creator looked good, but after visiting the website I realised how crappy my laptop is because it couldn’t load the blank slate 3D model!
I have checked to see if my browser supports WebGL and it does, so maybe it’s just my laptop (on their FAQ it does say that they’re working to make the website work with all browsers and that you can contact them with your computer’s specs and experience).
On their FAQ it shows a link to their video about the materials they use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEL9Aj0sVXo
You can either have “Ultra Detail Plastic” with fine detail made from more brittle plastic or “Strong Plastic” with less detail and a rougher texture.
The Ultra Detail Plastic minis are $25 (£16) and Strong PLastic are $15 (£9.60)
BUT! Their Strong Plastic is less suitable for painting, due to the rougher texture. https://heroforge.com/Pricing/
So it’s a case of either buy cheap and don’t paint it, or pay more but handle with care.
If they could print them out with fine detail in strong plastic, then that’d be much better.
Their delivery takes 2-4 weeks, but as they seem to be based in the U.S, then I guess it could take even longer than that to reach elsewhere. So far I can’t see how much the shipping is and how much more expensive it makes the minis, but you can contact them with any questions you might have.
Overall, I think the idea of paying a company to print the minis for you is better than having to buy a 3D printer and materials yourself, especially when you don’t need to buy any 3D software and learn to use it in order to make your own custom minis; I think that’s great.
Maybe they can make an option for those who do buy (and have the room for) 3D printers, to download their creations, which will cut out on shipping.
But, like I said, I think that I would be tempted more if they were using a stronger material that also captured all the details. I’d rather not have to wait for weeks for a detailed mini to arrive only find that the mini is broken, due to it’s fragile nature.
Maybe we’ll just have to wait for the technology to improve before those snags can be overcome. For now, it’s a really cool idea that works and they can only get better as time moves on.
I wonder what would happen if GW tried the same thing, but used their own injection moulding tools to make the minis, after customers customise their own minis through their website? I’m not sure they would want to have a bespoke business running alongside their current in-house designed and produced minis though. Especially when converting your own minis from their ranges is encouraged and is a big part of the hobby.
Then again, GW might have the money to improve the quality of 3D printing, or indeed, they might be working on their own research into 3D printing for their own ideas on using that technology that are not necessarily for one-off minis.
It’s very interesting whatever happens! 😀
They do currently print prototypes of models during the design process.
Don’t be a hater, Justin. 😀 @lloyd is totally on the right track when it comes to building great pieces of terrain and buildings out of “junk.”
Back during our Star Wars Pocket Models run, we wanted to do a Battle of Endor. Naturally we wanted that huge shield generator featured in Return of the Jedi. So I built one in about two hours, out of . . .
Paper coffee cup and smaller cappuccino cup for the base
Paper Towel roll for the main pillar.
Plastic snack plate (5″) for the main dish
Plastic lid to a paper soft drink cup for the inner transmission array
Cardboard from the backs of old notepads for the embellishments and smaller dishes that ring the main dish.
Flex-neck drinking straws for the bases of these six smaller radar dishes
A little styro-foam and more scrap cardboard for the center antenna hub
Toothpicks and long thin pieces of balsa wood for the long antenna.
A little gray paint and a few highlights and we had a functional Endor shield generator towering over the rest of the forest.
Total cost = maybe $2 in paint and glue, $3-4 in balsa wood for the long antenna.
2-3 hours tops in construction time.
And it’s fun to build stuff.
Han Solo won the Millenium Falcon and its contents from Lando in a card game so the clothes were probably his in the first place.
Oh dear, I’m a massive hoarder too… Sooner or later I need to go through all my accumulated junk and make some hard decisions about which bits to keep and which to chuck.
Is there are article about the Fit Club coke can terrain (or wherever it was from)? The clips looked really cool, and I’d love to see more.
Re: combat walker/mechs in an RPG, Heavy Gear also had the same issue. The RPG was eventually discontinued, sadly, as it was one of the best science fiction settings I’ve ever come across. There were a variety of ways of getting mechs into the game – by playing as a combat unit but you could also be police SWAT team equivalents, interstellar spy/commandos, construction workers, nomadic desert traders, etc.
Loving those artwork pieces for the DUST rpg. That style is absolutely class!
great show.
@lloyd you should also collect egg boxes the card ones are better I think? Pringle type cartons & cake / yogurt tubs they all come in handy at times.
& merry Christmass & a happy new year (also good gaming) everyone.
A very merry Christmas to everyone and a new year full of gaming goodies! Cheers guys!
I’m with Lloyd on the whole hoarding materials thing, although I prefer to think of it as storing stuff that will save me ££’s down the line. I have a box of little bits and bobs that look interesting, and would easily double up as various bits of tech with a paint disguise. I haven’t actually made anything in a long time, but I love it when something I have “stored” for years eventually proves to be the perfect something I need (especially that one little screw, that would cost £6 down B&Q in a pack of 5). I feel so vindicated when that happens! 😀
With the 3D printing, the problem at the moment is that there is “stepping” in the finished item due to the process used, more noticeable in organic forms. If you’re dealing with a tiny 28mm figure the stepping is going to be very noticeable, and you cannot get fine detail (unless you want a 28mm figure with steps for a face), and painting would only highlight it the same way that painting makes a mold line more visible. What you see on screen is *not* what you get in your hand. Higher resolution prototype printing comes at a much higher price at the moment, and you wouldn’t want to waste that money on a low poly-count figure. It’s certainly the future for many items as higher resolution printing drops in price, not just for mini’s (and terrain bits).
Another thing that people using a pose-and-print service also need to realise is that what looks good on screen might not look good on a 28mm mini, or be robust enough to handle: a realistic looking on-screen sword is going to be very thin and fragile when printed, and subtle on-screen detail may turn out too subtle when the figure is in your hand.
Some info on materials, from the Shapeways website…
“strong and flexible” plastic, would be fine for anything okay with a rough surface texture (such as buildings, statues, rocks, etc):
Then their “detailed plastic, which would be okay for anything not needing a totally smooth surface:
If I wanted figures that weren’t produced by a mini company (such as 30mm AT-ATs) I’d have no problem with 3D printed versions.
http://www.shapeways.com/model/1679845/at-at-1-270.html?li=productGroup&materialId=6 😉
Well I am going to have to watch this XLBS in secret after getting a lecture that I am not @Llyod and I am not allowed to keep anymore of that stuff around the house. She thought I was just lazy with taking out the recyclables. Thanks guys 🙂
I’m interested to see what Lloyd builds with his pile of jun…er…gaming resources. Hope we get to see some time in the new year.
On the back of that episode, I ordered Zombie Dice as a last minute present for a mate!
talking about 3d printed figures there’s a kickstarter running for this create your minis i think thier french so should cut down on EU postage
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1703677934/create-your-minis-3d-printed-miniatures?ref=nav_search
That looks pretty cool. Quite a well rounded app with much better pose options than hero forge. @warzan @lloyd @brennon @dignity what you guys think?
I’m with Lloyd on the ‘junk’ hoarding. All my cardboard packaging and plastic bottles get saved.
I can also make use of toilet roll tubes. But they are indeed rubbish if used solely as cardboard. I strenghten them with liquid latex. It adds a bit to the cost, but the resulting object is nearly indestructible and as a bonus you can make some quite organic shapes.
Angry Bards. There’s a game idea in there somewhere.
Have fun this days all of you guys! and happy gaming, xmas, new year and so on!
I would recommend icecream wooden stick – great for floors and or sort of wood texture, i keep mine and run out so quick, same with coffee strainers, next thing is metal mesh filter from hob extractor fan, it comes in layers between 5-10 so you en up with lots of it and again looks like fence, si-fi floor, and whatever you can came up with, great for modelling, terrain build.
Here’s a drop pod prototype I built:
http://www.smallcuts.net/photo/?id=11022
It’s for the Space Comrades…
And here’s some oil tanks:
http://www.smallcuts.net/photo/?id=11487
P.S. You don’t want a dome top on the water tanks because
a) the real ones don’t have them either and b) Batman wants to be able to stand there to swoop down on people.
Loo roll tubes! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzLSXMgzWpk
I’m with Lloyd on the junk terrain. No room for terrain snobbery here.
Question for you all: What’s the strangest item you’ve made into terrain?
Mine so far is the flush unit from inside an old toilet made into a Necromunda tower.