Up and coming Stuff...

Welcome new followers!!

It's been a while (again) since I last posted a blog, so here one is!

The local store PDF is now available on the website (click here). Here is a photo for you to see:

 

I also have a car park which works with out buildings/roads, so that is coming out hopefully in the next week. I just need to finalise a few things before I can do that.  So in case you haven't seen it yet, below is a photo of the WIP version. As I said, it's designed to work with our roads (or others I guess), so the "T junction" would be from another road pack, and not the car park pack, as you can't have a car park without roads. In the road sections there are "yellow line stoppers", which allow you to end yellow lines appropriately. The tile by the T junction also has changed. I have also go white arrows going around the carpark (two versions, one for driving on the left, and one for the right).

 

 

Umm...what else... oh yes, I finally finished the dinosaur I started last year (it didn't take that long, but I put it aside and forgot about it). So here's a photo of that:

 

 

 

Finally... I will be contacting the caster about a couple of figures. Do you remember Hammerman, Grekwood in a fez, the sci fi alien with guns, and the "not dr who" dalek princess? Well I will hopefully be getting them back soon *fingers crossed*... assuming they don't break in the mould again! Oh I might rename Hammerman as "The Tenderiser", as he's a mix of a butcher and an executioner...and he has the worlds biggers meat hammer lol

 

Ok, I think that's enough for now. Oh if you know anyone who needs sculpting putty, then it might be useful to know I have dropped the price to £10 for Green Stuff, and £7.50 for Procreate. I think this is "one of" the cheapest deals you can find online in the UK, so that's all cool...share it...share it share it haha

 

Oh and congrats to the Welsh Rugby Union team who beat England 30 points to 3 for the "Six Nations Championship". Not a bad end to the day!

 

Comments always welcome! and apologies once again for not getting around the blogs. I seem to spend most of my Grek Minis time updating our facebook page!

 

Cheers for reading...

 

Grekwood Minis Display in Detail

Apologies for not getting around the blogs as much, I have been extremely busy getting everything ready for our first ever show next week, and I have been running back and forth to the hospital as my wife Kate had an operation  about 5 days ago. She is doing better though and will hopefully be home on Monday or Tuesday!

So..Grek Minis news! It's just under a week until Crusade here in Cardiff (UK), the first ever trade show where Grekwood Miniatures will be selling! I have been working hard to put together a display which looks decent enough to "launch us", and I think I haven't done too bad. Here's a few WIP photos of the display which I set up on my pool table which rarely gets used for pool! The edges of the table made things not sit right, but its good enough for a tester.

There are a few things missing from the cabinets as I have them elsewhere for photos. But you should get a general idea in the next couple of photos...






At the front I have the scenery stuff to the left, which I have placed on raised display stands which I made.

To the right (at the front) I have displayed more scenery items including ball bearings, bases, steampunk parts and so forth. I still need to put labels all over it.







Next up, is the cabinet. The right cabinet is all zombies and hospital beds, and the left cabinet is the sci fi/fantasy cabinet, along with putties and glues (and the snow) at the bottom.

If you look closely the Grekwood Sculpt is in the left cabinet. I'm making a label so it'll say coming soon!






In the left cabinet I have put a road section with my new convertible mini (if only it was real!). It's to help give scale and to show that it's what the PDFs should look like.











Next up is the space next tot eh cabinet. This is a "mock up" design, and not the final one. It was just to give me an idea of what it would look like. As I can't take the PDFs with me, I thought it would be nice to alert people that we sell those too.

The Pro Arte brushes and the paints. Those are not the correct paints. They are my collection so they don't all match up. But they will be the proper things on the day. The brushes will also be taken out of their plastic wrappers.

 Finally, here's a little photo of the new design hospital bed undercarriage. They are mainly made because of casting reasons, but they are narrower, which allows figures to "tuck" under the bed more closely, to help with space.







Maybe next year we will get a 12ft table, and actually put the hospital building out on show with our road sections, which by the way, we have 10 different versions now, all of which will be online soon.

Thanks again for all your support!

Zombies, 28/15mm roads and buildings

I have decided to release the Roads and Hospital PDF in 15mm scale. I know most of my followers work with 28mm, but as 15mm is also very popular it makes sense to do this.

Converting them to 15mm is not as simple as it sounds. For the roads I have to chop them up and get rid of the "raised paths" because in 15mm it would be almost pointless. So the roads will become flat for 15mm. Each section will be sized to 3.5", but to save space I will attach 3 sections together to fill up the page as shown below. Two "straight" roads. both contain 3 sections each.

 

Converting the hospital is a little easier, but still not easy. Whilst I can easily reduce the size of the images (using the PDF files as the originals were lost... see earlier posts), I then have to measure everything, work out new wall section sizes and so forth. I'm guessing I would have to use some 2 or 3 mm card as 5mm would be too think, like a 2 foot wall or something!

 

So yeah... in summary, 15mm buildings/roads are coming soon :)

 

Supermarket Zombies and New Hospital undercarriages

The Supermarket zombies have arrived. I have almost finished bagging them up, but they won't be on sale until after Crusade. I have a LOT of stuff to get ready in time for the show, so it's better to release them afterwards when I'm hopefully not as busy. Also the new hospital bed undercarriages will be sold at Crusade and there after. So the old carriages will no longer be sold, and therefore the price increase will occur at crusade and thereafter.

 

Bad News...

The mould containing the Grekwood Sculpt, Sci fi alien, Hammerman, and the Dalek Warrior has had some problems. Hammerman and the Dalek Warrior seem to have broke in the mould *sad face*. As far as I am aware the Grekwood sculpt and sci fi alien are fine though, so that's something.

 

So what's going to happen?? I have a metal version of each figure which includes the cracks/dents where the green broke. I will go over the two which broke, and alter/fix them. It shouldn't be too big of a problem. I will then send them all back and get a new mould made. So fingers crossed it'll work then.

 

So yeah... bit of bad news, but nothing that can't be fixed. It does mean they will be delayed, but they WILL be available eventually.

 

Snow Flock

To end on something fun... I will be stocking snow!! The flock... not the real stuff. It'll sell for £3.75 per pot as it is from the "Battlefields" range, and will therefore be in that section of the website. Here's a quick pic:

 

 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas!! :)

I want to start by thanking those who have recently started following my blog. I also want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays) to all those who celebrate something this time of year.

Ok, so not too much to say apart from we've been working on more roads. I think I may create a page on the website just for road downloads. We want them to be as versatile as possible, and are therefore creating all options you might need.


I have recently uploaded a new set of "Town" roads (right). You'll notice that this pack has paved pavements, which are those that are more seen in towns.

We also have the "town" packs which include single yellow lines and double yellows. So keep an eye out for those as they will probably be online in the next few days or so.


My Laptop
So, it's known that me and laptops apparently just don't work. I have no idea why. Here's a brief history:

2005 - Went from PC to laptop. The screen eventually broke, and turned all whites yellow. (So nothing I did). I think my mum had this as she didn't mind about the screen. But it eventually broke down a couple of years ago.

Second Laptop (2006- end of 2008) I bought this to replace the other one. I think the hinge on the screen broke, and then the laptop got a virus (my mistake!!). The hinge was always flimsy. But yeah... virus was my fault. I was expecting a parcel from Fed Ex, so it only seemed ok to open the attachment as I thought it was my order. Epic fail! But again, I never open up stuff I don't know, but this seemed legit as I was expecting an email from Fed Ex...

3rd laptop (2008 - present) - Given to me by the university ... it still works! But I eventually gave this laptop to Kate, and had to change the hard drive after a "blue screen of death".

4th - (end of 2009 - 2012) I bought this one as Kate now had my Uni one. The screen eventually broke on that one this year, and then for some reason it stopped working all together. No idea why.

May this year (2012 to present)... I bought my current laptop. Last week the charger connection stopped working unless I put loads of pressure on it, which was difficult to charge, and involved placing heavy books on the laptop charger connection, whilst the laptop was standing on its side.

So bought a new cable, and that didn't work. So I knew it was an internal issue. So I opened up the casing (which isn't so difficult when you know how! ... Google..) and I noticed there was a slight gap in one of the bits of solder. Now I'm talking microscopic, it was SO small. So I got out my soldering kit (I have one as I rewired two of my guitars a few years ago), and I put solder on the joint.

The laptop didn't work at all then! So I removed some of the solder, but not all of it, and now it works...whooooo Huzzah! So yay, the laptop lives... which is good because it's not even a year old!!

So yeah, not really sure why they break so much. Maybe it's because I use them all day every day..

Anyway.... Merry Christmas, and have a great new year :)

Supermarket Zombies Finished!

So the supermarket zombies are complete. They won't be available until early next year, but rest assured they are finished and on their way! I took some very quick photos, and because of the multicoloured putty used, I changed them to black and white. So apologies if that makes them a little difficult to see. They were just quick photos and not "promotion" photos.

What Next?
So what to do now they are finished? Well I have plans... important plans!

I have been asked by a couple of people about whether I will create a supermaket PDF. I have also been asked about supermarket accessories especially carts (I guess they mean shopping trollies??)

So... after some consideration, I have decided to build a supermarket PDF. It seems like that's going to become a theme, make some figures, and create a building to compliment them!

Shopping carts are a little more complex. Whilst they may seem easy to make. They will not cast in resin so easily because they are so small. Even card ones would prove tiny and fiddly to make. If there was a "train" of trollies, as in when they are all pushed together, then that might be a bit easier, but still awkward to make, but I'll see what happens.

More roads!!
On another note, we have 2 more road section PDFs to upload soon in the next couple of days. I just need to photograph them for the website, and combine all the PDFs into one file. The two packs are the "riser/fillers" pack, featuring squares of grass, tarmac, cobble stones, paving slabs and so forth. The other is similar to the residential roads pack, but rather than having tarmac pavements it will have paving slabs. This is to accommodate for different roads, as towns and such don't have tarmac pavements like residential areas! A screen shot is shown below...

Again these will only cost £1.50 each, and the will work perfectly with each other.
Finally, there has been no news on any of the castings I sent off (Dalek warrior/princess, Hammerman, Grekwood mini, and the sci fi alien dude), so no idea when those will be available, which makes me a bit sad as I wanted them for the show in January, but I'm thinking it may be unlikely..Ok, so that's it for now

Cheers for reading, comments are always welcome!

11 Zombies (WIP)

Here's 11 of the supermarket bunch. I have another 5 in progress, so hopefully I can finish them very soon.

From Left: Female warehouse worker in a high vis jacket. Next is a tall (purposely made slightly taller) worker. He is a bit of an everything, so a cleaner, trolley collector, or whatever else they might want him to do! In the middle is a male warehouse guy, again in a high vis jacket. Finally the two on the end are from the office/management of the supermarket.

I have two more office people to finish, and one cleaner which is almost complete.

From Left: Fish Monger! He's a bit torn up. Then a butcher, again he was made slightly taller as I wanted him to be quite a strong looking character. 3rd is a chef with a rolling pin! Now the last 3 are general workers, so cashiers, shelf stacker's and so on.

I have one "cheese counter" type female to finish, and one female worker.


ROADS
They are now available on the website. We plan to release quite a lot of variations of these. So there will be different paths (tarmac, paving slabs etc), different road types, so plain, single yellow, double yellow, etc.

It's to make it easier to customise your own road.

DISCOUNT
There re only 13 days left on the 10% discount. So if you are in need of sculpting putties, or trees for scenery, or glue, or ball bearings, then go check it out.

Cheers.. Comments always welcome!

Roads PDF

First off I'd like to thank and welcome all the new people who have start following my blog. I hope you will find it plenty of interest here in the future :)


PDF Roads
Later today I will be uploading the "residential roads" PDF download to the website. They will cost £1.50 to buy. The PDF will consist of 6 sections: straight main road, side straight road, T junction, Cross-roads, corner and dead end (everything in the photo). In the documentation I have explained how to convert them so they can be either "flat" or the pavemens raised to a different thickness. It also explains how to fix everything up.


We have also created a couple of "place fillers" to be placed between the road sections to help bring them up to the same level as the pavements, and to fill in any gaps around buildings and so forth. They are there to help with the appearance of the playing board instead of having a bare table, and a cheaper alternative to buying grass mats and all that (also, they are 6 x 6 inch squares). They include: Grass, Mud, paving area, smaller paving stone area, and finally a some tiny stones, so possible could be used as cobblestones and finally a tarmac area.

The below image shows a corner of the full piece. I didn't want to post the "full" piece as people can just print it from the photo. So I cropped them all to show part of it. So the selection is below. They will also be £1.50 (I think... need to check up on that).

Ok, so hopefully the roads will be online later tonight, and the "filler" things will be online some time during the week. I just need to finalise a few things.

Hospital Beds
These have proved to be extremely popular. However, as we are casting more and more, the undercarriage is causing problems with casting (wheels not coming out right and so forth). We are throwing away about half of what we cast. So after a LOT of calculations and thinking, I have decided to redesign the undercarriage, and get them cast in metal. This is a more expensive option, but we are currently getting a lot of miss-casts, so it's very time wasting. Therefore, getting them made in metal will free up our time for other things, and also, we will get a 100% casting result.

As I am redesigning them, I can add a bit more detail and change the design slightly  as a casting machine will pick it up better than hand casting. It also means I will need to increase the cost of each pack by a little bit. No much though, so they will still be relatively cheap to buy.

Anyway, I think that's it for now, So keep an eye out for those roads! We are planning to produce a few varieties, so stay tuned!

Cheers!

Residential Roads PDF

I want to start by showing off the "new" logo. I redesigned the monk part to incorporate Gareth more, as he is of course "Grekwood". The old one never quite looked finished as it was more of a "sketch" look. So this is a proper picture now.

Now...for those roads!

As mentioned in an earlier post, we have been creating some roads for personal use, but have decided that since they have been made, why not pop them on the website for others if they want them. If not, we haven't lost anything as we wanted them to begin with, So it's a win win!

We made 6 basic road pieces which should allow for the creation of most road scenarios. The plain roads with no lines are for side streets. It's probably worth pointing out, these are for residential areas and not cities or towns. 

Click to zooOOMM

I have almost finished a documentation/instructions, so they will most likely be online soon. Finally, the corner was made as a "right angle" to make it easier to build and you don't get waste paper/cardboard which you do when cutting out a curved corner.

Each piece is 6" by 6", with the pavements being 1" and the roads being 4" wide. The pavements are also designed to be "raised" by 5mm. But this can be changed. I will explain how to do a conversion in the documentation, but it is really simple to do. So it means you can either have them flat, raise the pavements by 5mm, or anywhere in between.

That's it for now, cheers for reading, comment as always are welcome!

WIP Zombies, and Roads...

Once again it has been over a week since my last bog, so here's another one! I don't have a huge amount to talk about as I've just been busy jumping between a few different projects.

I sent off the 4 figures, HammerMan, Princess Bexi, Grekwood in a Fez, and, finally the sci fi alien. They are currently with a caster, but not sure when I'll get those back.

"Roads, where we're going we don't need roads!" (Back to the Future)...
We are currently working on some "road sections" which are designed to be mounted to foamboard (for pavements) and for the base. Although you can use thinner card for the road part. Either way, the pavements have to be on foam board (I guess if you wanted to you could alter it some how).

We plan make them for ourselves, but as I have a webstore, I may as well pop them online in case anyone else would like them! We will make a few different versions, such as tarmac roads with residential style tarmac pavements. Then roads with yellow lines, and then some with paved pathways etc etc. So we should be able to mix and match and get every combo we need.

Next Batch of Zombies: WIP
Here's a little WIP of the current batch of zombies, which is going well. A few of them are finished (such as the ones to the left on black bases). The two in the photo are almost there. The photo is a little old (like a few days), as the two figures have progressed since then. So remember, they are WIP, which means what you see isn't how the final thing will look... It's just a taster.

Clik to zoooOOOOMM

CGD Society Get Together Weekend

Here's a photo of me and Kate from the CGD weekend get together we went to last month... I should have worn the wig... but it was too hot in there! Anyway, who says a pirate can't look after their hair?? :P

Click to zooOOOMM

Ok, that's all for now! Comments as always are welcome :)