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!

10% Discount, and Zombie WIP Photo!

In the spirit of Christmas I have decided to give a 10% discount on a couple of items. They include all sculpting putties, glues/conditioner pens, ball bearings and Trees.

Much of our stuff is already discounted or it is sold relatively cheap, so it's really difficult finding stuff to discount without loosing money. So the trees, being the most expensive items on the website, seem like a good idea to discount, along with the putties as every sculptor/converter needs putties. Glues and ball bearings are just random additions... glue is always useful right?! Also... good glue (which it is) is even better :)

So spread the word if you know of anyone who may be interested in any of those items. Offer ends December 20th.

On a side note, we are working on making some other roads printouts. We are designing ones with paved pavements (instead of tarmac), cobble stone roads etc etc We are thinking of selling them for about £1.50 for 6 road sections and a cool documentation written by me. It's probably worth mentioning that I haven't created the road sections. My dad decided to make some for a wargame he's planning with the zombies. So I've been the printing and testing guy, whilst he's put them together.

Finally, here is some more zombie WIP of two different characters. One is a "Fish Monger" and the other is a general workman/cleaner with a long overcoat. He is bald, and has some sticky out teeth :P

Any thoughts about what he should be dragging (if anything)... I was thinking a fish, but I might leave his hands bare.

Click to ZooOOMM

Until next time, thanks for reading! :)