Blast-Tasitc 2014

Yesterday we headed to Bristol for a new wargames show called "Blast-Tastic". It was a show purely about Sci-fi, which was cool to see as so many have historical figures everywhere.

Overall it was a decent day. We left Cardiff around 07:20, and got there around 08:10-20 which gave us plenty of time to set up our stand (see image right). As soon as we finished setting up, we got our first order, and from then on there was a steady flow of customers throughout the day. There were a couple of quiet moments, which were welcomed (always nice to have a sit down!), but in general it had a nice relaxed atmosphere which was great from a traders point of view.

Amongst greeting customers, I finally met Colin from "Down Among the Lead Men", he's been a great supporter of Grekwood Minis, so it was cool to meet him. We started to have a chat and then I had to deal with a customer, so we only had a brief chat, but I'm glad I finally met someone from the blogs!

There were quite a few games going on, which we slowly watched from behind our stand. My dad (who is in one or two of the photos) had a look around and said he saw some pretty cool stuff happening. I didn't really get a chance to have a close look around, but I guess there's always next year! The table next to us (Precinct Omega.. above photo) had developed some rules for the Dreamforge figures which we stock, so that was pretty cool!

So yeah, great day! We'll definitely be going next year. I just want to say a big thank you to Michael Stockin of Angel Barracks who organised the show. Also to everyone who bought from us or came along to say hi, thank you, your custom is always appreciated!

Grekwood Miniatures 1st Birthday!

It's apparently been over two weeks since my last post... crazy! I just thought I would talk a little about what will be going on in Grekwood Minaitures over the next few months. Before I start, here's a fun photo some of you may not have seen:

Click to zooooooom

Recently I launched the expansion pack for the hospital. It's been a long time waiting so I am happy it is finally out there! I also uploaded the mini dinosaur I sculpted to the website. He can be found in the "Critters" section.

Birthday!
On the 27th of this month it will be Grekwood Minaitures 1st birthday! To celebrate this, I will be releasing the "Grekwood in a Fez" tribute figure (sculpted by Inso) on Monday the 22nd. It will be a perfect way to celebrate the 1 year birthday and it will also serve as a reminder to everyone of why Grekwood Miniatures is here.

£1 from each sale will go to the CGD Society.

Grekwood Minis is Growing!
I have quite a few figures coming out over the next few months. These include the one's mentioned above, along with "The Tenderiser" (marketed as "Hammerman"), Bexi Warrior Princess, and Alliwen the Space Ranger!

I also have 4 werewolves which can be interchanged. I am still trying to work on a price for them. They cost quite a lot to produce because they are quite large and chunky. They are meant to be for 28mm scale figures, but they are 40-45mm tall (equivalent of 8 or 9 feet tall). I plan to bring out more arms for them at some point.

I am also working on some extra figures for the Bioblyte range. This will involve one pack of figures similar to the armless guys, but this time less bulky torsos, and arms which have claws on the end. A second pack will be like the Bioblytes themselves, but holding weapons rather than them being integrated. They will also be less bulked out.

15mm Buildings and Roads
I am finally working on building/altering the buildings for 15mm scale. This means reducing the files sizes by roughly 60%, and then tweaking the files to make them more suitable. As the walls are not as long, it means some walls can be connected together making less parts. They will be based on 3mm foam board which is weirdly super cheap on eBay. I found 10 A3 sized sheets for £9.99 (bargain!).

So if you know of anyone who is wanting some 15mm stuff, then send them our way!

Ok that's all for now, cheers for reading!

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...

 

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:

 

 

 

 

 

Supreme Dalek Princess

I have released to the world of Facebook my Supreme Dalek Princess! Here she is below:

I'm happy with how she has turned out, and Bexi (who it is based on) seems to be very happy and excited about it too, so yay! 

I have one last figure to complete (the 9ft tall man with an axe/hammer thingy-ma-bob). He is coming along nicely, and I am aiming to finish him by next week. Then, it's off to get them moulded along with the Grekwood Mini sculpted by Inso. Hopefully if all goes to plan, these will be available in time for Christmas.

In other news, the Hospital PDF has now be adjusted for American "Letter" size paper. I never thought about converting it from the UK paper size until the other day, as a customer from America bought everything hospital related on my website, so I decided to re-arrange some of the longer printouts so that they fit on American size paper.

So for future note, if anyone from America reads this, the PDF is now available in "Letter" size!

Finally, zombie progress is...progressing. I have focused my time on getting the big 45mm guy and the princess finished so they can go off for casting. But as soon as they are done, I'll be back onto the zombies.

If you haven't already, sign up to the newsletter too (if you want!).

Cheers...

28mm Scale Hospital Almost Ready!

This is my 40th post. I didn't realise I had posted 40 already! Seems like only yesterday I arrived at blogger.

Hospital PDF
Yesterday I started some work on the hospital building documentation. I really want to just get this sorted and online. So I spent most of yesterday doing it and I managed to finish the instructions for building the ward. Only bits left are the roof, and the joining hallway which I will do in the next day or two. I'm hopefully looking at an upload of the PDF files (there will be 2) next week, early if possible.

When I say 2, I mean one set of instructions, and then another file with all the printouts. The documentation is long, but it is a step by step guide which has step by step photos. Hopefully this will make it easier to follow and construct. I plan to release the hospital as just a building, so no interior furniture.  One day I plan to create some resin furniture to be released at some point in the future but for now I want to get this done quickly as I want to "move on" from the hospital setting and onto different things!

Here's a photo example of one of the steps, so you can see what I mean. I photographed it on my pool/snooker table. I thought the green worked well hehe

Grekwood Sculpt, Dalek Princess and more!
I have decided that when I get the Grekwood sculpt cast, I will put him in a mould with the Dalek Princess (in previous post), 8 figures from a new range, which will include a horse, and then maybe an extra one or two "special" figures, possibly zombie related. No idea when this will be done though, but if I work hard I can aim to get it done before Christmas. When casting figures I tend to fill up the mould as rubber for the mould is very expensive, and it just works out cheaper this way (which as a new hobby/business I need to keep costs down). Maybe when I am established like the big companies out there, I can bring things out quicker! I'm currently working on another 16 zombies, so I will work on everything else here and there.

In case you didn't see my last post, here's the Dalek Princess I am talking about.

Click to ZOOOOM

Kate - She's on TV!
I realised I never gave an update about Kate. Her liver biopsy was confusing and didn't specifically pin point anything. So they gave her some steroids (not those anabolic ones!), and that seems to be bringing the levels down.

On a plus, she went to Tenby (South Wales) yesterday as she is filming as an extra in a TV series which I think will air next year. So gotta watch that to see if I can spot her!

Long hair no more!
After just over a year, I got my hair cut. I went from a pirate look, to more of a Dr Who look, something in-between the current doctor (Matt Smith) and the previous one (David Tennant). It took around an hour to cut (longest it's ever taken). I apparently had so many kinks in it that they had to use a hair dryer (to dry the water they put in), then hair straighteners and tons of spray, all to make it easier to cut and help get rid of the kinks! It looks better now :)

Righty oh, have a great day!

Video of the 28mm scale Hospital Building

I have pretty much completed the Basic Hospital and I am pretty happy with the way it's turned out. I was a little bored after I stopped for the day, so I decided to make a video with some interesting music from Mass Effect (first one).

 

 

 

The filming is jumpy, and not "flowy", but it's not meant to be taken seriously, it's just a bit of fun!

 

 

I still have a couple of things to add to the hospital, minor things such as sky lights and roof stuff but by the time I write a new blog it will be complete (that's the plan). I made a mini entrance for this version but I will eventually make a larger entrance/concourse area for bigger versions of the hospital.

 

Ok, so that's all for now. I didn't plan to write a blog today but I couldn't resist posting my ever so awesome (ha!) video hehe

 

On a sad note I have to take my wife to hospital tonight. She needs to have a liver biopsy and will be away for the night (possibly longer...but hopefully not!). Hopefully it's nothing serious and they can sort out why the levels in her liver have been abnormally high the past 2 months. She hasn't been well for the past two month, so I'm hoping this will finally sort things out.

 

So anyway, enjoy the video, and I'll write a new blog in a few days :)

 

Cheers...

 

 

Zombie Sculpts and Buildings!

To kick start this blog I would like to say a big thank you to Inso (Steven Marchant) for sculpting a tribute miniature in memory of my brother Gareth (aka Grekwood). Here's a photo taken from Inso's blog:

Click to zooOOMM

I will be casting him at some point and he will then be available on the website. Because he is a tribute to my brother, I am thinking of donating some of the profits to the CGD Society, that way it not only helps out Grekwood Miniatures, but it also helps out the charity.

Now I have been working on that Hospital again! I have now completed 4 wards. So here is a photo of them all lined up!

In the photo there is a green, grey, blue and pink ward. They can be stacked on top of each other, or laid flat. If laying flat then there should be a gap between each ward (not bunched together as shown) as there should be a courtyard between each ward with trees and stuff. It is designed to be two stories high (ground and 1st floor) as it is bases on Landough Hospital.

Now some sculpting progress: Here are 3 figures I started the other day, so they are all WIP. 2 males and one female in the middle.The sculpting on these is an improvement on the first batch I ever did. I am making things more defined and including all the detail I can such as a zip on the females clothes. 

The butcher (above far right) has sideburns like the butcher from "the league of gentlemen" tv show (picture right). I'm not giving him an axe though... maybe a survivor for one of my later planned moulds (I'm looking at next year for that though).

The females are more "curvy"... she got booty... Again the sculpting (in person) resembles that of resin plastic figures, so I take this as a sign of better/smoother more defined sculpting. These figures are going to be more torn up that the other ones, so representing more walkers and stumblers rather than just walkers.   

I'm working on the basis that it goes: Fresh zombie (runner) > walker > stumbler > Crawler > Corpse (just this time it remains that way!). The further right you go the more damaged they are. I'm thinking of bringing out a "specials" mould at some point. But more on that another time :P

Ok I think that's all for now. Oh housing news, we found a different place, loved it, and went for it. We're in the process of sorting out all the paperwork, but fingers crossed there will be no issues! It has a great sized 2nd bedroom, perfect for taking over as a sculpting/business room :)

Ok now that really is all for now! Comments as always are welcome! Cheers for reading :)