Zombies uploaded!

Last weekend I was a first time trader at Crusade here in Cardiff! It went well, I mean I have nothing to compare it too, but I made a profit, and helped get the name out there a little more, so all is good! The weird thing though was that the items that sell well online didn't sell as well at the show, but the items that don't usually sell much online did really well, so it was strange, but a nice strange.

So with the show out of the way, I have now been able to release the supermarket zombies. If you haven't yet seen them then here they are:

Click pic to zoom in!

 

 

So what am I to do now...

I am currently fixing up the figures which broke in the mould. They are pretty much done, but I decided to make a few improvements to Hammerman, Bexi - Warrior Princess (dalek looking figure) and the small alien. They should be finished off tomorrow as progress today went well.

 

Sculpting A Bust

On a side note, I have decided to try sculpting something a little larger as I feel like a bit of a change. I am going to attempt sculpting a "bust" as I saw a few at Crusade which I thought were awesome. So it'll basically be a head with shoulders, and maybe a bit of torso. I am thinking a zombie who is all torn up and decaying, but I'm not sure. I was thinking of a normal person as well, but a zombie seems to fit in with what I'm doing now. I probably won't sell it unless people really liked it and would want one for themselves, so it's currently just a bit of fun to see how it turns out. Who knows, it may be a disaster!! haha. The head/face will be about an inch tall, so not to huge, but not as tiny as my other stuff.

 

Righty oh then, That's all for now. Maybe some pics of the bust in progress in my next blog. I haven't started it yet... well, I rolled up tons of green stuff and made a head shape, but it's just a round ball at the moment.

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:

 

 

 

 

 

Coming up in 2013

Happy new year everyone!!! Ok, this is a very text-y blog, outlining a few of the things I have planned for the coming year. There is more planned but that'll be announced nearer the time when work begins on it. So for now, here are a few things to look forward to :)


1. Go to Crusade (not that type of crusade... it's a war game show in Cardiff).

2. Launch Supermarket zombies (They will launch at Crusade, and will be available on the website after that).

3. The NEW hospital bed undercarriages will also launch at crusade and will be available on the website with the beds thereafter. A price increase will occur, but it will still be cheaper than a figure.

To help with a comparrison of pricing the beds, heres the calculations:

Our figures sell for about £2.37 each (which is quite cheap-ish in the wargaming world), so for two figures it would cost £4.74 and for 4 it would cost £9.50.

Hospital beds are sold in packs of 2, and currently sell for £2.75 per pack. So this works out at £1.99 cheaper than 2 figures. Also, keep in mind each bed has 2 parts, so you're actually getting 4 parts and not 2.

Each undercarriage (in metal) weighs the same as an average figure. If we sold them for the same price, we would therefore have to sell them for £4.74 (2 x £2.37) and then add the price of the bed part on top of that price.

So per pack, they would cost around £5-6 per pack of hospital beds/carriages.

So back to my main point; Currently (old carriages) sell in a pack for £2.75 (which gets cheaper as the deals get bigger). Which is WELL below the £6. So as they are now costing more to produce, I will have to increase the price. I will most likely make the packs £3.50 which will decrease with the more you buy.

I hope you understand, as I can't make them any cheaper without making a huge loss (which would be bad!)

4. A Supermarket/ local store PDF. Made so you can make it as big or small as you like, with all the extra trade rooms (bakery, butchers etc).

5. Hospital Expansion Pack

Bad news here... I have lost all the files due to a corrupt hard disk. They are the original files that I used to create the hospital. All the colour wards I did have been lost, and the expansion stuff. So I need to replicate everything (rebuild almost from scratch). At least I still have the PDF files for reference which will speed things up immensely. But not to worry, it can be done! (positive thinking and all).

6. Another batch of figures will be started this month. They will not be zombies, well, kinda but not. I plan to do a range of minis, but some of them will be zombie-ish (more undead...same thing?!). More like a walking dead/zombie army (with weapons). So I guess they could be used for zombie games if you wanted to, but they are mainly a walking dead army who are able to fight.

7. More roads! Yes there are more. It's all part of making it super customisable, and you only have to buy the sections you want :)


Ok finally... personal news. Kate (the misses) went into hospital on the 27th of December, but she came home yesterday. She has a hole in her intestine (I know how that feels, I had two back in 2005!). She needs it stitched up, which is scheduled for later this month. She feels fine, which is the main thing, and it'll all be sorted soon. Until then, plenty of rest!

Righty oh then, that's all for now.

Happy new year once again to everyone, and here's to 2013 :)

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!