We’ve bundled up some of our 6mm buildings into packs to make it even easier to create your own desert township. The first pack, comprising mostly dwellings and houses, gets you a dozen buildings for £13, whereas the town buildings pack (workshops, towers etc) has eight of the larger buildings for £16 – both represent more than 10% off the individual prices.
Modelling work on the 15mm Soviets continues apace; in addition to the Kunitsa APC and Laska tankette already previewed, we have the following models ready for printing:
We’re working hard on turning these collections of bits and bytes into resin and metal reality – as expected, not everything has worked first time and we’ve had to get one or two bits reprinted because they needed tweaking (or, in a couple of cases, I managed to destroy them while making moulds …). But we’ll get there.
Following a rather irritating no-show by a customer who placed an order to be collected at Salute, we have a number of sets of our Shapeways Power Pylons available for sale. These can be found on the website, and you can purchase them in the usual way through the shopping cart along with anything else you would like to order.
We also have some water towers – one each of the small, mushroom, spheroid and British. I haven’t added these to the website because there is only one of each, so please e-mail me if you’d like to purchase one of these.
Anyone following the saga of the Maidstone Wargames Society Pegasus Bridge game will be aware that one of the items needed is a German Vorpostenboot (literally ‘outpost boat’). No model of this is available in 1/300th scale, I once again went down the 3D printing route and created a computer model which we shipped off to Shapeways. The finished model has come back and once again we’re more than pleased with what we received.
Unpainted Vorpostenboot
The model was equipped with a selection of AA weapons from Heroics and Ros (thanks to Andy at H&R for sorting out something for the main gun !) and hurriedly painted for a run through of the game last weekend.
Vorpostenboot V 212 Fritz Busse on the Caen Canal
The model still needs finishing with detail painting and ink washes. If there is time I’d also like to give it a crew, but I suspect that pressures of finishing the rest of the models will count against me there.
Ages ago (well, six months-ish) we announced we were going to revamp the 15mm range – essentially scrapping pretty much all of the existing models, replacing them with new 3D sculpts and at the same time making all of the models slightly larger (since we seem to be on the smaller side of 15mm manufacturers).
For one reason or another, this process has taken longer than expected – both technical issues and real-life pressures have taken their toll. We’re hoping to have some initial castings of the rather magnificient M-83 Curtiss Heavy Hover Tank available to purchase at Salute in a few days, assuming nothing else goes wrong (the first mould was damaged when the master model was removed), so we will finally have released the first model in our grand plan.
Next up will be some Neo-Soviets – these are the most popular of our 6mm ranges so it made sense to start here. We have the 3D prints of the first two models already, the Laska tankette and Kunitsa APC, while 3D model of the Bizon tank is about 50% complete.
Once Salute is out of the way, we’ll take a well-earned breather and then crack on with production of these models.
If you want to order any items from our Shapeways shop to collect at Salute, you have until the end of tomorrow to e-mail us with your requirements. We’ll be placing an über-order bringing together everyone’s pre-orders, which should arrive with us in plenty of time for the show. So if you fancy a Pegasus Bridge, or Horsa, our collection of Normandy houses or even some 15mm SF doors, get in quick.
Anyone who’s been following the progress of our Pegasus Bridge game will realise that I’ve had a rather frustrating time getting hold of a model of the bridge itself. The 3D computer model has been submitted to and rejected by Shapeways on three or four occasions, but the Shapeways team have been very helpful in pointing out ways we could fix it, and at last we came up with a set of solutions. A copy of the model finally arrived at Brigade Towers yesterday, and to say I was pleased would be the understatement of the century. Just take a look …
The model is already on the painting table, ready for installation on our gameboards in the next week or two. There are also a bunch of other new items ready for our Shapeways store, but I’ll save those for later this week – I thought Pegasus deserved an entry all of its own.
If you want your own, the model is available for sale now in our Shapeways store. If anyone wants to pick one up at Salute, e-mail us by the end of this week (March 31st) and we’ll ensure one is waiting for you.
More previews today, this time of three fortifications for Land Ironclads or Aeronef. These models have already been moulded and we’re casting tins for a production mould – we’re aiming to release these at Salute in April.
First up is a British tower fortification, based on the designs of the WW2 Maunsell Forts, some of which are still in place off the coasts of East Anglia and Kent. The 3.7″ AA guns on the real thing have been replaced by a pair of our standard British Aeronef turrets for more firepower ! Although designed as a sea fort, the design would look perfectly at home on land as well.
The next one is a heavy artillery fort, with four turrets (this example is fitted with French/Austrian turrets), for maximum destructive capabilty. If the Maginot line had looked like this, Hitler wouldn’t have stood a chance …
Last up, and based on what I think is an image from a between-the-wars toy building set (which I can’t now find), is a strongpoint with a single turret and plenty of firing slits for emplaced infantry.
Another bunch of models have just become available on our Shapeways store – two more Normandy buildings, and three water towers. Yes, three ! Why ? No idea really, I just sat down one day and decided to make them …
The two Normandy buildings are more variations on a similar theme, as I strive to make enough variety to cover my Pegasus Bridge table. All of the buildings in our range are based on real ones that I photographed while on holiday.
Now for the water towers. First, we have a fairly straightforward concrete ‘mushroom’ tower, based on the Roihuvuori one in Helsinki, Finland, although much scaled down – the real thing would be be about 6.5″ high at 1/300th scale !
Next up is a spheroid tower, based this time on one at Darwin Airport.
Finally, and my personal favourite, a British 30s water tower based on one at Tilehurst near Reading, complete with a first floor viewing gallery !
I promise some better photos soon, just as soon as I’ve painted these …
We’ve also been through our entire Shapeways store and reviewed our pricing. In the process we’ve knocked a little bit off the price of just about all of the models, so they’re even better value now.
Salute 2012
We have an ever-increasing number of 3D models on our Shapeways Store which are printed to order – we don’t generally hold any stock. However, if you want to avoid postage costs, we are taking advance orders on these models to be collected at Salute 2012 – just e-mail us a list of your requirements. We will then order these from Shapeways, and you can collect them on the day. Because of the lead-time on Shapeways production, we must have any orders by the end of Sunday April 1st at the latest. You can either pay in advance or on the day – but please note that we can’t offer any discount on Shapeways items. You will be able to see many of our Shapeways creations on the day at the Maidstone Wargames Society Pegasus Bridge game.
The Shapeways Normandy buildings we previewed a week or so back have arrived at Brigade Towers, and we’re extremely chuffed with how they’ve turned out. Here’s a few pictures of the unpainted models, lined up next to various tanks and infantry.
These four models are available from our Shapeways store now. The prices are pretty reasonable, and compared to resin models, these weigh next to nothing and are just about indestructable.
This range of buildings will be expanding pretty rapidly – we need lots for our Pegasus Bridge project ! Expect to see around 15 or so by the end of April.
