That makes a lot of sense, I'll change the pictures when I get back home.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Necrothread time!!


Having recently co-produced a new plastic bases sprue with Vanguard, I got to thinking what else could be done with (moderately) low budget plastic tooling. The UK-based toolroom has been tested, with the bases sprue, so turnaround time would be more like 6 weeks than 3 years on this one, ho ho ho.

How about, a plastic buildings sprue, that's designed to be modular, with roof (or industrial wall?) details on the flipside of the panels?

It's designed to glue together at 90 degree angles (a bit similar to the Mantic Games plastic terrain kits I designed for them a while back), and is stackable / usable to make very large buildings if you want, or make a full "cityfight" or "hive" table, etc.

It'd take a small crowdfunder to fund the first sprue, and I can re-use parts of the tooling setup for subsequent sprues, cutting the cost of further sprues by ~30%. So a moderate response could fund lots of new terrain, given the panels are two-sided.

The panels are 5cmx5cm.

Designs are conceptual, not final, just to give an idea of what can be done.

Price, probably ~£1.75 a sprue.

Any interest?

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Nice idea, I'd potentially be interested in picking some up (I want to make a city and industrial gaming table late in the year or possibly next year, depending on finances).

The fanblade looks fine but doesn't seem to make sense to me - what would it be blowing / cooling? Particularly as it'd be repeated often. Still, it could be switched for something else industrial or bulkhead like (look to the old Necromunda plastic bits say) easily enough. I'd prefer more gothic style architecture and a higher level of detail on them too, if this is feasible with the technology for the production.

Sensible point on the fanblade, could easily change that.

My idea was to do a "mixed" sprue first with a variety to choose from, and then do "theme" sprues for stretch goals. So a "gothic" sprue, a "Skinners" sprue, a "Cybershadows" sprue, etc.

Level of detail is somewhat limited (tho it's capable of a little more than I've pushed it to here) because it's done with drilling rather than the more detailed electrode technique we used for the 6mm armies sprue, but one thing we can do is run a post-process on some of the walls to give them a rough stone-like texture...?

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Sounds cool, sign me up

The top left sprue with the repeated pattern - could it be more easily breakable into 4 sub-squares? That way it becomes easier to build more interesting shapes than perfect cubes - eg, a half-with section as enpoints for a smaller, rectangular house, or half-height sections interspersed with full-height sections to create some visual interest on taller structures.

Due to the limitation on moulding area available in the tool size I've selected, plus the need for sprue runners that also take up tool space, probably not. I'd could do 3 quarter sized panels in the space available there, maybe.

A sprue with 2x double-height (or double-width) panels could easily be workable, though.

Another thought I had was that a "gothic" sprue could be 3 standard size (double sided) wall panels, and 2-3 flying buttresses / other add-on details in the space where the 4th panel would have been. Don't know if people would maybe just prefer more wall panels for their cash, though.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

If you can deliver something like that, at that price, then yes.

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

Hitting a cheap price is important to me- I want them cheap enough that people can buy a whole table's worth of tall buildings, which in resin buildings would be very expensive.

For those interested: What would be more interesting as stretch goals, "mixed" sprues with a variety of design styles (as with this concept sprue above), or "theme" sprues that fully flesh out one theme at a time?

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Would it be possible to "score" top left panel at the break point between the two rows of windows so we can either snap it there or cut through easily to make single story stuff? maybe even some kind of decorative strip around the roof area or the ability to have a lip around the top just to make them more interesting.

Right now I find them much too limited in the size and shape of buildings you can pull off to be that interested.

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-Vaaish

Could the top left piece be split into two single level ones maybe? Each would still have a sprue connector as now. They could then either be used single level or glued on top of each other to be the same height as the others.

I'd go for themed sprues as stretch goals I think, though either could work. They can have detail on both sides yes? So most of them could be used either way around for greater variety.

A gothic piece with a circular stained glass windows taking up most of the middle of the top story could look good for one of the gothic ones.

Yes that's most likely possible on both counts.


Keep feeding me suggestions. :-)

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Yes, tho I'd probably want at least two panels on each sprue to have roofs on the reverse side.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Really cool idea, I might be interested.

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Flickr|Flickr#2|Brickshefl
"There ain't no thing as enuff dakka! Enuff's more than you got, an' less than too much, an' there's no such thing as too much dakka!"

I would definitely be interested.

Please don't default to a gothic style. Done. To. Death.

Would prefer theme sprues to mixed

If you can design (at least) one panel in each quartet that can be cut or snapped into smaller segments, that would be amazing.

If you could make them slightly larger than "normal" 6mm scale you might future proof them against the rumored 8mm Titanicus reboot and might draw in some Dropzone Commander 10mm scale guys.

Would vastly prefer kickstarter to indiegogo or any other service. I have actively avoided registering for other services as it's just too much to keep track of.

As a possible stretch goal, do an additional sprue in each theme with "accessories". This is where buttresses would go. Ventilation systems. Street lights, fuel tanks, oil pumps, pipelines, skyways, etc...

As a stretch goal, or part of a base set if you can swing it, could you do an "adaptor" for connecting the walls in concave corners so there isn't a gap.

If all of that was implemented, I would easily drop a couple hundred dollars on the project.

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Thanks,
Troy


Once Upon a Midnight Dreary....

I'd take a pile, and prefer to skip the gothic theme too.
For my taste, best would be something that could be painted as European contemporary city blocks, but industrial is good too.

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Let there be code.