My life fades. The vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos... ruined dreams... this wasted land. But most of all, I remember The Master Caster. The man we called "Otterman." To understand who he was, you have to go back to another time... when the world was powered by the silver metal... and the gaming tables sprouted great cities of pipe and steel. Gone now... swept away. For reasons long forgotten, two mighty legal tribes went to war, and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without the metal they were nothing. They'd built a house of straw. The casting machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked. But nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. The cities exploded. A whirlwind of casting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men. On the Internet, it was a white line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to use MoI would survive. The casters took over the forums, ready to wage war for a tiny tank. And in this maelstrom of decay, ordinary men were battered and smashed... men like Otterman... the warrior Otterman. In the roar of a C&D, he lost everything... and became a shell of a man... a burnt-out, desolate man, a man haunted by the demons of his past, a man who wandered out into the wasteland. And it was here, in this blighted place, that he learned to live again.

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Adeptus Monk-anicus
Direct Fire! My Epic Blog
My Trade/Sale List

No that's all FAKE NEWS. And even if that was true, it was someone else. And they did it worse. And... Obama

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He's a lawyer and a super-villian. That's like having a shark with a bazooka!

-I HAVE NO POINT
-Penal Legion-Fan list
-Help me make Whitescars not suck!

Aw, it wasn't that bad.

But it was a good read.

So, I got interested in 2004 while Jervis J was busy creating Epic Armageddon and posting his design notes online. I really liked his logic, and the appeal of zillions of tanks and dudes was very appealing.

I bought the rules and starting collecting the current and old 6mm FW and GW stuffs. One thing that bothered me was the new Armageddon pattern basilisk. The gun enclosure wasn't proportioned or sized correctly; and what's more, there was no Medusa variant. I decided to change that.

My first attempt was an abysmal try at traditional sculpting, but I sucked. Even the very supportive TacCom couldn't muster an "aw, at least you tried" pity post.

Finnegan begin again.

Perusing the Space Ranger spaceship mini site, I came across Todd Boyce's With Hostile Intent line of ships. Todd had mastered the Rhino 3D program and purchased a very fancy 3D printer that could print in jeweler's investment wax. He had figured out how, with the aid of a goldsmith, to investment cast an actual 3D design in bronze.

Next steps: learn to design in 3D, find a 3D printer.

*Gets settled in with a hot chocolate and listens in rapt awe*

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Adeptus Monk-anicus
Direct Fire! My Epic Blog
My Trade/Sale List

This was before Shapeways, but there were enough professional 3D print houses for me to find something suitable.

I also tried demo versions of different 3D programs and ultimately settled on Moment of Inspiration, or MoI (http://www.moi3d.com). It was cheap ($100), had STL output, and a very friendly user interface. Bingo!

Incidentally, MoI has added features and gotten more expensive.

At the same time I was also teaching myself how to make RTV silicone molds and pour resin. This would prove useful in learning about undercuts, minimum and maximum piece sizes and geometries, and whatnot.

Next step: vulcanized rubber molds and spincasting.

You don't get to know about that. Suffice it to say that I know how to spincast pewter.

I recall an outfit called print-a-part that did what shapeways does now, just without the webstores.

Also, I recall that engineering firms frown on junior engineers using work time to design alien bunkers. But autocad does quite well with 3D design if that’s all you have access to.

Yes indeedily doodily.

Here's a picture of the investment cast of the gun enclosure.

And here's a picture of the Epic Armageddon Basilisk that I didn't like. And don't like.

I've got a bunch of those enclosures!

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Dave

Blog

NetEA Tournament Pack Website

Squats 2019-10-17

And just the enclosures. It's a terrible looking army.

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Adeptus Monk-anicus
Direct Fire! My Epic Blog
My Trade/Sale List