Aww but closed windows are easier to cast.  

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Might even make me do something with the gazillion ruin sprues I have.

_________________
If using E-Bay use this link to support Tac Com!
'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

I’d definitely love to see modular unruined buildings that fitted in with the existing ruins sprues and they look great. I too vote for open windows as it’s much easier to put a piece of plastic behind them, so long as the inside back it flat anyway.

However to save yourself an expensive print job have you considered maybe converting unruined buildings from the existing ruined buildings and casting those? Someone who briefly posted on the forum displayed some he’d done on his blog like that and they looked great – see here http://diceandmen.blogspot.com/ (scroll down a bit past the dark elder and the salamanders). I PMed him about buying some but he was finding casting tricky so declined, but I’m sure some of you guys here have lots of casting experience and could.

Ok, lets see if I can answer or respond to a bunch of people in one post:


Maybe not, but open windows look better on ruins, IMO.


I assume so, unless someone comes up with a plastic casting machine.


I haven't come up with a good way of handling roof and floor parts. The problem is that there are so many possible ways of arranging the walls that making a roof part to fit every orientation isn't feasible. There's more to it than that, but it suffices to say that in the end, it will be far easier for someone to make their own roof and floors. But don't worry, the walls will be topped with an appropriate strip with crenelations or whatever, so it will look 'finished' after a plasticard tile is set on top of the building.


There are two problems with the old plastic roofs. One is that they don't follow simple spacing ratios (i.e the length of long sides aren't an even multiple of the short sides). The second is that the old roofs were designed with the square infantry bases in mind, and not the slightly larger rectangular infantry bases. The dimension of my parts should be more accommodating to the newer bases (I think).



Both true. Kind of why I asked the question in the first place.


I have actually converted up some extended height ruin sections, but it's not as simple as it may look. The way the details are placed (especially those damned buttresses) makes it very difficult to hide the fact that the the part was cobbled together. Taking the alternative route and using green stuff to fill in the missing parts doesn't feel like a good cost-to-benefit solution. My time is worth more than the cost of printing these things. Also, I'm almost done and I don't want to have to mess with green stuff.

Also, to everyone who has said that they would buy some: great, but I have to finish them first. Then I have to see what it would take to get them cast up. It will still be awhile (if ever). I know that I want so many that simple garage casting won't even fill my own wants, so I may have to investigate some different avenues.

Finally, I think the solution I'm going to go with, with regards to the window/no windows problem, is no windows. However, I have drawn up some insert pieces that can be glued into the openings to close the holes up in a pretty way. If they look as good printed as they do in CAD, they won't upset the look of the inside in any way. And anyway, if those prove too difficult to work with, I can just merge the two parts in CAD, then print up the separate pieces (if worse comes to worse).

Some kinds of plaster-type pastes work well. I've worked with Artestone and gotten good results. You work it like plaster and it costs a lot less than resin.

1. Make model. In this case, it's a single wall.

2. Make a silicon mold. In this case, a one-sided mold is enough.

3. Cast walls with Artestone.

4. Assemble.

Attached is a picture of a gothic building built this way. The roof and floor are 1 mm cardboard. The roof is lined with polystyrene L-profiles to protect the roof cardboard and to look like a bit like a real roof, while providing maximum playability.

Please tell me you make and sell those bad boys to the less crafty among us...?  

If not, I'm definitely keen on the wall sections shown previously. If they go into manufacturem, I'll be ordering.

And, if you do go that way and want some BoLS publicity, I'll happy blog about 'em. Maybe you could send me some preview kit...?  ;)

I think you should do them without a back.

My experience with backs is that they're necessary if the piece has a grid of fine lines, like some of my Kirche pieces. Your designs should have sufficient strength to support either single or double sided mold.

No back, huh?

I dunno, I'm kind of keen on trying to make the parts have the same kind of random-misaligned-brick sticking out on the backside that the old gray plastic ruins had. I think that kind of detail makes the parts look more cool (for lack of a better term).

Also, the ledges that floors would attach to would stick out from the back.

Sorry, I misspoke (or mistyped). What I meant was, no backing to the windows; let light be visible through the windows.

If the advice isn't suitable, ignore it. Having seen your other works, you deserve a degree of trust.

Ah, I gotcha now.

I thought of a side benefit to having window inserts: if a person winds up with extra insert, they can very easily convert up a plasticard building and use them on that, since getting identical windows is one of the more challenging/time consuming parts of making a building from scratch.

And a progress update: I think I've got the wall-top (roofline) parts worked out, now I just need to get the backface details - loose bricks and floor ledges.

Hey hey hey.

The parts to this style of modular building are done. I will try to post renders of them in the next few days. Unfortunately, I won't be able to print them for a few weeks, while my wallet heals from my vacation. I will let you all know when I get them in actual, physical space.

In the mean time I will start working on the next style of building.

Okay, here is the first render, showing the roofline pieces.

Basically, I tried to show what the largest building from SM/TL would look like with my pieces. The long sides are twice the length of the short sides, and 6 strip bases can fit within the roofline (7 square base can also fit, as with the original SM/TL building).

This building would consist of 36 individual facades: a base piece (the first 2 stories) for each of the 12 faces, an upper-story piece (the 3rd and 4th stories) for each of the 12 faces, and finally a roofline piece on each of the 12 faces.

When someone makes one of these in real life, they'll either have to cut out a plasticard roof plate (which will be fairly easy), or they will have to hack the building up to make it look blown out.

I am thinking about having a scribe line on the back of the upper story sections so that people can more easily cut them down to single story height, but I haven't done so yet.

I will mock up some more renders showing what the window and door inserts look like, probably on a smaller building arrangement. Until then, let me know what you think.

I think: AMAZING!  

Keep up the incredible work semajnollissor!

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

I like it!

_________________
"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

Here's a few more detail shots of the same building