Some of those are really fantastic. Please let us know your impression when they arrive, as I might pick up a few myself.

Thanks.

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https://www.cybershadow.ninja - A brief look into my twisted world, including wargames and beyond.
https://www.net-armageddon.org - The official NetEA (Epic Armageddon) site and resource.

Yea Im liking what I see. I hate being broke!

Well, I will say that they are very good at updating me on the status of my order. I received an e-mail yesterday that said my items were being printed. Starting now to feel the anticipation of receiving them. I'm as giddy as a school girl.

Coolhand,

I LOVE your work here and I see these becoming part of my future Squat non-aligned Brotherhood. My only request would be to make the "cars" of the landtrain available as singles so I can kitbash them as a 3 car squat landtrain (or 2 or 3).

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MadMagician
Epic Tyranids

These are coming all the way from the Netherlands. I had no idea. UPS says I'll have them next Tuesday.



I agree with madmagician. I would like to be able to buy the "cars" to the train separately too.

I had a knock at the door first thing this morning (Monday) at 8:30 from the UPS guy. A full day early!!

I purchased 1 Komodo IFV (or Gorgon) and 1 Scarab APC. The minis were very well packed. Each mini was in a small plastic bag that had a heavy piece of cardstock folded over and stapled over the opening to seal the bag, much the way a lot of minis are packed these days. The cardstock was shiny white and had the Shapeways logo on it, very professional looking. However, I did notice that the maingun turret for the Komodo was actually packed in with the Scarab. Other than that, the packaging was perfect.

I had both minis printed in "white detail" as recommended by the designer. I have to say that each vehicle looks exactly as shown on the Coolhand Shop site on Shapeways. Since we're talking 6mm, the detail is small. However, it's of the right level for the scale and should stand out nicely once painted.

Since I chose "white detail" as the printing medium instead of "white strong and flexible" for some reason, I expected the resin to be soft and more willing to bend under pressure. However, the vehicles are very solid. The resin is strong with absolutely no give to it. Perfect in my opinion.

Otterman had suggested that the printing quality is poor through Shapeways. Having read many of his posts over the years, I would trust what he says without question. He seems to be very experienced and would be one that would know such things. That being said, I would have to say that I humbly disagree in this case. I think these are beautiful casts. Would they be better in metal, sure they would be. But, I think a lot of that opinion is based on my 30 yrs in the hobby and wanting every mini to have the weight and feel of pewter. I honestly don't think that being cast in pewter would have given them any more detail either.

All in all, very very nice, and exactly as advertised. My biggest complaint was that it cost $25 for 2 6mm vehicles. Would I do it all again? Yes.....! My main concern was learning what I'd get from a purchase like this (through a 3D printing service) and not necessarily price. Where I can't pay $140/Company for 6mm minis (and yes, I love fielding everything in Companies at this scale) the experience showed me that the minis from Shapeways can be of top quality.

My advice to Steve. Have moulds made for you and start a minis company. Your designs are great, you would definitely have a future based on what I've seen here.

Having been so successful on this incursion, I foresee picking up a Growler, T-667, Land Train and Spacetroopers soon. Steve, keep 'em (the minis) coming!!!

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~ Anthony
 

Any chance of some good sharp closeup pics? The designs are indeed nice, but the pics I've seen previously did seem to suggest a rather crude printing resolution. However it is of course entirely possible that they've upgraded their machinery and got some printers that do the designs justice

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Sofa General

Nobody expects the Inquisition!!!
http://theepiclounge.wordpress.com/

I've already thought about it and I am working on it. Unfortunately, I do not have a camera that has good resolution. However, I know how frustrating it is when there are these types of conversations on the forums and no photos posted to aid in the discussion. Therefore, I will try to find someone who has a camera that can do it justice. Please give me some time and watch this string.

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~ Anthony
 

Interesting. Thank you, Mr. Anthony. The engineer in me now wants to contrast and compare your experiences with mine.

So far, the materials I have tried are strong white, and black detail. I haven't tried the material you cited, white detail. Perhaps the discrepancy lies in the materials. Or, perhaps the plastic feedstock or machines are responsible.

Another possibility is shipping differences. When I received mine, they seemed, er, melty. Perhaps my shipment endured an anomalous amount of heat.

Sounds like they screwed up, You should have contacted them for a replacement, i had a part from them that turned out like that too.

White Strong and Flexible uses a process called SLS or selective laser sintering.

As the name implies this is a high temperature process... I'm not entirely sure but i think if a small peice ends up near a much larger peice during creation - they make hundreds of orders at the same time - then perhaps the sintering of the larger part can affect the smaller object or something.

WSF isn't an entirely terrible material however, you can get nice results out of it, its pretty cheap also.

White Detail which i recommend more than another material for these models use Objet, which is more like an inket printer, but it prints out layer upon layer until the model is finished... You should have the same finish from white as black detail or any other colour but i'd just stick to the white... which is infact a slightly translucent beige.

biggest problem with WD, It doesn't take particularly well to photography, hard to light without painting or applying a wash... But the level of detail is impressive, finer detail than you can generally expect from traditional processes.

though its still more expensive than the old fashioned way, I fully expect this process to become more common, perhaps displacing the traditional methods for small scale models within 5 years. Its also fully possible that one day you'll be able to download a digital proto from me and print out as many copies as you want on your own desktop 3d printer.

time to get back to the lab and I'd just like to say thanks to Anthony - who i'd never even spoken to until a couple of weeks ago - for starting this thread, giving my designs a chance and contacting me, starting this thread and so on... i've made a number of new contacts since this thread began. Thanks mate and i'm glad you're enjoying the models.

Just by way of an informal announcement, I actually purchased the designs from Coolhand, and also commissioned a bunch more to round out the range. Hopefully I will have them available first quarter next year. Another thankyou to Anthony for bringing these to my attention.

Great news all around, I'm looking forward to seeing these in metal and the commissions!

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Dave

Blog

NetEA Tournament Pack Website

Squats 2019-10-17

Meh, thrice burned, thrice shy.

I think you're misunderstanding my post... If you don't contact them to complain and get a free replacement then you're basically just burning yourself.

Also, if you've just thrown the parts in the bin or something and moved on, then its not really fair to come in here and say that they've basically ripped you off when they've not had an opportunity to correct the mistake.

It was my pleasure sir! and i'd like to say thanks to Anthony also for starting the thread here.