Update June 23, 2012

Hello all, well it’s been a while since I updated here.  I’d like to say it was because I was doing important stuff but really it’s because real life has been pretty hectic.  But who cares about real life right?  Anyway, if you haven’t noticed I’ve added some new products to my shapeways store.  It’s a lot of stuff that will hopefully make a bunch of people happy. 

See a while ago I got a bunch of requests for shoulder pads and since I enjoy doing them started to fulfill them.  And then a couple weeks ago I read a rumor.  The rumor was that games workshop has finally green lit forge world to do horus heresy era work.  Of course the rumor is probably entirely wishful thinking by the rumor mongers. 

However when I first read it the rumor it made me thrilled.  I mean, real heresy shoulder pads… well official ones at least.  Cool heresy era chain swords and classic heresy designs brought to life.  That would be so cool. Imagine if they pulled out the artwork and actually made some of the cool designs like imperial jetbikes and imperial hover tanks.  It would be totally bad ass.

But then I sort of got mad.  Now I don’t quite understand why everyone isn’t mad.  So GW may have given forgeworld the green light.  But people have been asking for Hersey stuff for decades.  And now games workshop desides to arbitrarily give them what they want.  They’ve had the property for 25 years.  A quarter fucking century they’ve had the opportunity to do cool shit people want and just didn’t.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect games workshop to do every cool idea they get.  But honestly, people told them for two decades! They said “Hey, I have money you can have if you sell me this cool thing you told me how cool it was!” But then games workshop has been like… “Hey thanks but I don’t want to make that so here’s this other cool thing instead… and no one else can make any of that cool thing we talked about so really just buy what I have.”  And of course we just accepted that.

Now I don’t like the idea of copyright infringement.  Sure I believe that I’ve put a lot of work into my models and figure they are really different and unique enough from games workshop’s properties to not be some illegal copy.  But you know I’m not sure I care anymore.  I know my philosophical beliefs won’t protect me in court.  I know it won’t necessarily hold water morally. But you know, games workshop deserves all the copyright infringement in the world.  Their business practices boarder on the unethical at the least.  Their treatment of their fan base just drips with animosity.  And really their design group has its hands tied by the corporate stupidity that runs them.  So basically, yeah, fuck you GW.  Happy 6^th edition people. 

Talk about depressing realization.  I already by most of my stuff used. I’ll stick to that and GW can keep their finecast crap and overpriced plastics.  I’ll stick to buying used and customizing them with shit I print myself.

Anyway I doubt anyone who reads this cares about my moral realizations.  Instead I shoulder talk about my update.

So you got the idea form that that I have basically decided to do some shoulder pads.  Well I should correct you. I have decided to do ALL of the shoulder pads.  Yeap. I’ve spent the last two weeks making templates for about 100 chapters.  The first set of them are now online.  Its only about 20 chapters.  But it’s a start. So what chapters are involved you ask? Well lets see…

We have the Auroras, The Blood Axes, The Blood Ravens, The Consecrators, The Howling Griffins, The Genesis Chapter, The Minotaurs, and the Red Scorpions.  Also included are a couple of custom chapters with icons I divised, including the Comets, Diving Eagles, and Ringed Eagles.  But most importantly are the first founding chapters in this list.  They include the world eaters that I’d done a while ago, the Dusk Riders, and their renamed variant the Death Guard, the Salamanders chapter, and the Alpha Legion.  There are Loyalist versions of the fallen chapters as well as traitor versions which are backed by the star of chaos.  I’ll entertain the idea of adding a chaos star to any of the loyalist armies if needs be but won’t just make them by default.  I mean hey, I’m already building pads for a hundred chapters I can’t be expected to think of everything.

I’ve also been requested to add a new shoulder pad template to the mix as well.  Someone requested more feminine scaled shoulder pads to go with my female marines.  I’ve made a smaller scaled pad in response with a rimmed and unrimmed design.  This is only in keeping with standard power armor designs so no smaller termi shoulders or anything.  Still the design works out well.

I’ve also added another project to my list to go with the shoulder pads. I’ve made a round storm shield template and am slowly making shields for all the armies I make shoulders for. Well new shoulders at least.  I have a 24mm shield and an 18mm shield template. I will likely one day make a 15mm shield as well as more of a combat shield.  The 24mm seems fine in digital theory but is probably too large for most figures other than heroes and terminators. It would also make a good base icon or work really well as an objective marker.  The shields are a bit experimental still I haven’t gotten my first print run so I’ll know more about what scaling I need once I get them.  But for now each of the above chapters has the two shields I’ve mentioned including loyalist and traitor versions.

Another project has come along as well with a harlequin dark elder jetbike design.  It’s a simple face cowling design that I previewed earlier.  I’ve done a 3 up version with a shelled model.  I’m afraid I can’t test the design as I know it prints fine but I have no jetbikes to try it on.  I’m going to move on to doing eldar heads for the same requester as well.

Then of course there is a pet project I’ve been working on.  A storm talon gunship.  That’s right I made a storm talon.  It’s a little twin engine vtol with a split tail fuselage. Front mounted gun turret and side mounted secondary weapons.  The model is shelled to print in FD but due to the limitations of the materials its thick enough it might print in WSF.  I might try narrowing the fuselage in future to both lower the cost and make the model sleeker. I’m also not happy with the turret, it seems clunky and I’d like to improve it.  I have a bubble turret I designed for me unfinished storm raven that will likely be included in revisions.  I might also make specific weapon load outs as single weapon designs might drop the cost by a buck or two.

Well that’s about all for now, I’m going to do some weapon designs and work on my current requests before returning to my arms and a new revision of my backpacks some of which apparently don’t print.

Enjoy the update people and happy 6^th edition.