Quick update...

Just a quick update so everyone knows what's going on. 
I'm pulling all the errored models offline this week and will be releasing repaired versions next week.  I had hoped to get this done sooner but real life in the form of a holiday and the release of 6th edition has made this to time consuming to get done in a weekend like I wanted. 
All the Star Marine parts on shapeways have been deleted.  I removed torsos and legs at least.  I left the heads for now.   Backpacks are also being pulled this weekend so I can upload their replacements.
Once I've repaired the model designs I'll reupload a new entry for each one.  I will admit that part of the reason I'm deleting is to clear get the models listed on the new entries page again.  But i've never really been happy with their upload.  The models were uploaded a long time ago and have screwy entries.  the back story for the scythes was actually transfered to the model's repair history for a couple of models.  In the end I thought it was just a better idea to start the entries from scratch.
Also removed has been the heavy sheild models.  the 24mm sheilds are to large, i thought they would work but the test prints are way to big.  I know my spacial awareness is screwed up.  I'll be building a 15mm shield instead.  This will be usable for troops and the 18mm shield designed for terminators.  The 24mm shields will be revised removing the mount so they can be used as vehicle icons and game markers, maybe even bases to be honest.
Along with the removal of the damaged models and their relaunch later I will be retiring twp poses.  Standing 1 (at ease), and Running 2 (at charge).  These older poses weren't particularly good and the masters for the poses were lost so I can't improve them.  At a later date I might recreate them as part of my second female marine model designs.
There are a number of models that need repaired but this time i'm focusing entirely on those I broke during the shelling process.

GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!!..

GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!!..
So shapeways has these damned design rules. And among other design rules about size and wall thickness they have rules on the size of drain holes you need in hollow objects.  Well I couldn't find those on their fucking site for FD and FUD so I made what I thought was reasonable drain hole sizes.  Only to find out, nope they are all fucking wrong.  over a hundred god damned models fucking fucked up because fucking shapeways can't write a fucking proper material's information page.  FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So there goes another week of fucking work.
You know what pisses me off most? Its not having to fix the fucking models. I do that in my spare time.  Its not even that shapeways fucking site has important information hidden in the materials section that I couldn't find.  Nope its that since the last revision I have to fucking upload each god damned model one at a fucking time!  I used to be able to load 15 or 20 pages at once and upload to each of them.  Now if you open 2 or more pages they end up cross populating so you get webpages switching windows.  It means I spent 5 days uploading and editing those fucking models.  FUCK!!!!

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.

Update May 24, 2012 (open to requests)

Well I’ve been whining about my hard drive for a month now and I guess I couldn’t flog that dead horse forever.  I’ve reached a point where I feel comfortable saying I’ve recovered everything I could.  Anything else I need to recover will have to be done as needed, generally though scratch build.
So at this point I’m reopening my requests policy.  Some readers might not have heard this so I’ll restate it here. I welcome requests.  I accept requests in all their myriad of forms.  The caveat with requests is an understanding that I am not a professional.  Just like wargaming is my hobby, so too is my 3d modeling.  While I can generally respond quickly getting to the actual modeling can be difficult so I ask for patience.  I do not claim to be an expert, nor do I claim to be perfect.  I will endeavor to be as honest as possible regarding my skill and the cost of items before I start. I cannot guarantee models will be perfect the first try but I will do my best to do so. At this time I don’t charge to design a model, this may change but presently there are no fees.  I do add a small charge to the printing cost of the model and will keep the item available in my shapeway’s store so it can be purchased by others.  This markup fee is used to offset the cost of ordering test models.  I also reserve the right to make derivative works based on a model I create from requests.  To request something you can message me here on my blog or through private messaging on shapeways. 

Presently the only requests I know I can’t fill are vehicles, the cost to print them is prohibitive.  If shapeways or another service ever makes this reasonable I will be happy to do so.  Presently however my landraider design would cost about 500 dollars American to print (about 200 after shelling).  I will also caution requestors about requests for iconography that is the intellectual property of games workshop or their subsidiaries.  While I may still make such icons I will not directly reproduce their icons in their entirety.  There will be differences.  That being said I welcome such designs when GW has not produced products to fill the needs of fans such as chapters and iconography that is only used in print and not in models.  My advice when requesting is to be as direct as possible.  Tell me what you want give me examples if possible.  I won’t tell GW or hold anything against you but I will tell you if it isn’t possible.

I look forward to any requests I get and working with people on new projects.

That being said let’s see what I’ve been working on.

So I’ve had some requests already which have sort of captured my imagination.  Firstly I got a request for one of my favorite armies fluff wise.  I personally have a lot of armies but there has always been something about the Tau that entertained me.  At least on paper.   The current rule book makes them pretty hard to play but their backstory still inspires me.  For The Greater Good!
Well Jimjimjimmyjim, a friend on shapeways, has requested a special stealth suit model.  The Tau stealthsuits are a fun variant power armor with cloaking capabilities.  Jim wants a suit printed in FD/FUD to take advantage of the material’s transparent properties.  The goal is to make a clear model so it appears cloaked on the table top.  Awesome idea.  In the past I’ve seen this done by recasting GW figures in clear resin, but that difficult and time consuming process requires a lot more skill and resources than 3d printing.

So Jim requested I build a Tau stealth suit model based on the XV25 stealthsuit chassis. This is the 3^rd complete figure I’ve designed and the first non-human figure.  The overall figure is up sampled from a model for fallout 3. This got me a basic pose to use. However the detail in the fallout model was marginal so all armor plates have been scratch built along with the arms, legs, and head.  A little less than 25% of the original model remains. The model was modularized to allow for more pose ability than the GW model.  I’m looking to make 2 to 3 leg and arm poses for the XV25.  I’m presently building alternate head and legs to convert the XV25 into the weaker XV15 stealth suit.  Weapon options will include the standard burst cannon and fusion blaster.  Once weapons are completed the model will be available as a single figure  to start followed by a sprue of 3 once designs have been test printed.

XV25 model, in progess.

Not long after getting the stealth suit I got challenged again by JTSexton to do more xenos bits.  This time it was for those vilest of alien raiders, the Dark Eldar.  The Dark Eldar are among the few 40k armies I don’t have.  Well, I used to have.  When the new codex was released I sold off my Dark Eldar models.  Not as a comment on the new codex but because it was a choice of spending countless dollars and hours upgrading my very old army list or find the models a home so they could see play.  I chose to get them homes.  JT is building a Harlequin themed Dark Eldar army.  Harlequins haven’t had their own codex in a decade but I see no reason not to give them some love and a Harlequin themed DE list sounds fantastic.

Now JT had several requests for the army but as I see it they all revolve around one thing, the icon of the laughing god.  Cegorach is the core difference between Harlequins and both Eldar or Dark Eldar.  A long time ago GW made a Harlequin jet bike canopy for their plastic Eldar jetbikes but no such item was developed for the beautiful new DE jetbikes.  So JT’s biggest project is the harlequin canopy.  From this initial icon I can then scale and modify the icon to make custom Harlequin helms and so on.

I started this project in a digital clay modeling software called Sculptris.  Sculptris is free and lets me start with a human face model and let me distort it like I would real clay sculptures.  From here I export into sketchup and modify the model by mirroring the design for uniformity.  Using measurements JT got me from the DE jetbike canopy I then scaled and distorted the mask shape I had made. I’ve subdivided and scalped the edges of the face to make the canopy less organic.  Next I’ll introduce the blades and modify the underside to mount on the existing jetbike chassis.

The face used as the basis for this design will then be reused as a mask to make a harlequin jetbike rider helm.  Also on the docket for this project is a series of thin chain blades for the elder and a harlequin’s kiss because the weapon just entertains me.

Cegorach Face Icon, Jetbike canopy in progress.

Just in this past week I’ve also got requests for a master crafted bolt pistol based off my current bolt pistol designs,  a preheresy chain axe, Storm Raven shoulder pads, and Red Scorpions Shoulder pads.  As I said if you want to add to my workload drop me a line here on my blog or on http://www.shapeways.com/shops/dynath.

What’s in my personal cue?  Well expect me to focus more on single projects so that I complete entire concepts to avoid loss due to hdd problems.  The first is minor revisions to the Scythes of the emperor line including the revised arms I’ve promised.  Also I intend to complete my Golden Legion figures I’ve been working on for forever.  Further down the road another custom chapter, the Emperor’s Tide, including aquatic space marine equipment hehehehe.  And eventually my first custom race for 40k, the Auspicis of Mu… And along the way with all this I’m going to work on some new ranged weapons and some melee weapons so stay tuned…

Recovery Update...

Ok, so its been a bit over a week since I lost my hard drive.  I've managed to recover a handful of files. Most importantly I recovered some older master files for my female star marines.  They were the most daunting thing to have to rebuild.  The older masters are missing a lot of revisions from the feet and neck line but are otherwise fairly well intact. I'll have to do a lot of work if I decide to make new poses but it will make revisions easier having something to start with.

Also recovered were the masters for most of my older weapons.  This includes the originals for my powerfists, swords, and glaive designs.  Unfortunately the last revisions of both of these is lost.  However all of these designs were already uploaded to shapeways.  In theory to reproduce them I can just download the STL from shapeways.  The time consuming issue is that I use a lot of modular parts.  Without the master files I have to reproduce these parts before I can make new models in the same line.  For example, the Glaive designs I recently uploaded all used the same handle.  This handle was a uniform element I designed once and then copied into each model.  If I want to make a new type of glaive or other pole arm that uses the same handle I'll need to either duplicate the handle or recover the handle from an existing model.  Obviously recovering the part from a model is much easier for simple models like weapons. For complex models this doesn't work very well.  For instance, my female marine's leg armor is a single piece of the leg model. It rests like a pant leg over my posable female model.  Because the leg armor clips over the base model's leg it becomes difficult to seperate the geometry of the two.  This is made even harder because the leg models have thousands of polygons compared to the few hundred on the weapon handle.

So basically what this means is that a lot of my simplier models are recoverable though it will take some time.  The more complex models are not recoverable. I'll have to redo them mostly from scratch.

Using this method I've already rebuild my shoulder pad template.  I had previously loaned copies of my shoulders masters to another shapeways designer and he was kind enough to return copies of the originals.  I still had to make some scratch changes but was able to make a new master file to work with. I've already uploaded some shoulder pads using this new master. I'm also well on my way to rebuilding my arm template.  I unfortunately lost all of the mark 2 arm masters along with my mark 1 template for the artificer arms.  The basic arms though I was able to recover.  Using modified versions of the basic arms I've been able to rebuild a basic master of male and female arms.  Once a master containing all the essential arm parts is complete I'll be able to pose the arm and generate sprues from a variety of poses.  Along with the mark 2 arm sprues I lost I had been working on new powerfist designs.  I fully intend to use the new sprues to create my next generation power fists.  So with luck and time I'll be able to complete some of the new fists as well.

Unfortunately there are a lot of items I can't recover.  My upgrade sprues are almost entirely lost.  I had been working on them off and on for ages now.  Because I hadn't finished I had never uploaded them which meant my only copy was on my computer when the hard drive failed.  The only upgrade I can salvage for sure is the crusader upgrade which is still poorly scaled.  I'm still digging through backups to try and find my death cult assassin upgrade sprues, I already uploaded the weapons at least.  My Adeptus Arbites upgrade was nothing more than a shotgun and a head but the head is lost not so i'll have to start that one over too.

Along with the lost of my upgrade sprues my new bolter models are gone.  I'm not particularly worried about the classic bolters I had already uploaded.  I can recover them from the models on shapeways. However I'd like very much to have a copy of my advanced bolter designs. I had intended to make a storm bolter design to go with the set and probably a heavy bolter.  Unfortunately they are gone.  As with my legs scenario the advanced bolter is a pretty complex design I might not be able to recover.  Only time will tell.

The worst official loss is my exo armored terminator.  I've been able to recover an unfinished torso version that I scrapped a long time ago.  However the current incarnation of the model is lost.  I will have to pull it down from shapeways to work with it.  Unfortunately the shelled model on shapeways is to complex to salvage individual pieces.  As such I won't be able to make new leg poses for the model without scratch building the leg template again.  This is a daunting task that i'm not up for at the moment.  I'll instead stick to recovering the easier models at this juncture. 

My hope is to have the worst of the losses replaced and back on track to take requests by the end of May. Until then I'm not going to be revising models.  I do intend to adopt a workflow that uploads models sooner. this loss has reminded me of the importance of backups. As such expect to see a lot more models in the experimental category on my store.  Most of these will be kept there for a while in order to iron out bugs and prepare them for a final release. Hopefully between this and the new external hard drive I bought I wan't loose any more precious master files.  Time will tell.

For those interested checkout the new World Eater (Planet Devouerer) shoulder pads I put up.  they turned out nicely for the work I had done on them.

So monday night I had a hard drive failure on my laptop where I do most of my work. I'm still trying to take stock of what has been lost but it appears I've lost aproximately 3gb of models.  This includes the master models for my female marines, most of my new weapon sets, the jet bike, my half finished upgrade sets and pretty much anything I uploaded after febuary of 2012.  The biggest loss at this time is the female marines which had been revised heavily since my last backup.  Also of important note is the revised master files for my arm sprues. I had mostly finished revising them into seperate varients and now those master files are lost.  Conservitively I am guessing this will put my modeling back several months... sad face...

Update April 24th 2012

Well I've been on a bit of a roll for the last couple of days. I’ve built a few new ranged weapons to go with the large number of melee weapons that I uploaded last week.  The bulk of the work I’ve done though has involved updating a multitude of my ranged weapons.  I went back and measured my test prints in WSF for my bolters and related weapons.  My master model in sketchup was scaled perfectly to match the rogue trader era plastic bolters I had on sprue. Unfortunately the STL files I had uploaded had a scaling error that made them approximately 15% larger. I believe this is because of the old process I used to use involving the software Cadspan.  Cadspan is hard coded to use inches as its measurement while I work in millimeters.  The result is a bit of scaling when I moved between these softwares.  The same can happen going between Meshlab during a shell operation.



When it comes to gluing miniatures together the 15% difference doesn’t mean much.  On standard weapons like the bolt rifle or “gyrojet rifle” it adds a quarter of a millimeter onto their thickness.  Tiny. Larger weapons like the multi-melta or “thermal cannon” have a more significant millimeter added onto their thickness.  Unfortunately 3d printing is a cubically priced so that 15% adds approximately 2 bucks to a printing in FD and nearly 4 in FUD.  This significantly drops the price of some products in the detail materials.  Unfortunately it also means that printing in WSF could fail.  I’ve disabled the Strong and Flexible line of materials.  Looking at WSF next to FD its clear the quality difference is worth the price. Of course if people want to gamble on WSF they can email me to request I turn on the material but I take no responsibility if it fails, often my designs are to detailed to print in WSF anyway.



I also took the liberty of removing weapon grips on most of my ranged weapons.  Unless the weapon grip is specially designed for the weapon there is no point.  Nearly half of the errors I’ve fixed over the past 6 months occur due to thin walls on the weapon grip.  Between the shear amount of work they have caused me and the fact that most people will cut the grips off to put them on a model anyway I’ve just decided to get rid of them.  At some point I’ll probably make a generic weapon grip that passes wall thickness so it can be mounted on any gun.



I modified pretty much all of my weapons this way.  This has resulted in a buck or two drop on pretty much everything with some of the larger weapons dropping closer to 3 or 4 bucks.  Of course this is a double edged sword, though the price dropped it limits the miniatures to the frosted detail range of materials which cost more to start.  It is seriously making me consider increasing the amount of weapons in each model, with the annoyingly high 5 dollar startup 5 weapons per model sets the price a bit high.  I know everyone would love to get more for their money but I’m not sure.  If I make models with too many parts in them I’ll never recoup the cost of my test prints.  I’ll have to think about it a bit longer.



So along with my revisions I also got some ideas for some new weapons.  I dusted off some common 40k weapons I’ve had half finished for a while.  These include flamers, heavy flamers, heavy bolters, arbites shotgun and infernus pistols. These guys are properly scaled the first time so I won’t need to go back and fix them for miss-sizing.  Of course once I start working I have to go overboard, so I also build a couple of new designs.  I designed a weapon I call a magnetic accelerator rifle designed vaguely off of a description from a star wars novel.  Its stout and rounded which makes it a bit bulky but still a good design.  What I spent the most time on though is my “advanced gyrojet” designs.  I started looking at the basic bolter design I originally duplicated and considering how it would evolve.  So I built a futuristic bolter design. It has some curves and is thinner and employs a modular tac system.  It sort of reminds me of a hybrid between the hk-36 and a bolter with some more rounding done to make it sleek.  I put together a couple of different designs, including the basic assault rifle design and an a sniper rifle.  The assault rifle includes the standard sickle clip and a modern sight design as well as a variant with an attached bayonet.  I also made a squad weapon with a box magazine and shell catcher, this variant has a mechanical aim assist on its barrel, I envision it as a tool to prevent muzzle rise.  The sniper rifle includes a traditional long range scope and a bipod for those dirty jobs. Its design is clearly related but much longer and more imposing. 



Well the new designs are up as well as the revisions.  If you get a chance check them out.  What’s next? Well blog wise I want to put up some more back story for my army designs and hopefully work my way around to getting some rule ideas for count’s as for them up.  Model wise, I’ve got a lot of revisions to do.  Along with my scaling issues I’ve discovered that my arms need heavy revision, I’m blowing out my arm designs into both male and female variants.  My current designs are scaled closely to what I intend to do for female marines.  A new variant with thicker arms and hands will be for males.  Further I’ll separate the hands from the arms allowing for variant hand positions.  The exception to all this will be the power fists line which will maintain their integrated hands by necessity. Unfortunately shelling power fists has proven to be too problematic.  As such they will generally remain solid but I plan on using extra detail to thin the designs.