Dairy Lea?

A potential new model made from a heightened Dairy Lea Cheese box. I'm playing around with how to have an offset conical roof incorporating a balcony. This is as far as I got.

As always, this would be detailed with beam work, and entrance door, windows and a few other bits and pieces...

For those of you unaware of the chemical goodness that is cheese triangles here in the UK...

 

And it seems that LAughing Cow boxes are the same size...

 

Comments welcomed.

Houses

I'm looking to add to the rage of building kits with a couple of simple house styles. The idea is to use one kit with a few options to create a lot of flexibility for the modeller.

These are based on a McDonalds McFlurry Ice cream cup (its the ONLY reason i went into McDonalds - shudder).  Three different roof designs and three different doors give a range of options.

I would include in the kit enough beam work and windows so that the models fit in with the same style as the others.

Also by applying pillars similar to those on the watchtower you can also do this:

Views?

Hexapossibilities

 I've been playing around with some possible basic shapes for a new model, or perhaps an addition to the Pryn-Gul tower. The future is hexagonal I tell ya! I've tired to provide some random element by offsetting the cylinder of the tower to the hexagon, so its off centre. My thoughts would be to have the kit so it could be assembled either with a pointy roof (pic1), OR with the tower continuing through the slope of the hexagonal roof (pic 3)

What do you think?

Salute 2011 - further pictures

My thanks to Emberbreeze over on the World of Twilight Forum for these pictures. Especially the first one with some photoshop skulduggery.

"Almost Home"

He is also responsible for these 'snaps'. I particularly like the blurred effect from the long exposure times, it makes the board look as though it's stopped in time amidst the bustle of the show...

Thank You Emberbreeze for the pictures and to all on the Twilight stand that made me so welcome and helped me sell stuff, especially Mike and Jules. 

Super Secret Project - XIII - Done?

I think I may have finished...

Lighting isn't the best - will get some better ones taken when I have the time.

Now All I have to do is get the thing there!

See you all at Salute!

Super secret project - I

Shhh - don't tell anyone.

A little something I am playing around with

Shhhh ... i can't tell you anything as this is a super secret project that only Mike Thorp and I know about, and i only have until the middle of April to finish it (so don't ask ...ok?)

First Customer Review

 I was pleased to see a review of my Pryn-Gul Tower kit on the World of Twilight Forum yesterday. Posted by Emberbreeze I have recreated his post with permission in full below.

Well, having got one of Brandlins towers and finally finished building it tonight I thought I'd stick a couple of photos up and give you my thoughts.

Firstly I've done a quick and dirty assembly of the tower, not much in the way of trimming etc. and I have to say I'm still happy with the results. There are some gaps and crooked bits, but that is my assembly not the kit and I made a few mistakes/misreading of instructions before getting the hang of it (always wanting to build not read instructions)

Best bits for me are:
The balcony, which went together really well, is very solid and looks great
The roof tiles, which took minutes to do and look fantastic!
All the details, like the windows and the etching on the doors for adding something extra which would take ages from scratch

Things I'd change:
The top of the roof structre (the cone the tiles are stuck to). I would follow advice I was given {in the assembly instructions - Brandlin} and make my own in card as it is more flexible and the plastic one supplied takes ages to glue and both of mine were a bit skew (not nessesarily a bad thing on a ramshakle roof)
I'd follow the instructions and build the leanto and boxout correctly
I'd glue the doorway arches at the same time as the pillars to avoid any gaps.

Overall, things like having all the beams cut to length is really just convenient, and would save a bit of time from doing it yourself, but things like the roof and all the details are massive timesavers and add something special to a typical building I'd do at home without a kit. I've got the stables on order and looking forward to the staircase which again is something which would take hours (days even) from scratch and not the minutes I'm expecting from the kit, and would almost certainly not look as good either.

If like me your terrible at finishing projects then this is for you, I've got a detailed tower (which still needs some paint) in less than 4 hours (within my attention span!) and for not very much money.

There are more pictures on Emberbreezes original post. Thanks !

I'll take on board the couple of comments about the assembly instructions and make improvements.

Twilight Scenery IX - Delgon Goodness

I was asking Mike Thorp (creator of Twilight) for some more information on Delgon Buildings as I thought I might tackle one of their towers as my next kit.

He graciously sent me these three sketches.

The basic squat regular towers.

I love that bridge with the central turret

That 'inverted buttress' on the overhanging tower is supremely impractical but awesome!

Although both styles are base don cylinders, there seem to be more rules about Delgon architecture than empire ones. They tend to be squatter, and differing diameters of tower are arranged concentrically. Where the Empire buidings grow haphazardly with each family group adding extensions, turrets, and such like using whatever materials are to hand, the Delgon buildings are much more massive and are communal, planned structures. Tucked away in the freezing  Setir Mountains protection from the elements is more important than for the Empire, and so the structures are enclosed. Wood is scarcer in the mountains but building stone is plentiful.

I think these designs lend themselves better to modular components than the haphazard nature of furbarnii empire buildings, so I spent some time CAD modeling and came up with 9 basic structures.

A simple Delgon tower.

Because of the modularity its also easy to invert one of the roof sections to do this.

 

The same Tower with a bulging storey.

And with a bridge added and a little imagination its easy to do something like this.

 

The triple towers of Paygarl!

To give you an idea of scale, the largest of those cylinders is 8" (200mm) in diameter and each storey of the models is just over 2" (55mm) in height.

I'm going to use cardboard postal tubes for the main cylinders and laser cut styrene to form the roofs and shingles in the same way as i did on the Pryn-Gul Tower.

As always commenst suggestions and advice greatly appreciated.

Twilight Scenery VIII - Ta-daaaaa!

I've built the first of the fully laser-cut kits for the Pryn-Gul Tower.

There are a few small changes required to the geometry before I cut the final kits- but that's why you do a test. Overall I am very happy with this, especially the shingled/slated roof and the cut out for the turret section! The Balcony with railing surround also worked well, and is pretty robust!

Here are some overall pictures. I'll take better ones in the next few days along with some close ups. Click the pics for bigger pictures.

 

The blue Pringles tube in the background that you have seen on previous posts was made from hand cut styrene and was a lot harder to put together than the green on which is fully laser cut.

  

Each of the elements of this build is modular and can be placed in any position on the tower. Door canopy, balcony, lean-to shed, brackets, windows, turret, bump-out can all be assembled anywhere on the model or omitted.

The tower is also designed to mate accurately to the Tew-Fah bridge, although I don't recommend blu-tac as a permanent fixing.

  

An empire engineer readies his Derak to blast some unsuspecting Devanu from the Tower's balcony.

Close up of the shingled/slated roof (made from strips of 0.5mm thick precut styrene and glued in place in less than 30 minutes. So much more robust than cardboard and takes paint just as well as plastic figures!

This is what you get in the kit... 2 full sheets of A4 styrene laid out with lots of components... how many components? No Idea! I havnen't counted them yet, but there are lots...!

Big Thanks to Ian (Geronimo) from Fenris Games for his ongoing support in this and for Mike Thorp of Twilight Games for the inspiration and patient replies to my long email!

Tube Overkill

I decided to get some postal tubes as standard sizes to be able to do some varying sized buildings in the same style as the Pringles Tube. I found a supplier that does 2,3,4,6 and 8 inch diameters in varying lengths.

 

I think I may have over estimated the size of these tubes!

Either that or scale-creep has gone into reverse!

The first problem is how to cut them accurately square... panel saw i think... the 6and 8" ones are too big for a hacksaw and with a 3mm wall thickness a modeling knife isn't going to be man enough!

Twilight Scenery VII - A bridge Tew-Fah

I got the test laser cut kit for the Tew-Fah bridge and the Pryn-Gul tower yesterday. This is the first assembly of the bridge alongside an early example of the Pryn-gul tower.

Twilight Scenery VI - WIN A KIT!

I need your suggestions on the next Twilight Building to be modeled and you could  

WIN A FREE KIT!!! 

Ok, so its not THAT impressive, but you'd get my gratitude too!

Some of you may have been following my blatherings about laser cutting as a means of producing model kits, first for sci-fi vehicles and more recently for scenery. Particularly scenery for the World of Twilight game, available from Hasslefree Miniatures. Although these kits are designed to match the style of the Twilight game, they should be suitable for any medieval fantasy setting that likes something a little 'quirky'.

I'm impatiently waiting for the first trial of scenery kits to be sent back from the laser cutter (Fenris Games). This will be the Pryn-Gul Tower and the Tew-Fah bridge. which can be seen in earlier blog posts.

The original idea for this range of scenery for the Twilight Game was to have flat packed kits made from laser cut plasticard which could either be assembled alone (like the Tew-Fah bridge) or combined with a common household item - the Pryn-Gul Tower is based on a Pringles tube. By using items such as the Pringles tube, I hoped to keep the cost of the models down and also to keep the A4-sized flat-packed nature and keep postal costs to a minimum.

The Pringles tube is ideal but I have been unable to come up with other items which would be suitable. To match the style of architecture for the Twilight game and to meet my modeling requirements the items would need to be.

• Cylindrical - A consistent size somewhere between 50mm and 250mm in diameter and above 50mm in height. Maximum height around 300mm or easy to cut accurately. A slight taper to the cylinder is acceptable.
• Cardboard or plastic - plastic should not be of the polyethylene type that even repels superglue, if the plastic feels 'waxy' then its no good. It must be able to be modeled with tools normally available to a war gamer/modeler - ie a scalpel knife, files sand paper clippers.
• Widely available - like the Pringles tube it should be easy to get hold from local supermarkets or other outlets. I'm based in the UK so am initially looking for items available here, though the Pringles Tube is a world wide constant it seems.
• Cheap - again, like the Pringles tube this should either be a container which can be reused or an item that costs no more than £2 to buy. I've considered drain pipes and such like but the problem is most people would have to buy a 6 foot length (or more) in order to get just a few inches, or I'd have to cut and ship it which removes the flat-pack nature.
• Recyclable - Household paint tins have been suggested but the work necessary to clean them up so they could be used for modeling is excessive.
• SAFE

There has been debate about this over on the Forum of Doom, and a number of suggestions made  but none of them have quite hit the mark, household paint tins, GW spray cans, various food stuff containers, CD spindle covers, foodstuff tins etc.

The only possibles so far are mini pringle tubes (why would anyone want to buy fewer Pringles?), Bisto Gravy Granule tubs, and Mini Cheddar / Twiglet Tubs. Unfortunately the latter are only available at Christmas!!

So the hunt is on for suitable components for my next building.

All suggestions welcome and if I pick yours then you WIN a FREE copy of the kit when completed. Please be as specific as possible!

Leave your suggestions in the comments below. Thank You.

Twilight Scenery V

What's in a name?

The tower is modeled on the ancient Pryn-Gul tower which can be found in down town Gar Loren, capital of the Furbarnii Empire.

For centuries the fabled Tuw-Fah bridge has connected  the Pryn-Gul Tower to the barracks complex of the Furbarnii knights.

An artists impression of the Pryn-Gul Tower, showing the Tuw-Fah bridge.

Recently discovered archive plans for the design of the bridge.

Twilight Scenery IV