Project Updates

So to get a few things in order on this blog first. A few project updates.

The 3D Printing Project
...is dead. That one 3D printer I bought and was getting super excited about turned out to be a completely terrible experience. I was expecting something completely different. I was not expecting ultra-high definition or near invisible print layers, but I was expecting something that would print items and didn't need to be calibrated 10 times between each quasi-passable print. I was expecting something a little more user-friendly and a device that didn't need an degree in engineering to operate properly. I now realize that what I am looking for is way out of my price range.

So I cut my losses on the printer, and sold it on ebay as-is for about 70% of what I paid for. I may get into 3D printing still in the future, but right now it is out of reach. At least I tried. I really really tried. It was a bitch to work with, but I tried. The technology just has not caught up to the user friendly+quality level I was looking for.

Adventures of a C.P.A.
That campaign ended its season 1 with a lot of surprises. Flint had been working on a personal project this whole time, a giant clay golem that he bonded to his mind for control. This office worker/wizard was pushing his limits with the project, and thanks to constant help and knowledge from 'Tim', he was able to get a working model. The golem came into play during the season finale. A lot of buttkicking needed to be done, and with the help of the golem, Flint was able to carry himself in a fight. Until the very end.

It turns out an ancient presence was trying to break through the world, and all the magic use was gearing toward that. A sacrifice must be made every seven years. The 7th son of a 7th son is to be sacrificed to keep the current status quo. There were groups who wanted it to happen, and groups who didn't. With one, things would remain as they always have. With the other a change would occur in the world, we were just not sure what that chance would be. Flint is the 7th son of a 7th son, and knew what he must do. It was either him be sacrificed, or a little boy they had helped previously. He offered himself as a sacrifice, bled out into the swirling portal below in the Sears Tower, and died.

He then awoke. However he did not wake in his flesh. The surroundings were familiar to him, but the body was not. He found it was a body of clay. A body sculpted by an amateur sculptor, and runes inscribed allover to give it animation. The runes were his. The body was his golem.

End season 1.

Stay tuned for season 2 in a few years... hopefully.

Star*Drive Stuff
Speaking of seasons; after the modern fantasy campaign, we went back into another fantasy campaign that we started before. Sort of a science fantasy campaign I came in on halfway through before the adventures of Flint Richards. Our groups intention is to finish this campaign up, tie the loose ends, reach the epic conclusion, then it will be my turn to GM.

I am excited because I will be running a campaign in one of my favorite settings of all time: Star*Drive. Our intention is to use the FATE roleplaying system for some good narrative action. The group so far likes the idea of being a band of outlaws from their patron nations, and trying to survive and make a living in the Verge. I will keep this blog updated when we get to start that campaign with some developments.

Other Projects of Jarom and I
Jarom and I are still flexing our creative muscles on the various ideas and projects we have rolling around in our heads. He's still sketching and we're still brainstorming. However the Warhammer bug has bit him too. His attention has been focused lately on his Orks, and he has built quite a collection of them. Like me, he's really into conversions, and I will be featuring articles about his works on my other blog.

BIG NEWS: 3D Printer Update

That's right. An update on my long awaited 3D printer projects. I got the money needed and was able to put in an order for one. This is really exciting for me because I will finally be able to get started on all my projects I have been planning. A few things:

My printer wont be here for about 2-4 weeks. They have to assemble it before they can send it.

It won't be a Makerbot. The Makerbot, while a very good machine, has been getting increasingly expensive. As new editions came out, the price kept going up significantly. The cheapest version of their latest model is $2,200. So I am opting for a Solidoodle 3. It is capable of the same printing resolution and is only $800.

My little thermometer image to the right of this page has been removed. I may put something there again related to printing, like an image that links to what I am currently printing.

Once it gets here you can be assured that I will keep you all updated on the process for getting it setup and running my first print. I have no shortage of things I want to try printing, so you can expect this thing to be in use a lot.

This picture is a screenshot of only a portion of the things I want to print. Most all of them are links from Thingiverse.

On 3D Printing

I have been following the progress of 3D printers for a while now, since about the inception of the old RepRap, the open source printer that was lauded to be able to print a copy of itself (which is not true, you could print some of the pieces, but much still needed to come from conventional means, but it's still fun to think about). Especially the progress of the Makerbot. As many of you know I have been saving money to buy one. There are other 3D printers on the market, and I have looked into several, weighed the pros and cons, and carefully considered them all, and I just keep returning to the Makerbot.

Well they announced the latest model, the Replicator 2, which has an amazing software suite (which is one of the important factors for me) and now has an excellent resolution, of 100 microns. When printing things for games and toys, resolution is important. 3D prints of this method would form this ribbed texture, or ridges, from the layers being built up one small later at a time. Low resolution prints have thicker layers, therefor more ribbed texture, therefor less detail. High resolution prints have thinner layers, and therefor less ribbing, and a smoother appearance. 100 microns is a lot. For personal home 3D printers, that's a milestone. All other printers on the market can achieve this with careful calibrating and sometimes special tooling, but with the new Replicator 2 it is built right into default mode. This is very attractive to me.

Unfortunately there is a downside to this: expense. As Makerbot is upgrading their models, the price is rising higher and higher. My savings goal was $1800 to buy one of these, but now with this newer model it will need to be $2100. When I first started this little fund, the saving goal was about $1500. It's a shame because as I slowly build the money, the goal keeps getting farther and farther away. So I will have to get a loan to buy one.

I wanted to seriously avoid getting a loan to buy one because you generally do not want to take out loans to get things you do not really NEED. I have some plans of turning one of these into a small business, and even prototype products I would like to get made in much larger quantities, so my thinking is this will eventually hopefully turn into a business, which would justify the loan part. However, I still would like to avoid getting the loan because if my little venture amounts to nothing then I merely ended up with a cool toy. Now the risk with taking a loan is if it fails, I have a cool toy, and a monthly bill.

So Beth and I have decided to get to a certain point with our finances, which will hopefully be soon, use the current money I have saved up to help reach that financial safe point, then take out the loan. I can promise you that when I do get it, this will be ground zero for an explosion of cool stuff and projects I make with it.

For right now I will keep the little thermometer to the right up, but not updating the number anymore. It's to be a reminder for me.

Facility: Room Tiles

In one of my last Wednesday posts I talked of making games with 3D printers, and I announced my project; Facility - A Wartech boardgame. That was also when I talked of a great in-browser 3D program called Tinkercad. I've been working on it a lot, and have made some pretty cool stuff. These are all things planned for Facility. The sad thing is I can't see how they will turn out until I get the actual printer. But at least I'm getting some practice in.

These are the hallway tiles. 2 of this file is to be printed off. All pieces follow the same basic dimensions, which will be true for all other tiles. This is so any configuration will follow a grid-like pattern, to prevent awkward meetups and connections.

Rooma A. I had fun coming up with the different style of rooms you would find in a spaceship or an undergound facility. Even though all the rooms are treated the same, I still wanted all players to feel as though they are exploring an actual functioning facility, and not just exploring featureless rooms for objectives.

Rooms B. So this and the image above comprises the rooms you build with. See if you can guess what some of the rooms actually are.

Door pieces. I definitely had fun designing all sorts of different scifi doors for this game. When setting up the board, you also place door, and they are designed to slide in between the walls of 2 interconnecting tiles. Doors can halt or impede the progress of your opponent, and just add another piece to the visual feel of the game.

The Beauty of 3D Printing

Every once in a while I begin to forget why I'm saving up my precious moneys for a 3D printer, and not spending it all on awesome gaming stuff. Then whenever that happens, I stumble into something that reminds me why I'm doing it. I found this on Thingiverse. It's no secret that home 3D printer resolution can leave you wanting, but this guy's minis look great. Even with the limited resolution, you definitely recognize what is what. The idea is to keep the minis very simple and detail free. Rely on bigger things to show it off, like capes, poses, and big weapons.

Check out other stuff by him. Like Pocket Tactics. Being able to print off these alone and how many you want, makes the Makerbot worth the wait.

One of my biggest obstacles with 3D printing though would be the CAD part. I have little experience with 3D design programs and any I experiment with can be a huge headache. Like using photoshop for the first time with no instructions. So many tools and can be confusing.

And then I found Tinkercad. An amazing website which uses a light but effective browser based design program. All your files are stored online, and no download necessary to run. It's all handled within the browser. Within minutes of doing some of their simple tutorials, I became really good at it, and have already began making things. It is awesome.

So with a new found excitement in 3D printing, and a great design program to cut my teeth on, I am planning my next project. A board game where everything is printed.

Over the weekend I went on a long 4 day trip to attend my wife's graduation from her masters program (Gratz again, Hunny!) and the whole time I thought about this and wrote up several pages on it. So part of the official announcement, here is a scan directly from my notebook.

Facility will be a scifi board game set in our Wartech universe. It will give you a small primer to the setting and utilize a variation of my tested rules from my other rules-lite miniatures game, Angry Miniatures.

This will give me plenty of practice in CAD so when I finally get my Makerbot (I am now at $700!) I will be able to utilize it right away.

My 30th Birthday Haul

Just wanted to update with a few things I got on my birthday.

First off, I got some more money. The Makerbot fund thermometer to the right went up a bunch. My mother advised me to open a CD at the bank to deposit the money. That way it's locked in there for a set period and earns higher interest than savings. I tell you guys, mother knows best.

My wife, Beth, got me a really cool portable photo studio. I know I could make something like this, but I was always too lazy and this comes in just a more convenient package. Just look at this new picture I took for my Rogue Space - MECHS promo. It's a much better lighting and quality.

But it may be a little small for my daughter since she is getting bigger.

Bree got me an awesome book called "How to Trap a Zombie and Track a Vampire". It's a fun activity book published by Wizards, and contains all sorts of fun things you can do to train your child to be a monster hunter/wizard/adventurer. This coupled with my Geek Dad book, will mean Bree and I will have a lot of fun growing up.

Now, for the crown jewel: My mother in law is a very crafty person. She works at a university and teaches book-making classes. She does all sorts of creative artsy things like home-made popup books, home-made leather and perfect bound, etc. She was able to get a hold of a 1st edition printing of one of the Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. She knew I was a big fan of the Barsoom series as I read a lot of them in my childhood, so when she found this book at a thrift store, she knew I had to have it.

The great thing is she made a clamshell box. A felt lined box that they make for preserving and protecting really old books. It looks perfect as you will see from the photos below.

Outside of the clamshell box. It's completely felt lined and sturdy.

Showing inside of the box with the original book. My mother in law knew i liked the new John Carter movie so this was sort of a small surprise. The big red half circle on the other side was perfect for it though.

Closeup of the original book with original spine and binding.

It's authentic. Printed 1918

Father's Day Haul!

 My first official Father's Day. Exciting times. So I got a few gifts.

• $75 dollars from the in-laws. Going straight to the makerbot fund. Note the thermometer to the right getting slightly bigger.
• A copy of Rogue Space. Finally it is here! I've browsed through it and am anxious to really read it. Lot's of things that I can already think of doing to Rogue Space - MECHS.
• The Tie Interceptor and Death Star Lego set. I love me some Lego, and I love the death star. This will be great to my little star wars Lego collection.

Also yesterday was free rpg day. Lots of great swag.

• The Free RPG day tshirt I am wearing in the above picture.
• A map of Harn, by Columbia Games. Pretty boring.
• ConspiracyX Introductory Game Kit. Meh. It's no DarkMatter, but standard conspiracy x-files stuff.
• Shadowsfall pathfinder adventure by Jon Brazer Enterprises. Meh.
• Dungeon Crawl Classics module. Fun homage to old school rpg'ing, but not much beyond that.
• Dawn of the Scarlet Sun pathfinder module. Has cool art I guess.
• Dead in the Eye DnD 4e adventure module. I love anything with beholders and foulspawn and the like, so this provides some great fuel for a future fantasy game.
• Only War - Eleventh Hour introduction game. At first I wasn't enthusiastic about FFG's newest wh40krpg Only War, because it just seemed like yet another book with more imperium (we need xenos sourcebooks FFG!), but this one is going to have rules for ogryn and ratlings and so I may get it for that alone.
• BattleTech RPG/Shadowrun quickstart rules. Love both games and settings so it was fun to look through.
• Cosmic Patrol by catalyst gamelabs. This one I'm excited about. Its a rules lite pulp scifi, and it seems like a lot of fun. I'm thinking of getting this. Looks like it might be cool for a one or two shot game.

All in all it was a really good weekend. I got lots of cool stuff to whet my appetite for quite a while

The Makerbot Fund

Unless you have been living under a rock, there has been a lot of hubbub lately over 3D printing. Especially the affordable home 3D printers like the Makerbot.

I have high hopes for this technology. I know it is not nearly the level it needs to be in order to start printing your very own high quality plastic minis, but it is the perfect level for stuff like this:

While the pictures shown are not 3D prints, they CAN be, is the point I'm trying to get across. So about a year ago, I started the Makerbot fund. A fund where I pile all christmas, birthday, fathers day, etc money in one spot.

As of posting this, I am $300... of the $1750 I need. I got a long way to go.