Shapeways Out of Business

 This is probably old news to a number of you, but Shapeways is officially out of business. It filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last week, which means there is no restructuring. I don't know the details of what happened to cause this. I have to wonder what the vendors are going to now do, especially those in the table top gaming business is going to do. In this day and age, they can probably set up their own machines to print out figures. 

I am glad I managed to get some of the models that I did. Many of these vendors had a niche market for aircraft, AFVs, and ships that are not found elsewhere. There are a whole bunch of companies that make F-16s or MIG-21s, but nobody I know of in the "mainstream" makes a Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano in 1/600 scale. 

This news brought back a memory I had several years ago. I struck up a conversation of sorts with one of the vendors who made aircraft. He was seriously considering parting ways with Shapeways due to some policies that had with the vendors. I can't remember what the issues were, but he was pretty unhappy. 

Well, despite your ridiculously high shipping prices and shipping times measured in geologic time periods, I will miss you as a company that offered unique miniatures to the hobby. 

Checking out 3D printed 15mm from Etsy

 There are a lot of interesting miniatures out there that can be printed, but until I take the plunge and buy my own 3D printer, I need to buy them pre-printed. I have already bought a lot of mostly aircraft, but lately I've been looking at fantasy figurines. Etsy seems to have a lot of shops that will print off figures, but most are in the 28mm to 32mm scale for TTRPG or in 10mm that is the latest craze. I came across one shop that had the license to print off various files and was willing to print off those pesky 10mm at 15mm. Unfortunately, I lost the packing slip and I can't seem to find the shop on the website. All I remember is that they are out of Poland.

I ordered these various foot troops.

They seem a little on the small side, but I will make a comparison once I've removed them from their stilts and base them. My big worry with all these printed miniatures is the possibility that things like thin weapons will get easily broken. Maybe some day they will make a printer resin that is like what Reaper Miniatures uses for their plastic figures that is reasonably hard but more flexible. 

As I recall, they weren't all that expensive compared to some of the other Etsy shops that sold comparable minis. The delivery time from Poland wasn't that bad either. Lately, some of the orders I've made from the UK seem to take forever. 

I will paint some of them up and see how they match up to existing 15s.

Not What I Expected Part 2

Yesterday, I received a much anticipated package from Shapeways. I had ordered some 1/600 aircraft and vehicles. Yes, Shapeway stuff is more expensive than traditional minis, but they make things that others don't, and by others, I mean O8 because they are the only company that makes ground vehicles, particularly modern. So one of the orders was for the South African APCish vehicle, the RG-31 Nyala. Besides the fact that O8 has yet to make them, it was a pretty good deal at about $9 for 12 vehicles.

I got the package and instead of the Nyalas, I got these:

They are some sort of 40K vibroblade thingies with a hand conveniently attached to them. Both the invoice and the label on the plastic bag that they came in said Nyalas. I contacted Shapeways about this, but have not heard back. I have no desire to spend the time nor especially the money to send these things back.

Somewhere out there, there is 40K fanatic straining his eyes to figure out what he got instead of his vibroblades.

A Busy Night at the Workbench

For the last two weeks, I've had this urge/need/desire to get as much done as possible. Is the Universe trying to warn me about something? Or, maybe its a subtle panic of old age coming on. I found out at a recent eye exam that I am starting to get cataracts. This could explain why I needed a stronger prescription of both reading glasses and distance glasses. I tried bifocals awhile ago and didn't like them. I have going back and forth between various projects.

Last night I completed a couple of things, which I happened to post on various Facebook groups.

3D Printed Fantasy Figures
Except for basing, I finished up my last two 15mm fantasy figures from the Shapeways shop, Small Ox Miniatures. They are 15mm versions of the sculptor's 30mm figures. I am glad I got them when I did because for some reason he recently pulled them from his shop. They are not as detailed as their larger versions, but still not bad. He printed them in some sort of black plastic that is has a very smooth finish. I wish more Shapeways sculptors used this material. First up is the High Elf Dragon Maiden:

Blue armor spoke to me when I saw her. I painted her armor silver and then brushed on a blue glaze. I then went back over some of the raised parts with a light dry-brushing of silver. I am not too happy with the highlighting of the face, however, this is a shot before I applied a coat of clear flat. When I put it on the face, the clear flat rubbed off most of the highlights! This is the first time that this has happened. I reapplied the highlights and I think it looked better.

Next Vampire Lord:

Sorry about the crappy picture. I usually manage better shots than this but I wanted to put it up on one of the Facebook groups and was in a rush to take it before my phone battery went dead. I think he turned out a little better than the Elf warrior. For the armor, I mixed black and a touch of blue with silver. Once dry, I lightly dry brushed it with silver. The face and hands were painted with a mixture of light flesh and gray, which was the same colors I used for that Necromancer I posted back in October. I gave everything a wash of Vallejo dark gray wash. I then went back over some of the skin with a diluted version of the original skin color. He and the Elf will be mounted on metal fender washers rather than my usual thin sheet steel bases. They are so light that they need a little more weight to keep them on the battle field.

1/600 Terrain
I also managed to finish off a bunch of trees and a little house for my Bovatopia campaign. I think the trees are a little more suited for 1/300. They are blobs of polymer clay stuck on some wooden rods that I bought at a craft store. In turn, they are mounted on washers with more clay globbed on to make the base. They are then flocked and sprayed to hold the flock in place. I probably spent more time on them than I planned.

The house was a test piece, proof of concept, so to speak. My goal is not to spend lots of time on 1/600 terrain...its quantity over quality here. The house is a block of balsa wood with a rod of styrene plastic for the chimney. Windows and doors painted on. The roof looks like crap, but again, don't care.

Another quick photo for the 1/300 Facebook group

I had planned on knocking out more little houses last night but I couldn't seem to find my mitre box.

Shapeways 15mm Fantasy Figures

I thought I had posted this a while ago, but I only posted one of them. Here is the complete set of 15mm fantasy characters from Small Ox Miniatures all painted up. Small Ox Miniatures is a Shapeways shop that specializes in 15mm and 28mm figures.

L to R: female paladin, dwarf, male magic user, female thief/assassin

Not too bad looking. Their heads seem sort of big. Something about how they are "sculpted" seems different from traditional miniatures, but I can't put my finger on it. Nonetheless, I like them. My bases didn't turn out well. They are supposed to be on cobblestone, but it looks like crap. I bought two more that will be character figures.

Scratch-built Tiny Machine Gun

The problem with building technicals in micro-armor scale is that there are not a lot of free-standing weapons to use and what there is, you don't necessarily want to use for a technical. For example, I see lot of pictures of technicals armed with the Russian ZPU-4 quad 14.5 mm AA gun. However, there are only two companies that make them, GHQ and Scotia. GHQ's aren't cheap, and to paraphrase another microarmor blog, they are very difficult put together. I have a pack of them, but have yet to put them together for fear of screwing up a $10 model. It was hard enough putting together their beautiful Ontos model with its four recoilless rifles; this challenge looks way too daunting. Scotia's model, on the other hand, is easy to put together, but bit too large. I can see why they made it that way in order to cast it, and it looks passable when on the ground, but I can't see it on the back of a pickup truck:

Scotia ZPU-4 with Northern Chalupistan crew

Included in the GHQ's pack of Toyota pickup trucks were some pedestal-mounted, 7.62mm M-60 looking light machine guns (GHQ Stock # TW6). As an experiment, I decided to make my own light machine gun to attach to one of the little open-topped, Trabant Kuebels that I got from Shapeways.

Step 1: Cut out Gun and Glue to Pedestal
Examining the GHQ guns (sorry, I forgot to take a good picture of them, but you can see them peeking out at the top of the picture below), I could imagine that they were made from very thin sheet styrene.
Using a very thin sheet of styene, I cut out my gun. Unlike the GHQ gun, there is no grip on mine. I couldn't imagine how they were able to either cut that out, or glue one on.  The stock on my gun looks really large, too, but I think my gun looks overall passable:

Gun cut out with car next to it.

Close up of gun with pedestal glued on it.

I then took a 2mm styrene rod at glued it onto the gun with a combo of styrene welding cement and superglue gel. I didn't want to trim it to size until I was ready to put it on the car.

Step 2: Adding a Magazine
I could have left it at that, but I couldn't be outdone by GHQ's fantastic work. With nerves of steel, I then glued a tiny block of styrene onto the gun to make the magazine:

Gun with ammo box attached

Its probably out of scale, but it will do.

Step 3: Glue the Gun to the Car
What could be easier? Unfortunately, it was not the case. Apparently, the material that these 3D printed cars are made out of seems superficially rubbery, but in reality, its brittle. Or, it could be that the primer I used made the material brittle...no matter. I foolishly thought that I could drill a shallow, little hole behind the two front seats to fit the machinegun in by using my X-Acto knife. This is what resulted:

And this:

The two halves didn't fit back together well. In addition to the two halves, there were a bunch of little shards.  So, there is no point in fixing it. I will probably use it as a bombed out car. I have not yet decided what to use the machine gun for. I have some Mamba South African APC's that could use some fire power, or I might give the Trabant Kuebel another try. I probably will give another go at making light machine guns. I doubt they will look uniform, but I think that with practice, I can make enough to equip more vehicles.

Shapeways Shops

There are a lot of folks at Shapeways who are pouring out minis. This includes those at the micro scale. Like others, I have not been overly impressed so far by the level of detail. Of course that has not stopped me from buying some. One thing that really bugs me about the Shapeways site is that their site really sinks in terms of navigation. I have yet to figure out how to get a list of shops that specialize in what I want. You have to search for a particular item. It just annoys me.

I came up with a list of various shops that offer micro scale miniatures. This list is rather biased toward my areas of interest. Furthermore, this is not meant to be a critique of the minis, nor do I compare prices.  I just complied this so you and I can more easily access the shops on Shapeways. If there any others that I've missed, please let me know.

New Aragon Mechanical Works
Designer: Carlos2k10 
Consists of 1/285 aircraft and mecha. Have a number of early interwar biplanes and jet fighters from the 50s and early 60s.

Dragoman's Depot
Designer: Dragoman
Has a variety of models including 1/600 and 1/300 (lists as 6mm). Aircraft ranges from the 1930s until now, with the majority being interwar. He has several interesting never-weres. His vehicles are an interesting mix, but the majority is 1980s Cold War. He seems to be starting a line of modern South Korean AFVs.

Objects May Appear... 
Designer: afrodri 
Large number of naval vessels in a variety of scales. If you want modern warships, this is the place to come! He has a smaller selection of aircraft, but some interesting ones such as the F7U Cutlass.

Tiny Thingamajigs
 Designer: matt_atknsn
Focuses WW2 naval ships. Has a few aircraft in 1/285 scale that include some modern jets and some interwar aircraft. He has a larger selection of aircraft in 1/600 scale, including helicopters.

 Masters of Military
Designer: masterofmilitary

Focuses mainly on 1/285 vehicles. A lot of WW2 never-weres and some modern civilian vehicles.

Arctic Skunk
 Designer: mpennock
A small selection of 1/285 early jet fighters.

Prairie Hawk Gamers
Designer: snowfox01
Very large selection of 1/285 aircraft with the bulk being early jets to modern. Some concept jets, too. Produces a lot of aircraft that can’t be found elsewhere. For example one of the few manufacturers that make a A-37 Dragonfly.

Kampfflieger models
Designer: kampffieger
He has a pretty large selection of aircraft at various scales. His microscale aircraft consist of early jet age, interwar, WW1, WW2 with a few WW2 experimentals thrown in.

panzergrey
Designer: panzergrey
1/350 scale WW1 buildings. I am not clear why he picked that scale, but says that his buildings should be compatible with 1/300. He is also willing to make them in other scales.

lukeuedasarson

Designer:lukeuedasarson
Big selection of Cold War 1/285 vehicles, but seems to be mostly minor WarPac nations, particularly engineering vehicles and trucks.

Fen Edge Wargaming
Designer: NickHawkins
Large selection of interwar and concept aircraft. The designer states that his aircraft are useful for Pulp and alternate-war kinds of games.Most that I see at his shop seem to be in that vein.

Federico's Shop 
 Designer: fgiunchi
A small shop, but has a bunch of terrain accessories that look very useful. For example, he has some storage drums in 1/285.

Big Improvement in Rapid Prototyping

The SteelonSand Blog recently reported that the War Times Journal website is now selling pre-dreadnought ships made from rapid prototyping. He has a good review and states that they are far superior than what you get from Shapeways. I am not sure what WTJ's process is for making them, but seems like a huge step above what I've purchased so far from Shapeways. I looked at the prices and they seem competitive compared to Shapeways. This being said, I don't blame the vendors who create the models at Shapeways. From the little correspondence I've had with some of the vendors, they don't seem to have a lot of input into the production of their work. For example, I've order some microarmor and was told that it couldn't printed. I contacted the vendor and he was more perplexed than I. Apparently, they go back and forth on whether or not a particular model can be printed or not.

These new minis make me VERY tempted to venture forth into the pre-dread waters!