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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 6, 2013 9:25:46 GMT -9
So I would say these lawyers are just doing what they do, bullying anyone else from using what they believe is their property. Having a trademark of that term in gaming is insulting enough, trying to grab it after the fact in books -- or more specifically in e-books -- is ridiculous. It's very easy to demonise big corporates throwing their weight around, and it's just as tempting to support the underdog who appears to be getting unfair treatment. I'm not a massive fan of GW's litigious nature, but I totally understand why they're doing it and it's not about screwing over some poor author. The title of the book was "Spots the Space Marine" and whether it was deliberate or not, the title could believably mislead consumers into thinking it was a GW product and get it a lot of free publicity when it starts showing up in searches for Warhammer 40K books on the Amazon store. While I don't think that this was this author's intention, GW has to take action because if they don't then they can't take action later against someone who does do it intentionally. To people who don't understand trademark law, these lawsuits and legal actions seem very frivolous and can come across as bullying, but for the companies involved, it's very serious business and the consequences of failing to take action are a lot worse for them than the bad publicity ever could be.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 6, 2013 8:50:13 GMT -9
My reason for not doing a thicker outline in the first place was to conserve ink.. These are meant to be for the budget conscious.. Still... The thick outline wouldn't make a noticeable difference in the ink consumption, to be honest. It's like the difference between printing a page of double spaced light text vs a page of single spaced bold text. You only start seeing a huge hit on ink when you've got huge areas of dark solid colours. People who buy paper minis online would want a good outline there because it makes it easier to cut, and the fact that they'll save ink because it's not there won't even enter their minds. I'd also avoid thinking about pitching sets at budget conscious people, with cheapness being your selling point. The thing about people who don't want to spend money, is that they don't want to spend money. The budget conscious people will pass over your product and just download free stuff instead. Rather focus on creating a really good, unique, high-quality product, so that the people who do have money will think it's worth spending their hard earned dollars on it. I should add that you're not going to make a lot of money off of these if you sell them too cheaply. People who are willing to buy this kind of thing will buy it at any fair price, and being a dollar or two cheaper is not going to change the mind of someone who's not willing to spend money. Those kinds of techniques do work when you're selling face-to-face, but on the internet, there's a completely different dynamic at work.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 6, 2013 8:08:49 GMT -9
No. To me, they're just being bully against a "small" self-publisher/writer. They're not sueing ID software, or the Starcraft copyright owners (which both have space marines -even in big armor- on they products, and are GAMES and not books). The marines in Quake and in Starcraft are just called marines, never space marines. Neither ID nor Blizzard are selling their products by using the term "Space Marines". If Blizzard were to release a book about Raynor called "Space Marine with a Motor Bike" then GW would sue them in a second. There's other factors stopping them from taking action though... You can't just claim a universal trademark. A trademark will only apply to specific types of products and/or specific industries. GW definitely does own a registered trademark on the term Space Marine in the tabletop gaming industry, and likely has a common law trademark, if not registered one, in the book publishing arena. As a new comer to the computer games industry, they may not be able to register the trademark in that field. They are also completely powerless against anyone who goes and makes a movie called Space Marine unless the marines in the movie mimic the design of Warhammer 40K's marines, in which case they'd sue them for a copyright violation, and not a trademark one. That said, I don't think GW would win a court case if it got as far as court, because decades before Warhammer 40K existed, Robert Heinlein and others were using the term in published books, and it's a generic term, but they still have take action or they risk losing their claim.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 6, 2013 7:26:06 GMT -9
I'm not a lawyer, let alone one specialising in trademark law, but my career choices have led me to learn a lot about trademark, copyright and IP in general.
A trademark can be summed up as anything that directly identifies a companies product and brand in the public consciousness, and the purpose of trademark regulations is to prevent unscrupulous businesses from using those identity elements to mislead consumers by tricking them into thinking they're buying something from the trademark holder, instead of an unassociated entity.
Games Workshop may indeed have a legitimate claim on the term "Space Marine" within both the gaming and publishing spheres, because while they didn't originate the idea of marines in space, they have defined Space Marine in the public consciousness for 3 decades and when someone hears the term, GW marines are automatically going to be the first thing they think of. What's happening here, is that GW has to enforce that claim rigidly, or they will lose the right to claim it as a trademark forever, and while that does screw over the little guy who wrote a book, GW can not afford to not do it, because if they do, they'll have no legal recourse against other people who deliberately attempt to cash on the use of the term to sell their works to fans of Warhammer 40K.
With that said, GW absolutely does not own the trademark on the word marine, or the idea of power armoured marines, or even the idea of marines in space, because, as the author of that post wrote, marines in space are a long standing and widely used trope in science fiction, and are in no way are unique to Games Workshop nor are they an invention of Games Workshop. This is a result of him using the term "Space Marine". Had he not used that exact wording in the title of his book, GW would not have had a trademark claim.
If this does go to court and the author wins, the consequence will be that Space Marine will no longer be associated specifically with GW and anyone will be able to use that term when describing marines in space. If GW wins, or the author is unable to challenge them, then the words "Space Marine" will be off limits to anyone that isn't licensed to GW, but marines in space will be just fine, provided they're not actually called "Space Marines".
Short version of what artists should know: Keep making your sci-fi marines, just don't call them Space Marines, unless you're interested in joining this guy in a court battle against GW.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 6, 2013 5:19:30 GMT -9
The clever ones find a way to make their hobbies profitable, so that they never need to work again. (Of course, I know a lot of people who've tried this, and know almost none that have succeeded)
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 6, 2013 0:37:11 GMT -9
Well worth the tradeoff of the extra black on the back to me... This isn't too different from what I do with my miniatures. Mine are pretty close to being pixel perfect copies, front and back, but because of my process things can shift out a little, and because of the super-fine detail on some parts, there's a risk of things shifting out of line when the model's put together, so I put a little margin around it to make things easier for the end builder. Mini Tutorial: (feel free to ignore it, if anyone wants this detailed properly, let me know and I'll set it up in a new thread)With my technique, the front of the model and the back are each in their own PSD, in exactly the same position with a black background. I use the pen tool to create a transparent shape layer around the front. This shape layer will eventually determine my outline on the final print, so I try to keep a consistent margin around the figure. I then duplicate that shape layer on to the back. Here I can see straight away if there's anything that's at risk of getting cut off, and adjust the back's shape layer accordingly before duplicating it and sending it back to the front. Once I'm happy with the path, I apply it to my original artwork as a vector mask. I'm wont to believe that those guys who want to trim every mini are in the minority as it's A LOT of work to do so. I'm not sure you're right about this one. I've seen a lot of folks with photos of trimmed paper minis around on the internet, but I seldom see photos of the tent-style tokens. Also, it's not really that much work to trim down a mini. 10 knife strokes at the most, on a mini with a good outline. Automated cutters make things even easier, and a lot of the paper-mini crowd have invested in those. From what I have seen, the tent-fold tokens tend to get viewed as the cheap, quick-fix alternative to miniatures, while the hand-cut paper-minis tend to be a hobby on their own. There are some people who will use both the cast minis and the paper ones, because the paper ones give them options that the metal and plastic ones don't. The implication here (and I may be wrong, so other guys out there feel free to correct me,) is that you may be able to profit more by catering to the paper-mini hobbyists than by going the tent-fold route. As OldSchoolDM's demonstrated, your minis actually look really good when done that way, so it might be worth considering.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 5, 2013 5:09:24 GMT -9
I've often been tempted to put some of my stuff on shapeways, but the thing that puts me off is that I've never seen a sample print of an actual mini. There's a lot of cool looking mini designs on there, but the product shots are all 3d port renders, and I have my doubts that the detail will hold on the finished product, especially given what I have seen of actual 3d prints. If anyone's actually bought a small scale mini from there, let me know how it worked out.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 4, 2013 13:45:41 GMT -9
Hmm... actually it's me who got a problem... It was supposed to be smallish set, you know - rather kinda chamber music not a whole orchestra! You could always split it up. Set 1: Stringed instruments Set 2: Pipers and flutists Set 3: Chanting monks Set 4: Drummers Set 5: Adoring fans and groupies
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 4, 2013 13:37:31 GMT -9
From a 3D artists perspective, my type of art tends to be dismissed by traditional artists as lazy, because they think we're just pressing the "Make Art" button. That prejudice is dying down as more and more traditional artists start using tablets and programs like Photoshop, but it's still there.. In a lot of ways 3d CGI is much harder to do than the more traditional stuff, and most artists know it. The thing about 3d is that the flaws are so glaringly obvious, and there's no quick or easy way to avoid those extremely conspicuous imperfections. As you quite rightly pointed out, bad lighting and generic poses certainly don't help much at all! On the other hand, the imperfections in a cartoon or traditional drawing are called "the artist's style" and are said to "add character to the piece". It's a kind of uncanny valley thing I guess... If the art, whether CG or traditional, is so perfect that people can't tell it from a photograph, then they like it, and if it's very imperfect, but stylised, they'll like it too, but if it's straddling the middle, where it looks like the artist has tried to make it look realistic, but didn't quite pull it off, that's where the negative reactions come in.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 4, 2013 10:25:52 GMT -9
Here's a comparision between the flat style and my style. While they do look quite a bit similar, the loss of depth is just too ugly for me. But you guys are the paper mini guys, what do you think? Perspective will always look better than an orthographic projection, just because it looks more natural and dynamic. The downside, of course, is that the front and back will not line up, and if you want to include a back, that's a major problem. Best solution is to keep your renders orthographic, but introduce the dynamics in a different way. You could get a lot out of that mage just by rotating the view about 5 degrees on the vertical axis instead of just rendering the front view. You'd also do well to exaggerate the pose a little (or a lot!)... More swagger in the hips so the belt isn't perfectly horizontal would make a big difference. Making his robe blow in the wind would break the symmetry and make things look more interesting too. When you're designing miniatures, you will want to have nice looking details up close, because awesome details are awesome, but it's worth remembering that it's going to be on a table quite far away from the eyes of the user and those details are going to just disappear, so it's very important to give the figure a prominent and noticeable silhouette that makes it stand apart from all the other figures on the table and keeps it recognisable at a distance.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 4, 2013 7:29:12 GMT -9
Looks like you've got the stringed instruments covered! I'd add a snare drum and pipers and flutists. A panflute wouldn't be out of place either. Pardon the pun? Cetra is a zither, and a Liuti is a lute. Lira and ocarina are the same in english. There's also a Lyre, which resembles a harp.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 3, 2013 19:06:16 GMT -9
Are the textures going to be layers? Nope. I don't have the gift that Dave Graffam and Dave Okum have. You don't really need to do layers. Just do like 5 different versions of each bridge, and then the customisability comes in when they put it together, instead of when they print it. Layers are nice and they make people think they're getting more value, but in most cases, the layers are completely unnecessary in making a useful product. None of the WWG sets I have have any layers and they might be some of the most popular sets around in spite of that. Are the designs going to hold SQUADS of metal figures... I doubt it. I could make it to where it could, but I would lose the "flat-fold" ability. You'd be amazed how strong paper models can be. If you take the walls section from my Humble Hovel and lay it on it's side it holds up 5 GW metal rat ogres with barely any sign of buckling at all. Admittedly, that one doesn't fold flat, but there are ways of reinforcing that won't rule out compact storage. Mounting the bridges on chipboard or foamcore's a good one. Adding removable support pillars, which also fold flat themselves will also add a lot more strength than you might realise. The possibilities are not quite endless, but if you can think of anything else, I would love to hear it. Getting carried away with options is a sure way to make sure your set takes forever to release. Trust me, I know. Much better to stick to a handful of cool things and get the release out, and then go back and do an add-on set later. I think what you've got going there looks pretty good! Makes me sad that I no longer have all my Necromunda figures
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 2, 2013 7:10:42 GMT -9
Wow, Kev. You know a lot about paper I spent a few years in my early twenties working in the printing industry, and the rest of my time working as a graphic designer and illustrator, so knowing these things came in very handy. I also know a lot about graphic design software, pencils, pens, paints, knives and glue but I don't often see people asking about those things At one stage I was going to suggest starting a "help me learn to do stuff" section, but I see that similar sections already do exist, and don't really have much activity.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 1, 2013 8:05:31 GMT -9
What is the problem? Too hard to do it? too much time? Or just laziness? ... So much so buyers buy it anyway ... Backs are nice to have, but as someone who has actually created high end paper minis with front and back artwork, I have to say that it makes things dramatically more difficult for the designer. Logically, you'd assume that it's just double the work, but it's actually quite a bit more complicated than that. Double sided art that actually lines up is a really tricky thing, and requires a ton of planning in the rough stage that can add hours to the whole process. I think i actually spend at least 3 times as much time going back and forth roughing out the fronts and backs as I do on the clean pencils and colours. Honestly, if I was doing paper minis without backs, I'd be able to put out a new set every 3 days or so, instead of taking weeks and weeks between releases. You also have a lot of limitations on how you can draw things when you're planning a double sided miniature. The biggest one is that you can't do dynamic perspective so you have to be very clever in how you design the pose so that it still looks interesting without it. This guy's art style relies very heavily on that kind of dynamic perspective, so I'd honestly have been surprised if there had been unique artwork for the backs. The way I see it, he's sacrificed having a cool back in order to have a much cooler front, and there are some people who will see that as a good thing, even as others see it as a disappointment I have my own personal vision about paper miniatures. They are a product different from traditional miniatures. But in this way, these products will remain always plast and metal's minor and illegitimate children. The thing that makes plastic and metal miniatures awesome is that they have weight and tactile properties, and paper miniatures will never have those qualities. The downside of plastic and metal miniatures is that they require hundreds of hours of preparation and painting using hundreds of dollars worth of glue and paint and tools to get the most out of them, and it takes a whole heap of skill to do it well. I've got a Warhammer Empire Army that i've been working on for over a decade and barely half the figures are painted... Half the ones that are painted could actually use a re-paint. On the other hand, I made a whole regiment of paper skeletons in a single afternoon, ready to use in game that same evening. Apart from that, there's the storage. Storing my hundreds of miniatures takes up an unbelievable amount of space, and storing the scenery takes up even more. Could easily fill 4 large bookshelves with it all, while an equivalent amount of paper stuff would take up a couple photo albums and a few shoe boxes. I think for a lot of people, paper miniatures are a better option than the metal and plastic ones because they don't have the skill to paint them nicely or don't have the space to store 10kg of pewter, and they will use them without thinking twice. For other folks, metal and plastic are good for some situations, and paper is better for others and those people will just use whichever the situation calls for. The main reason for the stigma is the "cheapness", but that's the fault of the fans and designers of paper stuff for highlighting that one advantage, instead of focusing on the others.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 1, 2013 6:41:58 GMT -9
That was quite a find OMB, but it only uses A3, A4 and A5 formats. Although A4 is "pretty darn close," it adds 3/4" (19mm) to the top ot the page (I am assuming the bottom, as well, but on single pages (with wall to wall text like the one I just did for a gaming company), then it cuts off the bottom of the page. For this, though, it seems to work well... enough. Quick side-track for interest's sake: International paper sizes (A4 etc) are designed to be proportional, so an A3 cut in half parallel to the short ends will give you a pair of A4s, which have the same ratio of height and width as the original A3 page. The basis is the A0 sheet, which has a surface area of exactly 1 square meter, and that's pretty convenient because in countries using the metric system, all paper weights are measured in grams per square meter, so you can very easily calculate the weight of a single A4 page by dividing the grammage of the paper by 16.
An A4 page, at 297 x 210mm is exactly 17.6mm taller than a Letter, and 5.9mm narrower. A good rule of thumb for designers is to keep the print area of their PDFs at 260 x 190 mm, or 10.2 x 7.5 inches to make sure that nothing gets cut off, regardless of where the end user lives.I ave an older HP All-In-One (HP PSC 2410 - a GREAT machine). Where does that option appear? When you click "Print?" Is it on that little pop-up, or do you have to go in and change a setting? When you're in the print dialogue, click on the Properties button. Under the Features tab, there's a section called "resizing options" and there you will find a pull down for paper sizes, and just below it, a checkbox for Borderless.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Jan 31, 2013 2:08:03 GMT -9
Unfortunately I don't have my good camera with me at the moment, so the photos aren't great. Comparison with the normal sized figure. Close up to show the detail
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Post by bravesirkevin on Jan 31, 2013 1:55:20 GMT -9
Happy birthday man! Hope it's a good one!
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Post by bravesirkevin on Jan 30, 2013 23:44:21 GMT -9
Not sure if you're interested in undead pirates, but my Skeleton Scallywags also scale down to 15mm really nicely, because I put a lot of contrast into the details. You might opt to use some other basing method however, because my bases might be a little fiddly at such a small scale. This is a scan of a quick test print. I'll try find time to test build them a little later.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Jan 22, 2013 11:22:29 GMT -9
That's a pretty cool gallery. I like the way they're doing the displacer beast. I was never a fan of the stringy, anorexic one that's showed up in the last few Monster Manuals. Does anyone else really dislike the really exaggerated elf ears? They're not quite at World of Warcraft length yet, but they do seem to get longer and more prominent with each edition. I prefer elves to have ears that are pointed, yet subtle... Like their personalities. Apart from the weird aesthetic, you'd kinda expect ears that stick out that far to result in either really awkward looking helmets, or a lot of chopped off elf ears.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Jan 20, 2013 4:47:30 GMT -9
Highlandpiper I was looking at a canvas fabric print whats the issues with it in person? I've been putting it off as I've been worried about resolution, durability and creasing when stored. I dont really want pull out the canvas and have to iron it before each game or worse someone drops a drink and now we have nice bright red/green/sticky mark.... The vinyl looks good is there a matte option? Before you get put off by highland piper's answer, I should point out that there is a really big difference between a fabric print and a canvas print. Judging from that photo, his friend has the former, while it sounds like you're thinking of getting the latter. The fabric is literally a polyester tablecloth, so you would need to wash it but as I recall it doesn't really need ironing very often. They use a special technique called sublimation printing which will give the printed surface of the fabric a fairly rough, scratchy texture, but it does look pretty good and the colours are rich and vibrant, though fine details might be lost. Canvas on the other hand is a sheet of rough woven cloth that has had one side completely sealed in acrylic gesso maintaining the texture of the fabric while giving it a sort of plastic feel. It's very tough and durable and from what I've seen, it tends to be pretty waterproof as well. You can't fold it up repeatedly without damaging the surface though, so rolling is the way to go. Because of this, you may need to use paperweights in the corners to keep it flat. This is printed with a standard large format inkjet plotter at 300 dpi, so the resolution, colour and detail is every bit as good as printing on photo paper. The canvas itself is relatively matte, but the printed areas do have a slightly glossy look to them. It's not a bad thing as the colours are more vibrant as a result, and the canvas texture breaks up the glare.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Jan 19, 2013 12:57:03 GMT -9
I use both a laser printer and a high-end ink-jet printer depending on which suits my needs. The laser printer is always going to be a lot cleaner, because it has crisp dots of toner (which are essentially just tiny beads of plastic that get melted on to the surface of the paper), but the ink-jet printer is a lot better for papercraft because all those tiny beads of melted plastic tend to rub off of a laser print as soon as you start folding the card, so I've always found the muddiness of an ink-jet print to be a necessary evil.
Typically, I use a local equivalent of smooth bristol board, so it's a plain uncoated matte paper and I get fairly decent results out of it. Definitely better than I would out of plain paper. It's also fairly thick at 200gsm, so there's absolutely none of that warpage or crinkling.
If I want something to look really good, I go straight for either a gloss or a matte photo paper, as that has a surface that has been treated with a special resin that reacts with the ink jet ink, and gives perfect vibrant colours with minimal bleed. That does have it's own problems however, as the photo papers are typically made by laminating a few layers of different paper types together. When you, cut, score and fold it, there's a tendency for the outer layer to peel away from the core. The core layer is also highly absorbant, so when you edge the piece, the ink from your marker bleeds more heavily than usual. It's also pretty costly.
You're going to have different sorts of trouble whichever way you go. Personally I find the bristol board, ink-jet route to be the most reliable for 90% of what I do. If you do take that route though, don't use the cardstock option in the paper type menu. You get better results if you tell the printer it's using plain paper, even though it isn't.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Jan 18, 2013 16:42:17 GMT -9
As forums go, I'd say this might be one of the better ones I spend time on. I think the blandness comments might be less about the design and more about the fact that one has to click through at least 2 pages that have almost nothing but text before one finds something pretty to look at (not counting the awesome Kobold Encounter at the top). Because there's such a wide variety of styles represented here, there's also a very good chance that one is going to click on something that's very different from what actually appeals to one's particular tastes, so for a newcomer to the site this place might seem like an endless wall of text filled with things they don't care about. It's tough to arrive here and see a hundred different boards with names that are completely unfamiliar and know where to start. There's no indication of what's actually in any of the boards unless you're already familiar with the artists in question. True story, I'd been a member here for over a year before I saw what David Okum, Mesper, Reivaj and the rest were doing. Most of the time I stuck to Dave Graffam's board and Billiam Babble's because they're the only names that were familiar to me when I got here, and were thus the only boards that I knew I'd find something that actually interested me. I occasionally checked out the other boards, but most of the time I found stuff that wasn't really the kind of stuff I liked so I didn't do that very often. Perhaps the best way to promote the forum to outsiders is to send them to the threads that are likely to get them interested, like the Monthly Hoards or one of the particularly interesting development threads, where they can see what the community is actually all about. Just my two cents worth.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Jan 18, 2013 1:32:01 GMT -9
You can NEVER go wrong with too many details on instructions! I've always had this philosophy of making my instructions as detailed as possible. The Humble Hovel has about 180 steps over a 64 page manual, and each step features at least one illustration, often more. Even something as simple as the Skeleton paper miniatures came with a 9 page instruction manual, and there were 17 steps. For contrast, a lot of the stuff I've got from other publishers might have a single diagram, or nothing at all. The thing is, I don't know if the person buying my stuff has ever even tried working with papercraft at all, so I feel that I need to make it as easy as possible for a complete novice to work out how to do it. Some of my stuff is also pretty complex, even for an experienced builder, so spelling it out exactly definitely doesn't hurt there either. On the other hand, The instructions can take forever to make. I know I spent over a week of 10 hour days making the instructions for the Hovel, and I'm not sure that anyone even read them. While I'm writing them out, I always have this worry that people are going to be bothered by the fact that I'm talking to them like they're 5 years old. I guess the point I'm making here is that I don't actually know if it's possible to get too detailed with instructions, but it is definitely something that I worry about constantly.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Jan 18, 2013 1:04:56 GMT -9
You can get it printed on to self-adhesive vinyl. That's what they do to make billboards, and to brand vehicles and storefront windows. You can then take that vinyl and apply it to something thicker like a sheet of masonite, or MDF board to make a permanent gaming tabletop. That kind of vinyl is actually pretty light weight, and paper-thin once the backing on the adhesive side is removed, but once you've mounted it it's pretty resilient.
You also get thicker non-adhesive vinyls that they use for the pull-up banners those are still relatively thin, almost like a tarp, but not as thick. Because of the weight, bigger banners usually get printed on woven nylon instead.
It's pretty easy to find a print-shop that can print canvases for you. These are standard woven canvases like those used for painting, primed with gesso. They're pretty strong and can take a little punishment and once dry they do seem to be relatively waterproof. You might want to get a large sealable cardboard tube to store it in however as the raw canvas back will get really dirty if it's allowed to gather dust.
An interesting option is to get it printed on fabric. Sublimation printing is used to print directly onto polyester and other synthetic materials, and this allows you to make a machine-washable gaming table cloth. That's a little on the expensive side especially if you go for something bigger than a square metre, but it really does look great.
Finally, you can just print it on paper, and apply a lot of paper varnish to seal the ink down and make it waterproof.
On a side note: I've created about 15 of these myself, but I've never released them for sale because they didn't seem like something that people would buy as a download, and creating and shipping physical copies from South Africa was prohibitively expensive. If there's anyone who has the equipment and infrastructure to print and distribute these in America and/or Europe, who is interested in working out some deal, please PM me.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Jan 16, 2013 9:04:57 GMT -9
Red... because all bikes should have a "red" option. Also, red ones go faster!
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Post by bravesirkevin on Jan 16, 2013 0:17:11 GMT -9
I tried to implement a Multi-Layered PDF with all the color options, but it was simply too many layers for Illuatrator to handle. It would have been about 360 layers (12 Dwarves x 30 color layers). In the end I decided to choose the color schemes for you (the customer). There is that temptation to go overboard. I face it in pretty much everything I do ;D I think the real trick with layers is to try and do 3 or 4 that affect one thing, and 3 or 4 more that affect another and 3 or 4 that affect a third thing and so on. In the end you have like 15 to 20 layers but thousands of completely unique combinations, which is way better than having 360 layers and only 360 combinations (if you're doing it that way, it would probably be quicker and easier to just make 360 individual PDFs) Really like the artwork on this dwarf though. Very interesting looking axe and that facial expression is possibly the most dwarfy thing I've ever seen!
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Post by bravesirkevin on Jan 12, 2013 1:27:18 GMT -9
My main thinking on the categories is that we don't get too specific with them.
By limiting the restrictions on a submission to a few minimal technical requirements we could potentially get a lot more of them, and by lumping them all together we'd get one full-looking gallery, rather than lots of mostly empty ones.
So for example, if we got 30 entries to the Builder's Category, they'd have a mix of genres, and a variety of different ideas. Judges would then select what prizes were up for grabs depending on what was submitted. So if there were a lot of dioramas covering a variety of genres, but only a handful of armies, some possibilities for that category might be: • Best Photography • Best Fantasy Diorama • Best Sci-Fi Diorama • Best Modern/Urban Diorama • Best Army (any genre)
We could also name a few of the prizes upfront to encourage people to do more of the things we'd like to see.
I'm not sure about a Newcomer's prize, because I think if we do it right, we'd have lots and lots of newcomers.
Speaking of doing it right, when the time comes, we should make a concerted effort as a community to draw attention to it. We should all mention it on our blogs. We should all make an effort to promote it on social media platforms like reddit and facebook and on forums across the internet. It might even be worth doing some paid advertising to get more people on board. Who'd pay for it? Whoever wants to. Designers and publishers and community members who realise the value of this succeeding might be willing to donate some adverts in relevent places around the internet.
As for prizes... There are a lot of relatively "cheap prizes" that have a lot more value than might be obvious: • Print-outs of paper sets, signed by the original artist • Original pencil artwork, used in the creation of sets, again signed by the artist. • Getting your submission along with full credit used as the header of this forum for the next 12 months. • Having the fact that you won listed on your profile and in the portrait box next to your posts.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Jan 12, 2013 0:54:42 GMT -9
I run my own business dealing with commercial art services like graphic design and illustration. I tend to work on new sets when there's a lull in regular business. Sometimes I make time to work on it even when my "day job" is keeping me really busy, because I actually find this creative outlet a lot more satisfying than doing endless changes to corporate designs or drawing what other people tell me to.
If I could get the profits up enough, I'd happily switch to doing this sort of creation full time.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Jan 11, 2013 3:17:30 GMT -9
60 hours? Some of the stuff I've created has taken in the region of 300. Not bragging when I say that... It just kinda explains why everyone else seems to just churn stuff out while my catalogue grows at such a glacial pace.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Jan 10, 2013 4:47:58 GMT -9
Well, there are quite a few differences between the current iterations and the earlier ones, so they'd still have a sellable product and I really don't think it would hurt their profits too much at the end of the day... Bad PR, on the other hand, could cost them quite a lot.
They might have trouble selling individual packages of Acrobat, but I don't imagine they sell all that many of those anyway. In my experience, people who do have the latest version of Acrobat usually have it because they've bought the latest Creative Suite bundle in order to get the latest versions of Photoshop and Illustrator.
The other thing about CS2 is that it was built for archaic technology, and as it is it's hard to get it to work on current systems. In a few years it will be all but obsolete.
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