May progress

Posted on May 16, 2015 by grumpyoldtin

Not painting as much as I should be. I’m managing upto an hour a day rather than my ideal three hours. Here is the Rough Rider progress. At the moment I’m not so happy with them, but then I had a similar situation with my Ratling Snipers earlier this year. Suddenly after another colour or two they’ll start to “pop” and I’ll be happy. Patience is the lesson I need to learn.
Most of my spare time in the last few months has been taken up with making artwork for laser cutting.

Even then I get distracted into little side projects. I had been pondering what to use as treasure tokens when browsing on Goggle Images I came across some pictures of old coins. It was a matter of moments to copy them into Photoshop, up the contrast and turn into black and white. Then into Illustrator and draw a cut line. Export as EPS and then to the laser cutter. And bingo! I’m rich! About two hours worth of cutting and I should have a decent trove.

Shop

Posted on April 15, 2015 by grumpyoldtin

The keener eyed of you may have noticed a new “Tab” at the top of my Blog. Go ahead and browse. Maybe you’d see something you’d like to buy?

A bit of an update

Posted on April 15, 2015 by grumpyoldtin

As I said previously, painting has more or less ground to a halt. Not that I haven’t been productive in other areas. My main push was to get stuff ready to sell at the Austrian Salute in March.
That was quite tiring and on the day itself I suffered with fatigue and a nasty gum infection, so I didn’t really see the day in a positive way. I made the grand sum of three Euro but the guy next to me, from Templates and Widgets, also selling some laser-cut accessories told me that at his first show he didn’t sell anything.
A far better report of the show, with pictures, has been written by Sigur of Battlebrush Studios
http://taleofpainters.blogspot.co.at/2015/03/show-report-austrian-salute-2015.html

A 180 degree view of the show.

Number One Son looking after business

The project I have been getting on with is this.

A laser-cut model from the old Warhammer Cities book. The only problem is that I can’t sell it as it is based on a design by GW. I have now started searching the interweb for pictures of medieval timber framed buildings for the next one. If I find the right design I can tap into the historical market as well.

Some more bits for my retail empire

Posted on February 17, 2015 by grumpyoldtin

Productive day today. I managed to get four batches cut today.

The first was the shipping container. This time I got the setting right and didn’t have to spend an hour cutting it out. There are a couple of etch-lines which need attention. But I’m there.

This is a packing case. I probably won’t be selling this. Working on a formula of, “Three times time and materials” this works out at six Euro each. I don’t see many wargamers forking out that much for a single piece. So I need to make something a little less complicated in a cheaper material. This is made with 4mm ply rather than the much cheaper 3mm MDF. Which I have now sourced thankfully, now to find affordable acrylic.

“Line Of Sight” markers. These are designed for your less sporting opponent. For example, I have some of my Ork Stormboyz mounted on flying bases. So when they land behind a large obstacle anybody reasonable would assume they couldn’t be seen. So if you get anyone picky, “I can see your Ork, so I can shoot at the entire unit,” just replace your figure with a marker. “Can you see it now?”

Finally a plaque for my Albion Army, when I finally get my display case out of storage.

Maybe something a little new

Posted on February 10, 2015 by grumpyoldtin

There has been a reason why I have been a little slow this month, I’m starting on a little side project. Yes soon you’ll be able to buy Grumpy Old Tin Products!
In the past I had access to a laser-cutter and made a few little gaming aids for myself. I missed that moving over here. Looking online at what is offered to wargamers I was really saddened at what shoddy goods were being promoted to wargamers (there are some notable exceptions). If you Goggle, “laser cut art” you will see some amazing and beautiful work. So why isn’t it filtering down to us?
Well the answer is that every Thomas, Richard and Harold who think they can draw a square in a CAD program is getting in on the act.
I want better than that. My aim is to start producing beautiful gaming aids and terrain/scenery and painting aids and you name it.
Everything is possible.
You’ll already have seen that I have started branding myself and have now done the social meejah stuff with a twitter (what’s the bloomin’ point) account and a Facebook page.
Here is the first prototype. Bit of a learning curve and a few rough edges.
The Boundary Country Shipping Container.