MaxMini.eu's sketchbook - meddling with toy soldiers

[Przemas]

It has been a while - super busy working on our orc army project.
We had a time for a slightly wacky set of conversion bits - sonic guns. Tricky at first , but as soon as we settled on the ideas for those they were a blast (at least Konrad seemed to enjoy them ) . I also had a good laugh browsing for the sound when I’ve been sorting out the turntable:

//youtu.be/3L_oNRtlW-M

Sculpting as usual done in Zbrush (even though I have to admit that this time we should have used Modo or Rhino - but even with this hardsurface items Zbrush went through like a champ).

Oh, and I promised a turntable of Desert Dweller heads that should show sprues placement better:

//youtu.be/L8OSgeOQT8w

[Przemas]

Hehehe - 2 years ago I wouldn’t have guessed what we will be doing now. Not only working on a models using computer software was rather new for us majority of projects have been done for our own use . Now it seems we’re involved in increasing number of projects for various customers. On a good side it is nice to have additional income stream and still most of the projects are really enjoyable for us (miniatures for tabletop games, boardgames, collector items, jewelry). On a bad side we are often bound by nda agreements, thus it takes a while before we can show anything.

Luckily this has not meant our projects were left catching dust. Some of them… matured . That’s the case of the Green Alliance Orc army project - which finally launch in Kickstarter tomorrow :).
As usual we split the work inside the team - majority of tech items were done in Rhino and Modo (Kuba is super efficient with Rhino) while Konrad worked on sculpts inside Zbrush.
Here are pics of the basic 2 units alongside pre-production prototypes:

Just to credit Kuba too here’s one of the tanks he has worked on:

Damn, I wonder how our first campaign will turn out - especially considering it is not the last one I have in mind

Attachments

[Przemas]

Our new 3d printer is up and running :). Opens new options - during the test we’ve scaled up one of Konrad’s sculpts and turned it to bust:

Also more and more models for our Kickstarter are getting finalized and new casts land on my desk. Here’s a quick pic of some of the recently made vehicles:

[system]

Very nice.

Love the bust.

If you don’t mind me asking, what printer are you guys utilizing to get those quality of prints?

[nebular]

Looking good! No post pro? What printer do you have now?

[Przemas]

We have 2 machines - super precise (and super slow ) Solidscape T76+ and B9 Creator.
All the “blue” items on the pics are straight from the printer, no post pro. Other (for example bust) are prints coated with primer or resin casts made from printed master model.

Basically quality comes from 2 factors - good equipment and knowledge howto work with it. I’ve mentioned it a couple of times but working on real life objects is a tad different. You have to take into account things such as scale, castability etc. Something that looks good on the screen may not work in real life.
For example when sculpting gaming miniatures (~30mm+ models , with heads around 5mm) you have to make each important feature more prominent , to the point of overdoing those - otherwise the detail will be too small to be noticeable in real life.

[nebular]

Everything just look simple but isn’t
I think you could have an army of B9 in exchange of Solidscape. Why do you use both? Is B9 really compareable with Solidscape?

Rz***261;dzicie

[Przemas]

B9 is not there yet - but really close. And as you mentioned it is much cheaper (also found it fun to use as I’m not afraid to tinker with the tech). Atm you can’t achieve the same quality on B9 that you can get on Solidscape. It is still very good though. And simply put we have both first of all because when we got the 1st printer there was no B9 :D. Still, even if there was, I think we would need one more machine for the most detailed and demanding jobs (very detailed 30mm miniatures for example). We use B9 for items such as vehicles, scenery etc.
So all the head swaps etc you see in this topic are made on Solidscape.

dzieki !

[m0delista]

Fantastic Job !! you can show how you do the cuts and pegs for molding ?
Thanks

[JasonBurnsArt]

Really fantastic work!
It’s great to see another B9 user here. I have the original 1.1 model that I have modified to resolve some of the early hardware problems the 1.1 had. It was a bit frustrating at first but after I got the mod in place and got past the learning curve of the software and the resins it’s been a great machine. I actually just started a print on it just a few hours ago

If you don’t mind me asking are you guys running the 1.2 with the HD projector? and what type of resin are you using?

The detail from that Solidscape T76+ is crazy

[Przemas]

m0delista: sure, I’ve asked Konrad to write a short guideline - his will be much better than mine. I also recommend this post :
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?174566-Cuts-and-key-in-zbrush-4r4
Also note that we add some of the things (but rarely keys/ joints), for example tabs for slot bases in external apps. We scale the model first in real world units then add those things that need specific dimensions in CAD (usually Rhino as I simply love it ).
Think of it as - design in sculpting app, prepare for manufacturing in industrial CAD .

@burnsjt: we have 1.2 version. So far I used mostly stock B9 resins (cherry/red) - as I don’t have to fiddle much with the settings. But I’ve started playing with Spota resins - so far they seem nice. In the initial batch I’ve overpigmented it , so I had to ramp up cure times and I haven’t got this tiny little bit of “light bleeding” that makes surface look smoother , but overall I think when pigment ratio and cure times gets worked out it will be a viable substitute.

And yeah , I know what do you mean when it comes to 3d printing being frustrating at times. At this moment this is not a plug&play process. Even when you buy crazy expensive machine you should expects some bumps - so far it is only a matter how many and how often .

[Przemas]

Definitely time to catch up - we’ve been quite busy with the changes in the workshop and projects, thus we had quite a limited time for “online presence” . We’ve changed our 3d printers so now we can print faster and more reliably , but still maintaining the high quality output. Atm we have sla/dlp printers from Envisiontec and DWS. I’m also considering getting Form2 for less demanding tasks (vehicles, models/busts larger than our regular 28-35mm miniatures) - it really seems they have come a long way in terms on reliability since Form1.
I’ll try to post things we’ve worked on - I’m waiting for permissions from some of the clients. In a meantime a small peak :

//youtu.be/T-E3TRxfEPQ

• this was our Halloween special mini. Created by Zbyszek , using some of the Konrad’s assets.

• this on the other hand is our current Xmas special , Rotten Santa. We had a blast with this one. The base meshes rigged and posed in Modo sped the things up considerably and allowed us to explore various options quickly.

Konrad worked on those exorig suits quite a while ago, I think before we got those cool poly tools in Zbrush (not 100% sure though).

[Przemas]

//youtu.be/5u4snYFgscE

We had a pleasure of having a bit of interns in the workshop from Academy of Arts in Warsaw (industrial design faculty). Super cool experience and here’s a sample one of them, Oskar Szulc:

//youtu.be/k39UY7y-Oek

• and that was something he created during the first week of playing in Zbrush. I had a blast watching how quickly he familiarizes with the app (Zbyszek’s tips certainly helped).

I’ve been also testing out printing larger pieces on our current machine - here are some monstrous wings for example:

[boozy_floozie]

Gunslinger Orcs, VanGobling and Orc Halftrack bike stand out as the most individual and original in identity and style.
Really fun pieces, bravo

[Przemas]

thank you Boozy Floozie . Working on greenskins and monsters in general is quite a bit of fun - most of the times we really feel we have more freedom while working on those. Crazier ideas can go through as “passable” :). Probably why they usually stand out as more “individual”.
Personally I’m quite fond of the exorig suits - but I’m quite biased on this one. So much effort went into making those.

Before holidays I’ve managed to dig one more out - shoulder pads sculpted by Pawel Laskowski a while back.

[Przemas]

Time for a long overdue update .
Quite a lot of models (mostly 28mm minis) went through our workshop since last post. Here are some highlights:

1. Desert dwellers range

• it was quite a challenging project for Justyna. In the end I’ve decided to limit swap options of parts to heads only, but it still makes heck of a set:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I was super thrilled when I saw how the prints turned out:
  
  
  
  Resin casting also went smoothly for those:
  
  
  Those have been further expanded by adding more weapon variants and so on (Krystian worked on majority of those additions):
  
  
  we plan to add even more, like gun cart crews etc

2. Some of the Green Alliance orcs have been released (most of the sculpting done by Konrad Rogowski)
   
   
3. Justyna has been getting better and better with Zbrush sculpting with each model

//youtu.be/z9pvnUmXkHc

//youtu.be/AQZj11oLFD0

• for me a testament that opinions about Zbrush haveing “difficult” UI are a bit exaggerated . Someone with no prior 3d experience seems to be catching up quickly.

3. Krystian also did some cool stuff like anti riot ogres
   

//youtu.be/KhQ9KYe-o2M

4. We’ve also had a bit of special limited miniatures like this Halloween Orkenstein:
   

… and quite a number of models for other miniatures and boardgames companies .
Definitely Zbrush and 3d printing become one of key points in our workflow. For me it was interesting to see how much more often we tend to use ZB for hard surface stuff nowadays.