The World Of Twilight

Along with all the Pryn-Gul Tower kits and sheets of shingles I alos had a couple of sets of prototype kits for TWF-02 codenamed "Stables" cut, and I couldn't resist starting to put them together tonight.


I'm certainly pushing the cutter and the material further on this kit than I did on the Pryn-Gul Tower. What surprised me was how well the stairway went together. A few minor teething problems and I need to allow a little more in the geometry for losses in the laser but this went together remarkably well.
The doorway Is double the width of the one on the Pryn-Gul Tower, and is supposed to be a stable door. But squeezing it into just one storey height has left it too short - so a re-think needed there. Have to find space on the sheet to make it taller - already a bit cramped!

here you can see the intricate treads and risers with curved supports under the stairs... I'm quite proud of that!

Anyway I haven't got to the dreaded handrail yet... and oddly I seem to be one step short... how did that happen?

That's looking very impressive! I like the wider door as well  :)

 :D

*puts pringles on the shopping list again*

Mmmm... Pringles...

Mr B,

These are looking more and more impressive as you go. Once you have build the prototype can you get some black paint dust (kids paints cheap as chips) and dust the white over to show up the grain and features please.

You could make this build a two optioned: one storey or a two story; making the second storey a hay (whatever) bail store. This way a group of buildings could be wedged together with a centralised two storey food store. Just a thought.



Lord of Wormwood

err you do realise that there is no grian on these, its painted on. styrene is not suitable to have grain texture engraved. I outline the planks but there is no woodgrain.

I meant the rough end edges..... it was early here and I had only had a tea but not the chaser of espresso based coffee - yet. What I do mean is that it would be easier to see the joins of the build with a light coating of something just to sit in the cracks and on the edges.



Lord of Wormwood

got ya...

the difficulty of photographing the white is one of the reasons i use the cad model for pictures as the outlines are better.

should finish this monday - bank holiday. will see what i can do then

I finished the assembly of the Stables prototype kit today, so I thought I would post a few pictures. As is typical with prototypes i have a list of improvements and snags to fix... but this list is 27 items long! so quite a bit to fix.
The eagle eyed amongst you will notice that I haven't added the dreaded helical handrail. I made a complete mess of designing it and put the wrong number of railing holes in it and made it too short - must have been an off day!
I'm also not happy with the main door to the ground level stables - its too low, so I shall redesign it to lift the apex of the gable end up a cm or two above the horizontal railing - that way a mounted figure can actually get in!

I'm pleased with the dormer window though and the structure of the stairs and top railing is very strong and solid.

As always comments and suggestions are very welcome!

Just throwing a question out there.....

Is the pringles tube half hight on this one and will the final product be available in a twin pack ??

Do you have the handrail digitaly modeled yet ? If so you should be able to convert it to a flat , though I think you already know that.

Oh nearly forgot, I think this one looks the best yet so far. Dormer is excellent.

This is such a cute little building.  If I ever buy a trader caravan to paint, I might have to get this to go with it.  Would it be big enough to stable pack Baruk?
No rush though - first I'd have to buy the models, then ask Mike if I could borrow his paints, then get him to teach me to paint...

Awesome-sauce.

That is all.

It should be - i dont have a pack baruk so i'm not sure on scale. Once i fix the door it'll be about 50mm tall and 40mm wide.

Hi Jubal and thanks for the comments.

Yes the Pringles tube is cut down to half height for this.... assemble to the tube and then use the horizontal beam to guide a knife blade around and voila.... thank mike for that I was struggling to find somewhere to buy the little pringles pack tubes! the idea of cutting a bit off and then THROWING IT AWAY never occured to me (doh!) :blushes:

It wont be in a twin pack. Partly because the tube is a somewhat free item (you get it for free with the crisps) whereas the amount of styrene in this kit and the amount of cutting isn't going to make it much cheaper than a Pryn-Gul tower. Also the tube isn't identical at each end - you want the closed in end for rigidity on the base of this model, and the lip at the top is a different profile to the metal base, so the roof wouldn't fit.

The hand rail IS digitally modeled, unwrapped and cut - it's just that I got it wrong and I cut the wrong number of holes for the railings in it. I'm going to try and make one tonight as i have the measurements now and at least i can finish this display model and paint it.

Ah the hole you get the goodies out of never crossed my mind.

You mentioned this difficulty with the smaller Pringles tubes before, I must admit it did confuse me as most of the shops near me still stock them. I guess Lincoln isn't a Pringle-eating centre of excellence!! Lol!

Preorders soon?
 ;D

Once you get a few of these buildings out the gate any chance of doing an accessory pack? Just windows, doors and other bits that might be useful in a total kit bash - of course you will need to see how the other lines are moving before.

I hope all the folks out there are not sitting on their wallets waiting.... This man, this Master Builder needs Patrons in order to keep the workshop going. If your UK based you don't have an excuse grabbing your first building today!


Lord of Wormwood

I refer you to the bottom of this page for your building components Lord wormwood sir... http://brandlin.blogspot.com/p/laser-cut-buildings.html (http://brandlin.blogspot.com/p/laser-cut-buildings.html)

... and thanks for the 'encouragement to potential buyers! :)

That is an excellent building! The staircase is beautiful.

For your next building it would be good to experiment with a flat roof (like Mikes Salute building from last year). 

fixed the hand rail

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_RRKBhA-2I4w/TATXwVSU4NI/AAAAAAAACow/n9ftepYgluQ/s400/stables+8.jpg)

Nice. I had a thought for more possible building arrangements.

The shape of the stable entrance could be used to make a linking corridor between two towers. If you made it longer and placed the door on the side wall it could be used to link two pringles based buildings together.

Hmm good idea... i't be a different component though - curved on both ends...

sounds like a twin towers approach.

The rail has turned out great - nice little dormer window as well (didn't notice it earlier)!
I actually quite like the low door, it somehow suits the Fubarnii.

Just a teaser picture of the paint job on the roof of the new stables kit.  The rest of the model is painted, just the grian on the extensive amount of woodwork to go!

(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RRKBhA-2I4w/TAz5AA42AuI/AAAAAAAACpU/YKH4JI9Tvgw/s320/stables+roof.jpg)

I'm hoping to finish this and have the snags on the kit corrected and available by the start of July. I'll be offering pre-orders on this kit in the next couplf of weeks.

Superb work!

Does it need anything over the ridge of the dormer window?

how to finish off the tops of the roofs has been an issue whether they are conical or a straight ridge. I've tried various different things, but nothing that really looks like ridge tiles.

Any suggestions?

Could you cut a length of thin plastic rod (same as used for the banisters) that could effectively rest in the thin crack along the top of the roof? That might actually be quite an elegant solution.

Exactly what I was going to suggest. Either round or square.

Doh! superb suggestion - thanks guys. I was racking my brains fo how to make complete tiles!!

Mind you, your timing sucks. You made that suggestion just after I'd taken the promotional pictures...


More pictures on my blog (http://brandlin.blogspot.com/2010/06/stables-promotional-model-unveiled.html)...

I thought you might like this teaser picture of the buildings shown together....

Can I ask a dumb question?
The door appears to follow the curve of the tower, presumably that's the easiest way to build it, but in terms of real life building would Fubarnii make curved doors to fit, or would the doors be flat and the frame adjusted accordingly?

Bethar - the doors are curved because they are basically painted onto the tube with the edges defined by the vertical beams and the arch. It was way easier to model them like that.

I suspect that the fubarnii would make flat doors - way easier. But then so are square buildings but they haven't done them either...

It would be easier for them to make a curved door than to adjust the building to suit a flat one.

Group shot it excellent and will be good for sales.  ;)

It might be easier to make flat doors, but the builder probably thought that curved doors would look prettier!

Very nice looking photos. Would be great to see a shot from a higher elevation to show how the stable interacts with the big building (and how the herders get the enuk up to the first storey).

The stable interacts with the big building by being plonked down on it. ::)

Is a well known fact that Enuks can go up stairs. :P

I'm wondering if I can edit the pringles tube and add a curtain instead of a door.  Depends what I decide the room above the stables is.  If it's a place for the trader to crash before he goes on a trip, a curtain might be okay.  If it is storage for his trade goods it would probably need a door.  And a lock.  What locksmith technology do the Empire Fubarnii have?

A curtain would be fairly straightforwards - you can glue the vertical beams and the door arch in place and then run a sharp knife around inside them to remove the section of tube, then affix your curtain material to the inside of the doorway. You'll need a disk of card or styrene to form a fllor and some spacers to hold it in place. I suggest you do all that before youu add the roof as you'll want access to the inside of the tube to paint and attach the curtain.

No idea about locksmithery... I'd have assumed simple wooden beam latches or medieval style iron lever locks?

Is the kit going to be about the same price as Pryn-gul?

When I get one of these I would be tempted to box in the area under the stairs (awkward person that I am...). I assume that would be a fairly easy modification? I guess it would lose some of the details, but I like the idea of breaking up the main shape even more. Would it be possible to do a stair-extension kit so that you could extend the stairs around further? I could see that working well for a wizard's tower for non-twilight settings.

What is the plan for door handles?

yes, I was wondering how far around the pringles tube a single story staircase went, and if you spiraled all the way up how far would you go around?

You guys are never happy  ::)

Fecking kits bashers - you make em a perfectly good kit but will they make it the way you designed it, will they hell!

Boxing in under the stairs - Possible. The external stringer (long thin notched piece that supports the outside edge of the stairs) that is provided is the last piece to be attached to the staircase. Its the component that provides all the rigidity to the structure. Curving it to fit is a one step at a time process and the trickiest bit of the kit, So rather than replace it with a difficult to bend piece that reaches to the ground I think I would simply add another piece in thinner styrene which reaches to the ground. This new piece could be a simple wedge shape which fits under the stairs but behind the stringer curving it to the already in place stringer would be fairly straightforwards. The back of the stairs would then be blocked in with a simple rectangle. Doing it this way would also mean you could stucco the newly created wall and have the stringer in relief as a wooden component. I can provide a template the correct dimensions in the instructions to cut yourself.

The staircase covers a little over 120 degrees. If you take more than one staircase and 'stack' them then they are designed so that the overlap means that 3 of them will completely encircle the pringles tube. This is one of the things that I want to do to a Pryn-Gul tower at some point. Clearly you'd have three landings that way. You could remove the landings by cutting components and then the stairs themselves are a little over 60 degrees of arc. This would be a lot fiddlier to stack and you'd have nowhere to stand figures of course.

Plan for door handles - there isn't one. Should there be? Perhaps map pins that you simply push through the tube on the curved doors or that you push through the styrene on the flat ones? I can't pre-cut the holes in the styrene, they'd be too small. 

Not so much kit bashers, but once the design work is done reusing components makes a lot of sense. I picked up some waste-pipe this lunchtime and will have a go at finishing the tower this evening after my golf lesson.

i was joking Ben - once you bought it you can do what ya like... i am trying to make things as interchangeable as i can.

Kit bashing is the thing that appeals most to me with these kits  ;D

When are you going to give some advice on doing the large building piece shown in the composite photo? Some day it'll be fun to use your kits to build a complex intersecting structure...

Yeah, I'm afraid I'm absolutely incapable of doing a kit the way it's meant to be built.  I can't cook to a recipe either.  Or at all.

When i release the Bennan Watch Tower, The Tew-Fah Bridge and the Phomb-Oord Stockade walls. Those are the bits that connect.

Phomb-Oord Stockade walls? Are you branching out into different construction materials?

What I meant by complex intersecting structures is having cylinders intersecting cylinders and crazy stuff like that. None of this sensible modular building stuff (although that is also very cool).

cant think of anything better to make them from yet.


i'd like to do that, but the kits would most likely only be able to be constructed one way. and i think have less mass appeal and fewer generic uses.

It would be cool to get something similar to Mikes Salute 2009 building in this style. If you used pringle tubes still with a larger tube structure it would still have modular potential as you could modify the Stables or Tower bits on to it.

mot sure what you mean emberbreeze... i think you can do what mike did at salute using the pryn-gul kit by cutting the bottom off the tube and keeping the turret?

I wouldn't expect you to do it as a kit, but with enough components it would become quite practical. You are almost there already. Advice on building a slightly larger central structure and maybe a set of windows and a doorway that could attach to a larger diameter tube (even with modifications) and you would be there.

Ben was referring to the building I used in the demo game last year - it was a larger standalone piece with a flat roofed central structure and a tower. There are pictures somewhere...

The 2009 building not this years, Mike must have a pic somewhere

ah ok not seen that

Have a look here (http://forum-of-doom.com/index.php?topic=12439.0) for some pics - the first page on the buildings thread on the FoD. The painted one on the second row was mine.

After the Bennan Watch tower and Phomb-Oord Stockade walls (i really need better names!) I want to do a selection of small home type buildings - 3 base sized tubes with interchangeable components like lean-to , turret, balcony, doors, flat and slated roofs, doors windows. So you can make up the three buildings in any way. That way you could buy say 3 of these 'kits' and end up with 9 different buildings - enough to bulk out and village or outpost.

That sort of kit will lend itself to having all the bits necessary to make your own intersecting models. At that point i think i'll write a guide...


OK i got ya.

First sets of Haft-Oob Tower kits are on Ebay for pre-order NOW!!!



I have also added shingles and roof tile kits


If you're not in the UK then pm me and i'll sort out p&p for you.

Kits sold on first come first served basis.
:)

Any questions or comments?

Put me down for an order on the stables  :)
How big are the shingles kits?

sure mike - swap ya for lead?

shingles... I thought i had all the details on my blog page... but to be specific...  The kit contains TWO A4 sheets. Each sheet contains 16 strips of shingles, each strip is 285mm long. Shingles are random width between 4.5mm and 6mm wide (at 1:50 scale that's approx 9" to 12" width). The shingles are designed to be overlapped to show around 6mm of shingle protruding under the next layer. Using this layout, the whole kit will cover 2 * 16 * 285 * 6 = 54,720 square mm of roof... or 547 square cm.  Or to put it another way a square roof over 23cm (9 inches) on each side.

The tiles are much the same but fixed at 6mm width and has 17 strips. The kit will cover 581 square cm.

Sounds good to me  ;D

I expect you have, but I thought I'd be lazy and get you to tell us all again! And remember, the customer is always right  :)

Well ya made me calculate it again and put the right numbers on the website, so can't be bad!

You're only a custome rif there is a liklihood of you spending money though :p  doesn't mean i have to be nice to everyone hehehehe

Put me down for a stables as well!  Mike, can you put aside a Trader Caravan for me next time I see you?  Oh, and can I borrow your paints...

Assembly instructions (issue 1.0) now complete

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B06t3PB5k709YjE4MTk1NDUtODRkYS00ODZhLTgzYTMtOGZjMmUyYjlmOWNh&hl=en_GB

As before i'd appreciate any comment etc on the detail. This time I have pictures too! I get so close to these its hard to tell whether they make sense - they are projects in their own right.

Oh and Ben - if you disliked the conical cone of the pryn-gul tower you are going to hate the stringer on the stair case - sorry... one of those bits you need opposable thumbs for - preferrably 12 of them :(


In other news, the release of these may be delayed a week or so as I think I have discovered a couple of problems in the geometry which I shall have to check by building another kit and getting new bits cut if necessary. :( pooo...  anyway by the time it goes out it WILL be right.

damned curves and cones and helixes....

Instructions are very professional. One thing though was that I couldnt see instruction on what glue to use for styrene to card tube. Obviously it will be CA but it should be made clear.

bottom of page 2. :p

http://www.worldoftwilight.com/HintsAndTips.pdf


thanks for reading through klute

Can we design a creature for this?  :P

Good news

oooh postman just called and i have a big (well not as big as last time) box of plastic bits!

now the bad news

in building the second of the prototype kits on tuesday night i found a couple of geometry problems that I think are still in the final product. I am going to assemble one of the these ne wkits and see if i need to make changes.

I already know that I have messed up the handrail holes (again) so will have to get a bunch of them cut but i think the cutout around the slates for the dormer is also now wrong... i dont understand how but it might mean i need to recut all the 0.5mm roof sheets :(

anyway we shall know by the weekend!

finegers crossed.

If they are 'fixable' I don't mind, just send me one anyway :)

ok - the good news is the roof is OK. I was worried about something i had fixed but didn't remember fixing!

however the lower handrail is wrong. the spacing of the holes is too close together. Which means that the railings will not all stand vertically and sit into the holes in the railing.

on the prototype i cut new holes with a craft knife at either end and then elongated the holes elsewhere.

Ben - I'm happy to send your kit immediately if you want but I will be getting new handrails cut to slip into the kits with a note.

I also now have a built stables - I had to build it to check the roof and handrail again. - Would anyone like to buy this for the same price as an unbuilt kit?

Well the stables kit which was previously available as a pre-order is now all packed and will ship on monday - a week ahead of the planned availability.

http://bradlin.blogspot.com/p/laser-cut-buildings.html

Superb! I'm hoping Ben has my one already and I can get it from him tomorrow  ;D

Your link isn't working (you've lost the 'n' from brandlin) but try this:
http://brandlin.blogspot.com/p/laser-cut-buildings.html (http://brandlin.blogspot.com/p/laser-cut-buildings.html)

As promised, if you ordered one of these kits, it shipped today.. a week ahead of the 12th July schedule...

As always feedback, constructive criticism, notification of problems, customer pictures and reviews all gratefully received.

Received, thanks!  :)
The cover sheet was very professional.  I will try to make more useful comments when I start building.

Good old royal mail - that went in the post at about 3pm yesterday!

Thanks for the comments Beth. I hope the instructions are equally as good. If in doubt, just ask! :)

So, the building stage is complete!  Now I just have to work out how to paint it.
For a completely novice modeller not known for patience and attention to detail, I was quite pleased with the result.  It is far from perfect!  But I hope once it is painted it will be acceptable.
The stairs were tricky.  At least, I thought they went together fairly easily, but then discovered that unless they are done with absolute precision the outer stringer doesn't fit.  As I was boxing in the stairs this didn't really matter, I just cut cardboard to fit and filled in the gaps with, erm, Anita's 3 dimensional paint.  Probably not a staple of most modeller's kits, but I didn't have any putty-type substance.  For some reason it smelt of chocolate.
The handrail on the balcony was quite straightforward, but the one up the stairs was a bit trickier, probably because my stairs were wonky.  Also, I forgot about the extra enclosed handrail and glued the wrong one on, so I ended up with a three layer handrail for that bit.
The roof was also tricky, particularly the slates towards the top.  Suggestion for Brandlin - is it possible to make the tile strips so that they don't al line up in exactly the same place, as this makes one place on the roof where all the tile edges align.  Just a thought. 
The instructions were excellent, and places where I screwed up tended to be where I hadn't followed them carefully enough.  Remember, Brandlin is always right!  Also remember, it takes longer to dry than you think.  No, longer than that even.  And most of it is shaped in a way that means you just have to use your fingers, hence I am now waiting for the superglue to wear of my fingertips.
But it was great fun.  I must now go and read the painting guide.
No, you can't have photos.  I don't have a camera.

Thanks for the review Bethar!

I'm not taking "no camera" for an acceptable excuse though!

The outer stringer does take some patience and it isn't too forgiving if you have mistakes or misalignments in your steps I agree. In my experience it comes down to how accurately you made each individual stair. I cannot recommend the lego jig method shown in the hints and tips pdf file highlt enough.  Did you use that?

Oh, and when i say "let it dry thoroughly" in the instructions - ii really do mean thoroughly! :) You're not a proper modeler until you have glue on 4 of your fingertips and you've sliced off the other one!

You suggestion about the roof i've already implemented for the next batch, with the cut out for the dormer being on each end of the curve of shingles, so there are no joins except where the shingles meet the dormer !
:)

How did boxing in the stairs go? I've not actually done that yet. The template i supply in the instructions should work to fit behind the stringer, so i'm interested in how that worked out without the stringer in place?

Would you like some spare handrail bits?

Would you like a job being my non-modeling tester for every kit? Its a role my son currently has but as i wont let him play with superglue and sharp knives yet, he's a bit limited.



WOW a woman said "Brandlin is always right" you made my day!!

Um, what exactly would you like me to do about it?  A sketch, maybe?


Alas, I do not have any small children and therefore an excuse to have lego bricks.  I had some at one point in my childhood, but I expect my parents got rid of that a while ago.  I attempted to fudge something, but it wasn't too successful.


I am beginning to learn...



Cool.


Yeah, I was going to use the stringer, but when I realised it didn't fit I cut a slightly larger piece of card and cut the steps into it, in a "Bodgit and Scarper" fashion.


No it's fine, I just stuck the extra bit to the two I'd already glued together.  It looks fine. Apart from the inherent wonkiness.


I can imagine that makes building anything quite difficult!  It depends on your timescales - I'm not the most organised, and from the end of September I will be quite busy with going back to university, but if you don't mind extreme slowness I could give it a go.


I really have to blame the two glasses of wine on an empty stomach for that one.  :-[

Just thought I'd tell you all how much I'm enjoying making up my stables kit.
Having great fun doing it and am stupidly proud of how well it's turning out (in my opinon anyway!).

Great kit Brandlin!

thank you Mrs Carcharoth.... (surely you should have your own identity? ... how about Sempa Thorp?)

i always get a kick out of making stuff... you should see what i'm like when i get new prototype kits in the post... :D