Waffling on Miniatures 2

Hi there! 

Welcome to another installment of the Miniatures Waffle Series: where we take a break from critical thinking and abstract waffling, and waffle instead on miniatures!

After all the emails, I can finally share an update on the tabletop figures front.

To Right: A Naga Monk Forms...

How do you feel about the accuracy of this piece? I'm impressed with the detail and accuracy to the comics depiction. I look forward to revealing the sculptor and where you can get the minis once the project is completed, so stay tuned!

I'm looking forward to getting my hands on this piece and on the generic lizard mutant figures as they come (they'll be similar scale, and either pewter or resin...).

Now I've shared the good news first,

 onto the less good news:

there are some technical and quality problems with the translucent minis projects I have on the back burner: these are the 'holocronicular dice', the thrown lightstick, irregularly shaped lightsticks and lightwhips, double ended lightstick and jetpack contrails... the 'objective marker' set/customising components set.

The materials thickness and resolution for clear printing is not at a fidelity that you or I might like for our customising efforts... there is also a problem with the glues we can use with these plastics: its not entirely ABS or whatever that spool is, so with the pieces I've got as prototypes, regular glues like araldyte and tarzans' grip are melting the mini and warping the surfaces/making the mini turn brown...

Have you had similar experiences when using 3d Printer printed extruded plastics? Have you had problems when adhesing pieces of clear detail plastic: to other plastics, to other surfaces such as MDF or Acrylic?

I have a feeling these 'plastic problems' will spill over to the vehicle projects...

Hopefully they can be resolved swiftly, I feel they can be worked around or overcome.

Moving to the Chodak minifigs... 

there's 3 variants at this time. I feel its a  dynamic concept, and you could do a lot with the figures.

the internal splines and curves for transparent plastic are too small for most 3D printing at the moment;

we could upscale (not an option)

we could change the profile and shape (not a preferred option)

we can make the components separately, as the cavity in the 'mech suit' does pass the bar... whereas the suit plus an internal translucent mollusc do not. (my preferred option).

we can sacrifice the translucentness of the internal mollusc (I don't want to compromise finish).

Also, the same gluing problem arises, and these things are more brittle than resin (so, extra precautions will need to be taken in shipping).

What do you feel about these? Have your say via comments or emails.

Its full steam ahead otherwise!

So, for the vehicle projects,

it looks like the Dagger and the Dianoga will be up next:

I want the endprice manifold to be around the same as a papercraft version of these figures: I want it to be great detail for dirt cheap, and a solid base that customisers can then tinker with as they like, so we can have more 1/48th scale vehicle options.

You can still send in your suggestions for vehicle and miniature figures concepts or requests here or at bloomilk. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, which might be the case here.

Bear in mind the key selection criteria (must have a 'what the?!' factor, and be something we can't get elsewhere and are unlikely to ever see elsewhere).

A small sketch or series of sketches helps to envisage the concept: maybe you link to existing images, or you make a rough sketch yourself...

I look forward to seeing your suggestions!