Miniatures Waffle 4

Hi there!

In this installment, we look into the world of pepakura/papercraft and minis making in general.
I can do google hangouts and waffles if youd prefer that way: its always fun to shoot the breeze sometimes about stuff and ideas bounce, and I sure could use a hand or two on some printer troubleshooting!
I prefer to tinker in the 1/48 scale range, though I've worked on all sorts of projects.
you'd be surprised just how many packaging items can be useful for making miniatures! The tops from Ramune (lemonade) bottles are excellent for many engine cowlings and turrets, as they come already in the correct diameter and pre-drilled in the correct wall thickness for magnetisation!

Above: Remember the v1 papercraft dagger kit and limited run of MDF/Cardboard kit i did for it back in the day? Some like that '80s boxy chic' styling...

Above: A visualisation of "DAGGER FIGHTER KIT" in acrylic, 1:48th, mk 3. Its bigger, nastier, and angled-y. Did I mention its in 1/48th? MDF+Cardboard and Pepakura/papercraft variants to follow.
 The canopy is inspired in part by shotglasses in plastic, and in part by the turn dials from WizKids Heroclix: those also make handy shotglasses! (clean your heroclix turndials before trying to drink from them, drink responsibly, and don't mix drinking/customising games/playing games... also, don't eat food or drink in your customising/miniatures/electronics lab!)
This kit will be in acrylic pieces and in 3D printed parts: The entire frame could be made in the printer, but it is cheaper to break the assembly down into parts and have them made and folded in acrylic elsewhere. For scale, this thing is roughly the same length and width as the droid fighter mentioned later. Roughly.

Above: The tools of the custom trade: this is a lite set that I tinker with, or that others in the 'factory' can help with: the kids like to help out, and or the nephews and so on; they like making little bead-craft ants and such, so its not much of a stretch to get them working on satelites and droids in 1:48th! This is inspired by Russian and Indian project gamer blogs: check out some of the awesome composite miniatures coming out of Russia and India atm! They're ultra cheap, ultra high quality: then there are MDF kits and the like coming out, as well as indie vacuformed stuff, they're awesome!
From left: wires (1/16, 1/20" florist and also twist-ties from bread/elsewhere), plastic tubing (hard lollypop sticks - 30c the bag at the $1 shop, ear cleaners!- once you've cleaned your ears, you can siphon the centre of the tube for use in projects ranging from microelectronics to bead/arts and crafts (though Audiclean spray may kill the ear cleaner).
Then we have selected 'waste packaging' which all too often either goes to recycle or worse, to landfill! We can make minis from them as-is, and prevent the need for any transport to recycle or landfill! These are from various products. The clear round disks are coffee filters from coffee maker machines: these are ubiquitous and make perfect raygun parts or space stations/satelites --- makes you think that the packaging designers might have custom-misers in mind when they make their packaging huh? And of course, $1 pliers/multi-tool from China, and a custom tradeshow screw driver that I've turned into a 'shiv' on the anglegrinder: the 'shiv' is handy for all sorts of stuff, from de-icing the fridge to working with minis.
This whole 'lite' customising kit is around $15USD tops, and you can easily make 100+ minis, more if you can source plastic packaging waste from local businesses. That means you can save more money and get tools and better paints and basing materials, or potentially aftermarket official parts for your miniature maker-y.

Above: to left, an old warnout figure from WotC (heat warped from direct sunlight and has 'plastic cancer'), to right, the beginnings of v3 Ptype DDroid: it has spinning blasters and 4 legs. The curvy back part is being prototyped for printing, as are gun parts and leg parts, but Ive found in past versions I've made, that the ribbed (can we say that without the laughing?) ring from milkbottles etc makes okay curvy back part stuff. Watch this space: I think a decent v5 variant of this p-type will not be far off, and then there'll be recipes. 

 Above: To Left, some weird floaty plant thing with a bot pal from WotC to right for scale.

 Above: The same floaty plant thing. The floaty bit is made from aquarium toys picked up at local yard sales: I tend to go to yard sales and buy things for ridiculous prices (its a win-win: i get neat stuff, they get a helping hand on their move). At the moment, I've taken to making furniture bauhaus style from stuff at yardsales, like broken speakers or old broken electronics: they make for really interesting coffeetables or desks/bedside tables, and any profit ratio that might be there helps put food on the table!

 Above: At long last, a v1 (in universe, this would be between RotS and ANH) T4 Turretbot squares off against a keldor rookie. The eyes are freehand decals made from high gloss 140GSM paper, then marker-pen'd and sealed. You

 Above: from this angle you can see the 'welds' where a v2 head has been attached: the actual printed v1 model which will be closer to the actual figure seen in Jedee Power Battles, will be moveable and twistable etc: I learned a lot from Gundam bubblegum kit models heh! Those designers are awesome btw, even if the gum was always off and the trading cards warped heh.

 Above: A front-on view: note the acrylic support stand as part of the base structure: thats only for this prototype: the printed legs will be sturdy enough to support their own weight. The printed legs will also snap together and thus be pivotable etc, and there will be internals for magnets/ferrous materials, so as this figure can be fully interchangeable and adaptable (ie, so as I send parts and you can choose to assemble them in whatever resemblancy configurations you wish). I'm working on alternate turrets for this guy, in conjunction with v3 of the SW40K conversion rules I've worked on and off for the past 5years - that seems a very popular project.

 Above: a Hasbro droid fighter "ACE" in 1/48th scale, on a 'POP freestanding stand': this particular one was sourced from Darice and is 8" tall: these stands are AWESOME as flightstands, and are a fraction of the cost of other alternatives, and look much better than if you were to just lazer etch or 3D print yourself. Did I mention they come premade/preassembled?!? All you need to do if you want is to alter the rods and increase the amount of knuckles or lengths. You can even mix'n'match with a MDF or cutnetched acrylic base and then put a rod/rods onto that: for example, in my SW40K adapted rules, as a Heavy Support AND Fast Attack Choice, you can take 1 wing of 3 fighters, or 1 ace fighter: the wing stand will be a Hexagonal etched base with 3 rods (each with 3 knuckles each),
whereas the ace base will be a smaller trapezoid with a telescoping and magnetic base instead.
Support your local retailer suppliers and local plastics companies, or buy these handy items from closing down sales etc. They are awesome, and I must thank the Macross/Gundam forums and the SW 3&3/4" forums for the tipoff on these ideas!

Alrighty, well, we'll leave that waffle there for the moment,
next time I think we'll cover futures in this hobby, some tips for magnetisation of ferrous materials/incorporating ferrous materials into your projects, and hopefully by then these printers'll be more printy and less "I don't like it when the software talks to me like that'-y.
Thanks and bye-bye.

PS.
Goodbye, that bicentennial man, Robin Williams. You were a gift and will always be remembered as one extraordinary fellow. I won't forget your reflections or your standup, which with Bill Hicks and George Carlin, told the truth that was stranger than fiction. Your song work, particularly "How Do I Feel" from Toys, that speaks eternal. Nor that awesome moment with Koko.
Deepest sympathies to the family and loved ones, what a guy!