Catch up on Sketchup

Posted on February 2, 2011 by build4play

How many times have you started working on something with all the enthusiasm of a foal, and then got stuck on a bump in the road …

Sure you’ll need the drive, but a plan to fall back on usually keeps that same drive alive.

Your battle-plan doesn’t have to be a 100page document, nor the blueprint of St.Paul’s Cathedral. A simple sheet with key points and ideas to implement will do.

If you do have the time to invest or fiddle around with a 3D-program, in order make a preview of what you aim on building, then Google’s Sketchup might be a good cheap (freeware anyone ?)  introductory.

I’m still at the bottom of the learning curve with the software, but usability seems very high, especially if you’re not building said St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Get convinced and check out some of the tutorials:
http://www.youtube.com/user/SketchUpVideo

I’ll be sharing the 2D/3D models I came up with for my projects soon.

So make sure you catch up (bad pun intended)

Posted in Sketchup, Tools | 1 Comment

That’s no moon. It’s a space station

Posted on January 28, 2011 by build4play

Let me introduce you to my current project:
A space station for 28mm wargaming.

Certainly not the smallest of projects, my eyes are usually bigger then my stomach … but I’m feeling very hungry.

Main sources of inspiration
– Infinity: www.infinitythegame.com. 28mm futuristic miniature wargaming, set in a not so distant feature. The miniatures are excellent and they already have a very wide range. Personally, I posses miniatures from the Haqqislam,Yu Jing & Nomads factions.

– Hirst Arts: Their Starship Interior molds are my main inspiration. I’ve bought and casted some of their molds before, and thus went for a bigger project this time

– G.O.T Scenery: Over at Antenociti’s Workshop, they have a nice range of scenery pieces for decorating the interior of the space station: intercoms, consoles, plasma screen, tactical stations … I couldn’t resist

– Future Armada: These are interior maps of spaceships, space stations that can be used as battlemaps or for roleplaying. Two of those (the Argos III and the Vanguard Station) give you an excellent idea for layout (areas, levels, roomtype, etc) .
Make sure you check out the free demo’s:
– The Argos III demo PDF
– The Vanguard Station demo PDF

I’ve already started on casting some of the molds (25% done) and found a nice idea for the frame of the space station.

I was looking for something to support multiple levels and bumped into this old dry rack at my parents.
Some of the advantages:
– can be folded: allowing me to transport it (to the club, conventions)
– has 3 levels: very decent for a middle-sized space station

So I’m thinking:
– lowest level: docking & cargo bay, engineering
– middle section: quarters, main area, administration, med lab, etc
– upper level: bridge, officers quarters

As I want the bridge to stand out and considering the top level of the rack is rather high – +/- 150cm (so much for gnomes wanting to get into miniature wargaming), I was looking for a “see-through” area on the toplevel.
A plexi dome (55cm diameter), will make for a superb view of the “surroundings” on the bridge.

… transmission ended

Posted in Infinity, Projects, Space Station | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Kick-off

Posted on January 21, 2011 by build4play

What’s it about?
So I’ve decided to write a blog. Luckily I already had the idea about the subject, so first base is covered … might as well share it with you: Scale Models. More precisely terrain/model building for wargames.

So “Build4play” … exactly: the terrain I will be building will be used for wargaming (at the club, conventions, etc).

Look who’s talking
So I’ve shared the subject, might as well tell you a bit more about the storyteller.
At the time of publishing this first article (and hopefully my first visitor reading this): 34, married, no kids. – 2 out of 3 should definetly get a new twist (soon)

A gaming enthusiast, this passion takes on multiple (plat)forms:
– videogames: mostly PC, but I like to spice up the evening with some partygames on the PS3/Wii when friends are coming over)
– boardgames: from the quick & dirty boardgame to the more advanced tactical wargames
– role-playing: a truckload of books and pdf’s (thank you Ipad), sadly time issues have mostly impacted my RPG persona
– miniature wargaming: this one has climbed the ladder recently, due to joining a gamingclub.

Let’s schedule a meeting
Having an idea is great, starting it up even better. What makes it a “success” is following through.
Striving towards regular updates. For me this means, 1 meaningful post a week sprinkled with several links, short ideas, brainstorms during the week.
In these meaningful posts, I’ll update on my current project(s), through images, videos or might give a short review of a game that currently inspires me.
On irregular intervals though, I’ll surely share interesting links I’ve found that help me in my projects or that trigger me into new ideas. Getting feedback from the community will definitely help.

.. transmission ended

Posted in Blog | Tagged | 2 Comments