I use Ultimate Paper Craft 3D to unfold my models and print them out.  However there is another step I neglected to mention in the previous article.   To make unfolding easier save your 3D model under a different name then delete all of the unnecessary faces.

As you see I’ve deleted all the parts I do not need and then saved the file.  I then open up Ultimate Paper Craft 3D and I start to unfold the model.  I’m not going to do a full tutorial on how to use UPC that is what the help file is for.

UPC takes a bit of time to get used to.  Some times things just do not unfold like you would like to.  The best thing to do is to reopen the file and start again.

After you have the plans done you just need to print them out.  I prefer to use full sheet label paper.  I print them out, peel the back and place them on the material I’m going to use.  Another option is printing it on Card stock and glueing it to the material you will use.  For me the top three frames (from the picture above) were printed on label paper and the bottom three on card stock.

I realise that this may have been a bit simplistic but a full tutorial on UPC would take pages, it’s best to use the help feature to learn how to use this program.  Next step is cutting and assembling!

Well to get started I need to decide what I’m going to build and what I’m going to build it with before actually designing it.  As it turns out I have a Pringles can (H: 26 cm {10.24 in}, Circumference: 23.5 cm {9.25 in}) a couple of Yakult bottles, some 5mm foam board and some straws.  Make sure you measure your items before construction and jot them down on a piece of paper.

Although I grew up using Imperial measurements I prefer to use metric as it is more logical (in my opinion).

I have a spare piece of precut foamboard that is 6″x6″ so I’ve added that as well.  Now that I have my pieces I move them around in different ways to see what appeals to me.  In the end I’ve decided to make a fuel tank of some sort.  I think I want the tank to go on it’s side to block line of site and increase it’s blocking terrain footprint.  Since I know the diameter of the Pringles Can and the height of the yakults I make some feet for the tube so it sits off of the ground.  I will extend it out so it makes a shield around the two smaller tanks.

now it is just a matter of deleting the unwanted bits and copy/paste to have my two supports.  I will then assemble it to see if I like the looks of it.

Well this is the look that I wanted and you could call it good and go to the next step but with Sketchup you can do much more.  I have some 1mm mat board, card stock and cereal boxes that I’m going to use to add some relief to this piece of terrain.  I will first start with the tank supports.  I will select the side of the support and copy then paste it to the side.  I will then give it 1mm depth and add a simple design to it.

This will be glued unto the foamboard giving it a bit of relief.  You can go as crazy as you like, but I don’t feel like cutting detailed pieces in 1mm mat board.  Now for the tank.  You can just prime and paint it but you will see the spiral of the Pringle card.  So knowing the circumference and the length I make a square then carve it up into smaller squares.  Now I have square plates that I can place over the Pringles can with a 1mm gap between them.

I want a way to connect the Yakult bottles to the Pringles Can so I will place a box on top of the Pringels.  Since I know the curvature of the can I can shear the bottom of the box off so it will rest securely on top.

So far this has taken me an hour and a half to make as I tried out different arrangements and decorations.  Now using Imperial Font I add the Imperial Eagle and call it good!

And we are done!  Next i will show you how to get this design into a printable format with Ultimate Paper 3D.

.

Minas Tirith!

The Great White City. . .  City of Kings. . .   Capital of Gondor. . .

Matchstick Marvels will take you on another fantastic journey as Patrick Acton completed his matchstick model of J.R.R. Tolkien’s City of Kings from the Lord of the Rings trilogy! Come along for a trip to Middle Earth and its Great White City, Minas Tirith.

Read more at Matchstick Marvels

Visit: Dave’s Games.

It’s 2 feet wide and 14 inches high. I’ll have a look at it but I doubt that I’ll buy it. People more into 40K than I am might jump on it though.

GW Fortress of Redemption

Fortress of Redemption; Legions of The Eye Launched, New Advance Orders | Friday, 23 October | What’s New Today | Games Workshop.

WorldWorksGames is running a very special and rare sale in anticipation of its groundbreaking new terrain system TerrainlinX. From August 27^th to the 31^st you can get your hands on any WorldWorksGames catalog product for 20% off! This is a terrific opportunity to experience the WorldWorksGames difference or increase your existing terrain collection. Please note: your special 20% off discount will not appear until you view your cart and or checkout.

TerrainlinX Launches Sept 1st!

On September 1st WorldWorksGames will be launching the first in a series of products for the fantasy city of Himmelveil. First conceived in 2004 and over 2 years in the making, our first two releases “Streets” & “Sewers” will cover city infrastructure but in a unique way that has never been achieved before in gaming terrain. Utilizing our upcoming TerrainlinX building system; streets, sewers and multi-leveled structures can all happily coexist on the same gaming table! Everything is on-the-fly modular and absolutely everything is accessible! Not only that but we’ve incorporated automated, consumer machine cutter compatibility to speed up your builds as never before!

Where to start?  Well the best place to start is to take your model and measure the areas that you want to add the magnet to.  You will need to check the entire area including depth.   Once you have figured out if you can even insert magnets into your model it is time to do a check list of tools.

• Tweezers
• Super Glue
• Pin Vice
• Drill Bits (the same diameter as the magnets)
• Red Paint (or any brightly coloured paint)
• Magnets

Have everything you need?  Here are some links you may find what you need.  I have not tried any or all of these companies so please do a little research before purchasing on line.

Tools

• http://www.ehobbytools.com/
• http://www.micromark.com/
• Local Hobby Store

Magnets

• first4magnets.com (this is where I purchased my magnets)
• K&J Magnets
• Amazing Magnets
• Power Magnet Store
• Don’t care for any of these links?  Do a search for NdFeB Magnets; Rare Earth Magnets; or Neodymium Magnets

For my Tau Crisis Suits I went with 2mm x2mm magnets.  I used a 2mm drill bit.  I had grown up with the Imperial measurement system, however I am now living where they use metric.  If your having problems figuring out what drill bit or magnet size that use different measurements try this Online Conversion website.

Step Two

STEP ONE: Get a paint brush or cotton swab and some bright coloured paint.  Taking the magnets (the normally form a stright line) paint one side of the magnets, either the positive or the negative but not both sides.  This step is the most important step! If you place a positive side facing outward then do the same for the part you want to attach they will repel each other!  This is the easiest way of keeping track!  Remember opposites attract.

STEP TWO: Carefully drill the holes to the proper depth.  If your unsure then stop drilling and place the magnet into the hole to check the depth.  I placed four holes in each Tau Crisis Suit.  One in each shoulder and one in each arm.  I then placed a hole in each of the weapons and Crisis Suit Upgrade items (Multi-Tracker and Target Lock) .  Once you have all your holes drilled proceed to the next step.

Step Three

STEP THREE: Decide what is the facing side for the model.  I choose the unpainted side (silver) for the Crisis Suits and the Red side for the Weapons.  Taking a metal tweezers I attached one magnet to it.  Making sure that the Red Side is facing up!  I then add super glue to the magnet and using the tweezers I insert the magnet so it is flush with the surface of the model.

Step 3

Step 3

Do the same for the weapons but make sure the painted side (or opposite side) is facing to make sure they attach properly.

Finished arm.

Modular Crisis Suits and Broadside Battle Suit

That is all there is to it!  Just remember to take care when drilling.  Some times the heavier Commander weapons will droop however a quick nudge and they are back up again.  I know some sites suggest placing a second 1mm x 1mm magnet in the arm to keep this from happening.  I may one day try this, but so far I am pleased with the results!  Next step is to add magnets to my Tau Devilfish, Piranha, Hammerhead, Skyray and possibly even the drones.

Now this will work for any of your Warhammer 40k models.  Just make sure the magnet will fit without weakening the model first before you start drilling.  I have a friend who is going to do this to his Chaos Terminators and some of his Tactical Marines as well.  I will try to edit this post with pictures.

The finished product (above) is not to scale, if I was doing this on a model I’d avoid the big wood planks so close together. I used 3x 3″ fieldstone blocks from HirstArts and stacked them. Time to finish this was a about 2 hours because I didn’t know what I was doing and I had to wait for the spackling compound to dry.

List of Materials

• 3x 3″ Fieldstone Hirst Blocks
• 4x 3″ Hirst Wood Planks
• 4x 1″ Hirst Wood Boards
• DAP DryDex Spackling Compound
• Vallejo Paints
  • Charred Brown
  • Cobra Leather
  • Bone White
  • Scorpy Green
  • Beasty Brown
  • Sombre Grey
  • Cold Grey
  • Skull White
• Pointy Stick (Some sort of carving tool)
• Brown Ink
• Weldbond (Glue)

First a note, you can click on any of the small picks to see a larger version

Basically, I started with a concept and thought that I wasn’t going to spend a lot of time doing this if it was going to look really ugly. I glued 3 fieldstone blocks on top of each other. I glued the baseboard and the upright boards in place. As you can see, its not an exact fit. Didn’t care.

I use black Flowstone mainly so when I applied the Spackling Compound (DAP DryDex) the camera exposed to the white and made the stone look a lot blacker than it really is. Anyway, I put a couple of blobs in place and smoothed it with the carving tool I tried to keep a fairly rough texture and left a couple of bare areas. The DryDex goes on Pink but drys white so I knew exactly when it was ready.

The circled area shows a “manufactured” crack. I used my carving tool (Pointy Stick) to connect the two main areas of bare rock. I also cleaned up all the “screwed up” bits where I got Spackle on the wood, etc. I emphasized the edges where the Daub fell off by roughing it up.

I have to apologize, a couple of the pics are fuzzy (Note to self — Make sure there is nothing in the background of the thing being photographed that may mess up the autofocus). I’ve included them to show color, not details. I’m a big fan of INK so I inked the whole thing with full strength Brown Ink. At full strength, the ink pools and goes on blotchy. This is a good thing. Normally, I mix a little Jet Dry and Water in to make the ink flow evenly and soak into everything (The Jet Dry breaks the surface tension of the mix). Not the effect I wanted in this case.

I painted the wood Charred Brown and picked out the stones in Sombre Grey (Bluish Grey). I didn’t touch the Daub yet.

Unfortunately, this is the worst picture in terms of quality but its sort of the most important. This is the color that really sets up the others that will be painted on top of it. I roughly painted the Daub with Cobra Leather. Its sort of half way between a normal wet brush and a dry brush. I didn’t want to get in all the cracks but wanted strong color. I also went really close to the edges.

Here’s a close up of the next step. The stones are dry brushed carefully with Cold Grey. The Daub is given several dry brushes of Bone White. The edges where the daub meets the wood is avoided. The corners are really avoided. This is suppose to look dirty.

The wood is now given a coating of Beasty Brown. Again, not really a dry brush but I avoid filling in the cracks. The stone is given a light dusting of Bone White.

OK, here’s the trickiest part to explain. The wood is given a coating of Cobra leather. I then give the wood a very light wash of very weak Brown Ink to help blend in the colors.

The cracks of the stone and the edges of the fallen Daub (Stucco, Spackling, whatever) is given a dry brush of Scorpy Green. I’ve included a close up because its one of those things that you have to see. The wood is also given a final dry brushing of Bone White. Even though the last two pics look the same, the last has a very subtle touch up of Brown Ink and a little bit of extra green dry brushing.

Hopefully, I been able to translate the process well enough the people can duplicate it. I’m going to attempt this on a larger scale soon in a basement structure.

* Note: This is a reprint of an original Dungeon Crawlers Article