Listfolk, pardon my brief digression but I think this is important!
It has come to my attention that I may have (in a prior post, some days back)
given some people a negative impression of DLD Productions
products, and specifically their partially-armoured tracked ARV, the
Badger.
It may not have been apparent from the nature of my posting, but the only
issue I have with the Badger could be described as "the design seems to be one
that would have problems in real life".
Note the key words in this statement "seems to me" - this was only my
opinion and worth exactly the amount paid for it. I claim no authority beyond
having my own experience to guide me. Also note the "in real
life" part of the comment - this refers to my own limited world view,
rather than anything that matters in any game (especially a sci-fi one).
I believed I was asked for an opinion that included my opinion of the design,
and I advanced it as I advance most criticisms of games from my own
experiences in the world the games seek to model *in my opinion*.
All opinion. There is no definitive right or wrong answer. In a sci-fi
game, perhaps this vehicle has a force field or moves 200 kph. Who knows? My
criticisms fall within my own limited world view and should not have been
taken in any other regard.
David has provided links to examples of similar vehicles, so a very fine
counter-argument (some actual vehicles that adhere to this design ethic)
has been advanced.
MOST IMPORTANTLY:
My issue was never with (nor do I wish posterity to appear thus) David's
service (exemplary), his responsiveness to customer suggestions (high), the
quality of the resin castings (best of breed), nor the finish work on the
pieces (fantastic), nor the instructions for construction (good). Nor my very
personal critique of the Badger extend to the other vehicles in DLDs line (of
which I own a fair few).
DLD makes great products, generously contributes to our community and
convention (ECC), and is easy to deal with. I wouldn't want anyone to have a
negative impression of the company or their product lines. As for the Badger,
look at it and judge for yourself. My critique is strictly based on a
(contestible) view of how things "should be". My apologies if it seemed like
any attempt to appear more authoritative.
David, my apologies if my comments wrankled - no harm was intended. I
stand by my _personal_ bone-to-pick with the design aesthetic of the
Badger, but, in fairness, as someone pointed out to me off-list, "It
looks kool". Everyone has their own opinion on aesthethics and function and
should judge for themselves.
I will be buying more from DLD (and Geohex, Eureka, Brigade, BR Snassis and
GZG UK). I find David easy to deal with and he makes lots of very
well made, very detailed kits. My own personal blind-spot will prevent
me from appreciating the Badger, but everyone should make up their own
minds!!!!!!!!
(Gosh, if anyone wants me to make up their mind, drop me a line.... I'm more
than willing to use my Jedi Mind Tricks.... on a willing assistant....)
<*grin*> (Note, this goes double for female single young availa... I'll just
stop now... or Chris will find a way to apply hist
"talents".....)
So look for yourself, think for yourself, judge for yourself.:)
> Tomb wrote:
[...much DLD product stuff...]
> I will be buying more from DLD (and Geohex, Eureka, Brigade, BR
Just to echo Tomb's thoughts (a little; I don't necessarily share his same
reservations re: the Badger), I have a few 15mm DLD Civets and a 15mm Kamodo
(need more of each) that are killer (one warning: if you put the Civet
together and store it in the box it came in for any length
of time, the gun droops :-/ - so don't do that!). Tomb has the 25mm
kits iirc. I'm plugging the 15mm range (and trying to mentally convince
David into making a 6mm line of the same ;-)
If I ever get any serious time together and can *paint* these well enough to
do them the justice they deserve, I'll put them up somewhere for
anyone interested to see (right now they are merely primed black - but
they still look good that way, too!! :-)
TomB said:
> I will be buying more from DLD
Tom even buys them for *other people*!
And I'll chime in, based on the 15mm tanks I have--really, really nice
minis, almost no clean-up work before they were ready to assemble, and
a good-looking design.
Indy said:
> If I ever get any serious time together and can *paint* these well
I don't know if you saw that APC I was paintiing in Stuart's class,
but I did everything just by dabbing sage-green with the latex sponge
wedges, and it looks pretty fair. Stuart did another one in a green,
> Laserlight wrote:
He buys them for other people?!?!? He never bought *me* any!!
> Laserlight wrote:
Stuart's a freaking god, man! :-P
I remember your sage-green APC. However, I was too focused trying to
get the APCs he loaned me to look proper. :-/ You did a far better
job than I did (let's see, this one looks like someone slapped paint on it,
and this next one looks like someone slapped paint on it, and this last one
"is getting there").
> > TomB said:
> Laserlight wrote:
Indy:
> He buys them for other people?!?!? He never bought *me* any!!
On Wed, 10 Apr 2002 17:34:06 -0400, "Laserlight"
<laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
> I don't know if you saw that APC I was paintiing in Stuart's class,
Okay, is this as easy as it sounds? Are there any tricks to the technique?
Which side of the latex wedge (or sides) did you use? Inquiring minds wanna
know!
> Allan Goodall wrote:
<laserlight@quixnet.net>
> wrote:
Well, as for "easy", the one I did sponging (dabbing) came out better
than straight-up painting by far (still was the "getting there" stage
;-).
You have to be careful to not have *too* much paint on the sponge, or not to
press too hard when dabbing (lest you fill in the cracks that you really don't
want to fill). The way I did it was to put the sponge over the opening of the
bottle, invert for a moment, revert back, then start dabbing off the excess
paint onto another surface (Stuart showed me a
new use for all those AOL CDs that come in the mail ;-) ;-) until you
have just a bit, then start gently dabbing. Keep dabbing until you start to
see a change (and don't forget to move around the vehicle (or figure)
as you dab ;-). When the sponge runs out of paint, smear it around a bit
in the excess you left off on the CD or where ever you wiped, and go at it
again.
You can use any/all sides of the sponge. In general I've seen that one
uses the long leg or "hypotenuse" sides for general dabbing, the short leg for
smaller area dabbing, and the thin edge (where long leg and hypotenuse meet)
for getting into nooks and corners. For the visually impaired I present this
wonderful ascii drawing:
/|
/ |
hype / | SS
/ |
/ |
/ |
edge ------------
LL
Of course, given the granularity of ASCII drawings you'll have to
abstract a bit. ;-) So I've labeled LL (long leg), hype (hypotenuse),
SS (short side), and edge (edge ;-) for you. :-)
Note: sponging is MUCH harder to do with 1/300 scale tanks than 15mm
tanks. ;-) I think I got more paint on my thumb and fingers than I
did on the vehicles when I was working with them last week.
> "Laserlight" wrote:
> I don't know if you saw that APC I was paintiing in Stuart's class,
Allan: Okay, is this as easy as it sounds? Are there any tricks to the
technique? Which side of the latex wedge (or sides) did you use? Inquiring
minds wanna know!
It is depressingly easy--when I think of all the time I've spent doing
it the hard way... Prime black. Take a latex cosmetic sponge wedge. Put some
paint on it, dab it a few times on another surface so it's damp instead of
wet, then pat the mini. The effect should be similar to dry brushing with a
bit more coverage. Use whichever sides you like, depending on how wide an area
you wish to cover.
Quoting Indy <kochte@stsci.edu>:
> Well, as for "easy", the one I did sponging (dabbing) came out better
> Note: sponging is MUCH harder to do with 1/300 scale tanks than 15mm
Ah. *Finally* a use for all those latex sponges that you get in the "free if
you buy two products" collections from make-up counters...
{They are useless for putting make-up on two counts. One, they don't
fill in the wrinkles properly, as described above and two, the sponge gets
more of the
make-up than one's face does... fingertips work MUCH better)
Personally, for things like this, I always used to use the synthetic foam
stuff
that comes in blister-packs of minis. It has no other use once you've
opened
the pack, and it's likely to be near at hand. :-)
> Katie Lauren Lucas wrote:
I keep a supply of these for padding for my minis when I store them in
things other than gun cases. Not the absolute best, but they work. :-)
I tend to use them to prop odd shaped mini's up off of surfaces/what
not. Just stack on top of each-other until desired height is
reached. Makes mounting to stands in FT trivial, even for the most oddly
balanced ship.
On a side note, on one of my ships, the glue apparently seeped down into
the sides of one pad, and my 3 year old knocked the table just right to cause
a tumble. The pads saved the ship from a 4 foot drop. Fortuitous. Also, same
ship, the pads when removed left small
pieces of themselve attached to the stand about 1/2 way between base and
ship. They look like bits of asteroid, and so have been left on and painted
for "neat" factor.
Rand.
> At 11:06 AM 4/12/02 -0400, you wrote:
> foam stuff
> On 12-Apr-02 at 13:44, Randall L Joiner (rljoiner@mindspring.com) wrote:
> Also, same ship, the pads when removed left small
You must be one of those "Don't see it as a problem, see it as an opportunity"
people.:)
> Randall L Joiner wrote:
Ya gotta love serendipity! :-)
Quoting Indy <kochte@stsci.edu>:
> Katie Lauren Lucas wrote:
Which leads me onto another question: anyone recommend a good place to get
portable storage for minatures?
Suppose someone has, ohhhhh, best part of a billion miniatures they need to
home
and could do with a not-to-expensive storage system. The magnetic ones
would be a pain (rebasing everything), making boxes would take AGES and not
all of the
stuff is human-sized (walkers, tanks, things like that).
I've got a bundle of carry cases that are "absolutely not the same as the ones
GW used to sell for about 3x the price". It would be nice to get all my
figures stored in the SAME type of boxes...
[We are talking a LOT of figures here. 2 companies of WH40K space
marines; suitable Genestealer opposition, millions and millions of fantasy
figures.]
If they were all in the same type of box at least it would all /stack/.
And not-too-expensive would be good as well, since I'll need a few of
them...
Cheers!!
In a message dated 14/04/02 20:42:43 GMT Daylight Time, katie@fysh.org
writes:
> If they were all in the same type of box at least it would all
B&Q do a range of storage boxs with the brand name ZAG that I use. To be
exact they are more like a little plastic drawer unit, 4 shallow, 35mm, 2 big,
55mm, with a pull up handle on top. They stack, though I wouldn't want to
build them up to high. And the small drawer is deep enough for a W40k
marine, I just tried on.
John
The Army Transport by Sabol Designs
(http://www.saboldesigns.net/website/armytransportx.html) is great.
I have yet to purchase one of these, but have seen them. It is a large
(14x13") container with 8 cutomizable trays. 6 are 1" deep and 2 are
2.5"
deep (for vehciles and other large items). At about $60us, they are not cheap,
but compaired to other "official miniatures cases", they are a bargin (9x
capacity for 2x cost). The trays are a soft foam on top of a denser foam
(bottom of tray), and have "cubes" cut through the soft foam for easy
customization (steve jackson games uses the similar "cubing" for custimization
in thier Ogre Miniatures line).
I am currently using shotgun cases for 25mm and Full Thrust miniatures. And
Plano tackle boxes for 6mm (with foam padding).
---
Brian Bell bbell1@insight.rr.com ICQ: 12848051 AIM: Rlyehable YIM: Rlyehable
Cygnus X1.info
http://www.cygnusx1.info/
---
[quoted original message omitted]
I second this! I have a couple of these boxes and they are designed to stack
(Though 3 is about high enough). Drawers are perfect for minis, vehicles etc.
Magic
> --- WJAL21@aol.com wrote:
Quoting Robert Makowsky <rmakowsky@yahoo.com>:
> I second this! I have a couple of these boxes and
How many figures would one of these hold?
{I haven't been able to make it B&Q to have a look yet}
Mine are currently enroute from Puerto Rico back to CONUS so all this is from
memory. Anyone with one of these ZAG drawer boxes in front of them please jump
in and correct me.
There are 2 size drawers. The top 2 rows have a bit smaller drawer and the
bottom larger. They come with dividers and I have used the large drawers to
hold 3 matchbox sized (15mmish) vehicles. The smaller can
hold 4-6 based 25mm. (The figure count is could be
off by an order of magnitude, I use these primarily for vehicles and ships)
I know this helped very little but I hope it will help some.:)
Magic
> --- Katie Lauren Lucas <katie@fysh.org> wrote:
.
> How many figures would one of these hold?
In a message dated 18/04/02 08:45:46 GMT Daylight Time, katie@fysh.org
writes:
> How many figures would one of these hold?
I have between 20-30 25m figures in the shallow drawers.They have a lot
of foam packed in between them, and with a bit of work could be much more
efficiently used. The internal dimendions overall are approx 130mm x 270mm, x
either 35 or 55mm deep.
John