Oolite Bulletins

I thought I'd upload a couple of things to Shapeways, a rendering of the James Wallis Asp, and the (old) Oolite logo rendered to resemble an Elite pin.

They come out pretty dear, but you can always play with the materials to reduce the price. Can't wait to see how they look when delivered.

http://www.shapeways.com/shops/aegidian

I wonder why they're so expensive - the price guide says $10/cm3 for steel and these are 3x that.

Looking nice though!

False advertising! Where are the hot babes?

Seriously though, they look awesome! The Asp would look cool on my mantle! One day when I'm not poor...

A jolly Cobra Mark Three.

'Cos it's a wireframe it's somewhat cheaper if you're thinking of an Xmas present.

Micha wrote:

I wonder why they're so expensive - the price guide says $10/cm3 for steel and these are 3x that.

Looking nice though!

I think they use something like lost wax casting for steel. I have professionally much contact to goldsmiths. There the lost wax casting is a much used technique. The only difference is that in above example the model is made by 3D wax printing when I read things right. That a new technique to create a wax model, and I know some goldsmiths now also have a 3D wax printer. Casting gold or silver is much easier than steel. And for every cast you need a new original wax model. For larger quantities you normally start with making a mold for the wax models.

Amazing these new techniques. It enables you to create custom objects in wingz3D and get a physical object at the end.

I've been having a flick through the ship designs some of them are pretty good. Worth importing into the game in fact.

Added some cufflinks and a smaller (and thus more affordable) version of the pin badge.

Ooo nice. I'd like to see some shots of the RW items when they turn up.

Ship Miniatures: http://t.co/XMbviat

Very nice
Is that price for the set, or individually?

It's a bit of a con though! You have to order $25 or stuff before they'll process the order.



I asked my good woman to get it for my birthday next month then found out the minimum order limit...

EDIT: Ah, stuff it, I added a badge as well. In 14 days I'll hopefully be the proud owner of OOLITE MERCHANDISE!! I'm well excited.

If you buy any of this stuff (and it prints okay, I'm still waiting for my first test pieces) could you please link to a photo of it here? And could I also please have your permission to use your photo on the Shapeways site?

I'd ask for a photo against a well-lit, folded piece of white A4 paper with a coin for size comparison, but I'll happily accept a grainy phone-cam snap as better than nothing!

Smivs wrote:

Very nice
Is that price for the set, or individually?

For the set. I have the models individually ready to print too (just hidden from regular customers), but individually they work out a lot more expensive than as a sprue of ten models.

Individually, the Cobra Mk3, Boa, and Python would be about $5 each, the Anaconda about $7, the Asp, Moray, Mamba, Gecko, Viper, and the Cargo are all about $3.00 each. I modelled a Thargoid on a stand to the same scale, but that works out to $10.50.

Part of the difference in price is to do with the cost of shipping (which is rolled into the price of each item rather than being calculated separately), part is to do with how the design uses space - it's more spatially efficient (denser use of material) if one combines models onto a sprue. Indeed, 'sprue-ing' the models is a fascinating puzzle in spatial terms, it's a kind of 3d tetris that appeals to an obviously OCD part of my brain.

Nevertheless, if you want to buy individual game-miniature-size models, I can link to them from here for you.

And if there are particular designs anyone wants I can also have a go at them for you, just PM me or email me.

Ooo tempted by a caduceus, I'd like to make a hyper detailed model however.

Hmm, don't give Griff ideas!

Though I must say greebly ships should be ideal subjects for 3D printers...