Monday 29 April 2013

New Designs and Lots of Grey Paint!

Hey guys,
              This Medieval Wargame Scenery village is taking over our lives at the minute. Anyway. The last time I updated this blog we had just produced a prototype of our model two-storey medieval house. We had great feedback for that so thank you to all who've been involved. Since then we've bought a load of paint, (we've already ran out of grey) and done a load more work. You'll be pleased to hear through all that hard work we're now in the position to show you some of our newer and improved stuff. Plus the paint makes the detail stand out that little bit more. 

The Medieval Chapel




After designing loads of everyday buildings we really needed something special to stand out in our medieval village range. The design is inspired by a combination of a variety of buildings with medieval stonework and even incorporates some of the local features from various North Yorkshire Churches. Inside, players can battle within a building that contains an enthralling amount of detail including benches, candles and even an alter! We love the stone texturing which combines perfectly with the keystones to make the building look as detailed as possible. It's perfect for medieval and sci-fi wargamers alike and fits well within any 28mm model wargame such as Games Workshop's Warhammer 40k and Warlord Games.





The Single-Storey Cottage 

The cottage was designed with something cheaper to be an alternative to the two-storey house however we still want it to be just as effective. Once we started playing with design ideas it really came into it's own. The cottage is paneled like the other buildings however is packed with detail. Shutters added to the windows are designed to add more detail to the building and make much more impact. Little wooden logs are added to hold up the roof which is fully thatched to give the item a medieval look! Something we're thrilled about as it makes painting it up that much easier. After all, not all of us are professional painters! 




Completing the Village

We're pleased to announce that we are currently in the process of completing the tooling for the Chapel. As soon as this tooling will be finished we will be able to sell for approximately £20. So it's an exciting time for us here at Tabletop Workshop. A full range of the ideas we are currently/ have plans to be working on is shown below:

-A Two-Storey House     
-A Cottage                       (As seen above) 
-The Chapel                    (As seen above)
-The Blacksmiths
-The Stables
-The Village Shop
-An Inn
-A Market Place
-Fortifications (Walls, Towers, Gatehouse...)
-1 exclusive further design from a contest winner voted for by you! Check out our Facebook page to find out more details about Tabletop Workshop's contests.



Above: Shots of the inn and the shop in development.

For more details on further products including pictures, videos and the latest news and contests at Tabletop Workshop check out our website at

Or find us through our Facebook and Twitter.














  

Thursday 18 April 2013

A Pre-Kickstarter Show of Our Latest Wargame Scenery!




Hello again everyone!


                             Great news! We're preparing to release our Kickstarter in the next few weeks so today's blog is going to present you with the relevant information.
   Tabletop Workshop came into existence in February 2013. We're a team of engineers, designers, artists and sculptors who have a small office in Leyburn, North Yorkshire in the UK with 30 years of experience in the plastics industry. We design hard plastic wargame figures and vehicles for leading manufacturers and this is our first solo venture! Recently we were in the Northern Echo purely focusing on the fact we have an odd job where you can find out more about the company. A link can be found here:

    
   At the end of last year we decided to do some research offering the public our own range of 28mm plastic wargame buildings. We saw that we could offer war gamers and model collectors everywhere a design totally unique and for a much cheaper price then our competition. Hundreds of coffees and a few early CAD (Computer Aided Design) models later we realised just what we could achieve!


   Further down the line,we decided our original project would be a medieval village. Days later, we created our first initial design which was a two-storey medieval home. Our vision was for the house to be as interactive as we could make it (We want gamers to be able to use the house to gain a tactical advantage!), as cheap as possible for the customer, easy to pack away and even easier to reassemble. Once you have finished with large buildings, you normally need to think where and how to store them, but with our designs you just take them apart and flat pack them, enabling you to store them away in the smallest of spaces - a box in a cupboard, or in a drawer or on a shelf.
   Much careful planning and a couple of weeks later we came out with our very first 3D printed design made to show the world our concept.

   So what's changed since our last update!? Well loads! We listened to all of your feedback, made a few tweaks and came up with a new design. We took the .stl file from our design computers moved it to our 3D printer and printed it. If you remember our earlier blogs the part comes off covered in resin material. We start the highly advanced and technical cleaning process by brushing this resin off with a steel ruler. We clean it in a jet wash, place it in an acid bath for an hour, brush it, then clean it in a jet wash again (just to make sure.) We finished with our very first medieval house. Which you can see being built below.
Once cleaned up the model looks superb.

Finished assembling the walls in a matter of seconds!

Then the roof can be popped on!











Fresh from the 3D printer

           Starting to assemble the walls.

         Putting the upper floor on!


The process takes literally takes 30 seconds!



  


   We're impressed with the quality right down to the graining of the wood and the cracks in the plaster. As we expect to plastic inject these models in manufacture, we expect the detail to get even better!
   That's not all, we'll be offering our models and panels with various features. For example you can choose between a tiled roof or a thatched roof, a stone floor or a wooden floor. These can be easily interchanged to suit scenery, the game and the style of the board!
   We have the basic CAD designs for three houses, a shop, a small inn, a blacksmith, a chapel (a sneak peak shown below) and you can see a sneak peak of the basic design for our gatehouse, tower and wall for the castle below.





The Kickstarter

  The costs of getting the designs right and ready for production is huge, so we are hoping to get support for this in a few weeks time through Kickstarter. The Kickstarter will offer a full Medieval town full of these buildings. Of course Kickstarter rewards will be a cheaper than the selling price as you guys helped make it happen. Kickstarter backers will also be able to get exclusive offers in the near future! For £15 - £20 you can take home one of the above houses. We're offering our whole large medieval range to wargamers for £300-350. This includes at least one of everything:

9 houses
4 cottages, 
A Blacksmiths,
A Stable, 
2 Shops, 
2 Inns, 
1 Chapel, 
1 Market Place 

As well as the surrounding castle walls:

1 gatehouse
4 towers, 
4 long wall sections, 
2 short wall sections 
These all fit to make a rectangular castle or a town wall. 

   Obviously, we'll be offering all of the above in some Kickstarter exclusive separate rewards. Our favourite has to be the £500 reward:

"Personal building redesign of your choice, designed from scratch by our design team, and produced in high quality 3D printed plastic, with your personal design input and a higher level of detail and extras not found on our injection moulded models. - Just for you, nobody else" 

   This enables you to pick the design. Ever wanted to fight outside your own house? Now you can! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to make a 28mm plastic model version of something close to heart and use it in the battlefield! 

   That's about all I've got for you today. You can help by spreading the word. Find out more about the Kickstarter information on our Website ForumFacebook and Twitter. Also, we'll be sending exclusive offers and details on our Mailing List!