Brand New 28mm Medieval Chapel and Medieval Cottage Set For Release!

Hey Guys, Sorry I haven't been able to blog for a while, but as you may have seen from Facebook and Twitter, it's all been pretty hectic here in the office. The highlight of our summer has been the recent progress of our Medieval Chapel and Cottage and hopefully you'll be as thrilled as we are when they're released later this month. 


The 28mm Chapel

Our initial idea was brought to life in March. After using a few medieval churches for inspiration, we came up with The Medieval Chapel. The texture of the stonework really brings the model to life and even for beginners, painting is an easy job. The kit contains seven separate panels, which can be built together and then taken apart again without the hassle of glue. We've even added benches, candles and a small alter for the interior design! The starting price is set to be around £22. Look out for it on our internet store in the next couple of weeks. 

A group of monks admire the decor of the Medieval Chapel.

                                           

The 28mm Cottage

Following on from the chapel is the 28mm Cottage. This is our smallest design as of yet, and is set to be launched late September/ early October for approximately £20. We love the astounding detail of the thatched roof on the cottage, really ensuring that it stands out on the wargames board. We've even gone as far as detailing the inside of the cottage with shelving and a pan rack. The kit once again contains seven highly detailed separate panels and can be built up without glue.

We love the texture of the Cottage. From the look of the thatched roof to the panels of wood.

As well as the Medieval Chapel and the Medieval Cottage we're delighted to announce that we're also currently working a number of other various designs for our 28mm Medieval Range which we're hoping to get out later this year. These include:-
-The Medieval Two-Storey House
-The Run-Down Two-Storey House
-The Small Inn

There's all sorts of exciting news in the office as we're getting a one in a kind custom made wargames board exclusively designed for us by the good people at Battleboards UK. This will be used so that we can provide professional pictures of all our products for packaging and advertising purposes and provide great shots of our scenery used in action. Here's a sneaky look of what we're expecting.

The new board is just one of the few exciting changes we've made at Tabletop Workshop, following a brand new logo and a totally different colour scheme. We've also added a load of changes to the website. We now have an online store, a gallery and a whole new look. Check it out at www.tabletopworkshop.co.uk.

As usual, we'll keep providing sneak peaks of whats to come on our Facebook and Twitter. Here, you can provide us with your invaluable input in the early design stages of our wargame scenery and follow the latest news from our office. 

The Medieval Chapel

   Hey guys....
           Firstly, I'd like to apologise that this blog hasn't been updated for a while. Projects are starting to come together and we still have to try to get work out the door so as of late, it's been hectic to say the least. Nevertheless, it's great to be back!
           Anyway, the last time we updated we told you about our Kickstarter plans to produce our 28mm plastic medieval village. For the time being, we've decided to put these on hold. Taking your feedback into account, we realised that you wanted something to get your hands on pronto.
          After discussing the initial reaction to some of the designs we'd created so far we came to the conclusion that the best product to put on sale first would be the medieval chapel. This little beauty caused the biggest stir when we posted pictures of the prototype on our Facebook and Twitter pages.  In recent weeks, we've touched this up, 3D printed some prototypes and we've finalised our design. Finally, we're excited to say that the tooling for the chapel is now in production. So we decided the least we could do is dedicate this weeks blog to it....Enjoy! 

The Medieval Chapel

        The Middle Ages were dominated by religion, especially that of Christianity. Whether it was prayers and pilgrimages to churches and crusades, the regular family had little choice but to follow the Church and all of its teachings. Ranging from cathedrals to churches and chapels, places of worship were beginning to pop up all over the World. The risk of the fires of hell proved to be too much to bear for too many people. Men, women and children alike followed a strict daily prayer regime and these requirements lead to the development of religious chapels in castle grounds and small villages. These were used by the lord, their family and other members of the household.

      Chapels were often smaller-scaled churches, but differed to these churches as the chaplain was given a regular wage, often paid for by a nobleman. The point in doing this was that after the nobleman's death, the chaplain would carry on prayers for him ensuring the happiness of his soul and and a spiritual reward. Thus, chapels would often come in many shapes and sizes in a variety of locations, depending on the nobleman's choice. They were often two-stories high and extravagantly decorated with glazed windows and valuable ornaments.

      Ideally, the chapel was located within good distance of the main living quarters for easy access to the landlord and their family. However, it was also good practice to build the chapel next to the castle walls and the gatehouse. Therefore, during the enemies initial attack, they would be forced to fire upon it. War strategists believed that this was a good way of ensuring God would be on the side of the defenders during the battle.

      The design is inspired by a combination 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.     
    
     The Tabletop Workshop Chapel has a 110mm long base which is 90mm wide. In terms of height the chapel stands at 140mm high which is sure to fit in with all 28mm scale games such as Mantic Games and Games Workshop's Warhammer perfectly. We also see the chapel as a building that can fit into a variety of wargaming boards. Due to it's stone texture we think it's design could be easily worked into any medieval, grass and apocalyptic designed board.
     

The Tabletop Workshop Chapel is set to be released in the coming months, expecting to be sold at approximately £20. You can follow progress of the Chapel and other Tabletop Workshop Designs at tabletopworkshop.enigmadesign.uk.com/, our Facebook page or our Twitter feed.  
       
         




           

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

http://www.tabletopworkshop.co.uk/

Or find us through our Facebook and Twitter.

  

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:

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/business/oddjobs/...

    

   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 Forum, Facebook and Twitter. Also, we'll be sending exclusive offers and details on our Mailing List!

                     

An Exclusive: Our New Unique War Game Scenery

Good morning world, 
       It's been a weird start to the week for Tabletop Workshop. Monday, we were all hit by a winter storm. Tuesday, we caused our own kind of storm by finally revealing our new Wargame scenery to the world. So that brings us to Wednesday, where the sun is shining (It's still freezing. Think positive) and I'm going to sit down and try and fully explain this unique concept. For us, the idea to develop our own  scenery came about late last year. How is it unique you may find yourself asking? Well there's only so much you can post on Facebook and Twitter so I'm about to explain...
      A few of us in the office are Wargame veterans. In previous blogs I've already spoken of my fascination for Warhammer 40k and The Lord of the Ring's Strategy Battle Game (or whatever it's referred to now.) So, when we all sat down last year to discuss moving more into the wargames scenery side of things we felt we had enough experience to make something that would really impress. But then it finally hit us. We didn't have the money to afford scenery when we were growing up! 
      Designs were discussed and eventually we came up with a solution. What if the gamer had the opportunity to buy parts of buildings rather than buildings? As the gamer only has to buy the parts he needs it's going to be cheaper for him. It'll also be cheaper for us as we don't have to keep churning out giant 3D structures hoping someones going to massively fork out to take it them our hands.

     So we set about designing these separate parts. Our idea was to bring a wide variety of highly detailed floors, walls and roofs that can easily be built up in whatever way the gamer wants. This enables them to have a new level of control over the buildings on their board. If you want a house, you can buy a house. If you want a manor house, you buy a house and a few more panels here and there, maybe even add a floor. It's cheap, it's efficient and you're in control of just how big you want the product to be. 

     There's no need for glue. For the first time, buildings can be built up and taken down. This enables them to be easily stored and easily changed. More importantly, the design gives gamers the freedom to make changes to their buildings. This is something which others don't offer. We know people have different armies, have different battles and even have different showcases. So why play with the same scenery? Instead, change your medieval house into a gothic ruined pub for a few more quid. We plan to experiment with further releases of different varieties and timescales of the parts. This experiment also includes a whole new interior set (staircases, interior walls. etc.) allowing the gamer to battle inside as well as outside. Roofs and walls can even be taken off during the battle so you can see inside to make your move.

    We're really excited about the flexibility of our design in comparison to those of others. We appreciate that wargamers have different armies and have a budget or else we'd all be playing in our massive Gaming Rooms in giant castles with thousands of soldiers. We see the idea as a lot cheaper and a lot more space efficient and we're going to paint one up and showcase it as soon as possible. 

   In the coming weeks we plan to touch up the detail on these medieval surfaces and prepare them for manufacture. If you have any questions you can follow us on our webpages, by joining our mailing list or following us on Facebook on Twitter. Don't forget. We also have a table at Salute on the 20th April so if you have any further questions or just want to come for a chat you can find us there! 

3D Scanning. (It's what made Avatar good!)

Hi again, 

      Just a quick Monday afternoon update from me at Tabletop Workshop. Firstly, we've got some exciting news in the pipeline about our fantastic model building kits. Our artist is sat to the left of me scribbling some extraordinary detail onto the files as I type. This should mean we're late in the process and should have something to show you in the near future. So keep your eyes open or follow us on Facebook and Twitter and you'll be able to get a glimpse at our brand new scenery! 
      Salute 2013 takes place on the 20th April at the ExCel in London and with good thanks to the South London Warlords Gaming Club, Tabletop Workshop have a table where we will be looking to show off our new buildings. So if you're attending or live locally come find us and we'll have some samples to show off!

       Recently, we've been getting a flurry of emails asking if we offer 3D scanning services to go with that of our printer. So I thought I'd pop up and give a brief explanation of the process and what services we can offer as an industry!

What is 3D Scanning?

3D scanning involves using a device that analyses a real-world object or environment to collect data and appearance. This can be stored on a computer or even printed off on a 3D printer to make scale replicas of the item analysed! The process has already been used many times in video games and movies (Think Avatar!) to make animated characters massively more realistic!

How's it Work?

Don't worry, the process isn't as boring as it sounds! A scanner is used to create a point cloud (basically, a load of points) onto a surface. These can also determine colour and tone and are finally used to estimate and conclude the shape! Multiple scans of the object are produced to and aligned around a common reference system to make sure the scan is as accurate as possible! Software then can be used to transform the point cloud into a CAD (computer-aided-design) file! We can use these files to make 3D prints!

What's it Used For?

Many things!

• Computer and Video Game Design.
• Making lifelike models - Action figures from movies etc.
• Cultural Heritage - making scale models and realistic plastic copies of history. Stanford University even designed a Michelangelo model so advanced the chisel marks could be seen!
• Architecture - Producing small scale replicas of buildings to highlight spatial issues and design issues.
• Quality Assurance - Checking that parts can fit and work together before they're mass produced.  
• Medical - Used to design hearing aids perfectly fitted to ears and innersoles and braces for back problems. etc.
• Dentistry - Producing bridges and implant bars specifically designed. 

Want more....

If your interested in using 3D scanning and printing for any services. (You may want to plonk your head on top of a character and call yourself an Emperor!) Then use our Facebook and Twitter to contact us and get a quote. We can help with all sorts of daft ideas (and even a few not-so-daft ones!)

One Step Closer to the New Era of Wargame Scenery

Hey! 
       As we've been stupidly busy as of late with Sci-Fi figures, (It's a lot more stressful then it sounds - Promise!) we haven't had as much time to tell you all about our latest project. Remember in my first blog where I talked about those hard plastic building kits. (Right at the end. After the dinosaur and all the introductions.) Well if not he's a link. Even if it is shamelessly put in for a few more viewings! 
http://tabletopworkshop.blogspot.com/2013/02/working-at-tabletop-workshop.html

      Anyway, we're now in a position to offer a glimmer of what we're going to offer as our first product. Which, as you'll be pleased to find out is a building kit! Now we're not stupid. We know there are lots of these available to the war-gamer. So, why bother entering the most saturated Wargame scenery market?Because we're going to do it differently! 
     Now! We know when you buy a regular model building kit for wargame scenery that there are a lot of negatives:

1) They're all different! So I'm playing Warhammer, my Dwarven army has just beaten the Dark Elves senseless. Matthew gets his Chaos Space Marines out for one last battle. This time on the 40k. Well imagine a system where your nice Medieval buildings can be swapped for something more gothic and present day in a matter of seconds!

2) They're expensive. We've all been in that situation where you desperately want something but can't have it. Hell. We'd all be battling in our epic castles with thousands of soldiers otherwise. But what happens if someone with enough experience in the plastic manufacturing market made them. The prices could halve.

3) They're not detailed. We understand that buildings designed by resin can look good but lack detail and structure and are a bit basic. Imagine if they were designed as one CAD model instead of by hand. There could be so much detail you wouldn't know where to start looking!

4) They're not easy to store and carry. Because not everyone has an epic gaming table in a dazzling games room. (or works in Games Workshop...)

5) They can't be changed.... Or can they?.. 

Here's the question we've aimed to answer. Why can't a medieval house not quickly be changed into something bigger and better. Imagine using the roof from one with the sides of another - imagine buying just a few new bits to make a whole new building range. Cheaper, more efficient and so much easier to take to your gaming club on a Friday night. Soon you can stop imagining. Welcome to a new era of wargaming. To be unveiled soon...

And while I'm here. He's a picture of our new 3D printer!

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Producing a 3D Printed Searchlight

   Hello again! Just a quick update and an interesting example of how we make our models! 
   At the back end of last week we put the 3D printer to its biggest test yet in creating a 28mm British WW2 90cm searchlight. The product contains moving parts straight off the printer. This means we can design it in a certain way so that we can play with the base and the lamp. The initial design was drawn up from the image below and made into CAD ready to be printed. 

  The searchlight comes straight out of the printer without any need to be assembled. It's buried deep within a support material with an aroma of marzipan. We peel chunks of the material off to reveal the initial shape of the searchlight. The next step is to take it into a jet wash. This involves us juggling it with massive gloves in front of a rapid stream of water. Afterwards, the support material has all pretty much disintegrated. However, we still place our products into an acid bath just to make sure we have the cleanest plastics possible!

 Like the actual searchlight the lamp rotates and the base swivels. This means that it can be brought right into the thick of games. (Or if not, it's something to play with while your opponent takes too long to plan his move!) The finished searchlight is below in two poses. A picture before and after Chris finished playing with it! The yellow glow is brought upon by the support material and is a feature of 3D printed plastics after they've first been produce. This comes clear after a few hours under a strong light. 

We're still working on our wargame buildings at the minute. However, we just couldn't wait to show this little beauty off. It proves that we can make one-off showcase prints for a wargamers special occasion. Plus imagaine what an artist could do with it before it ends up on your table! 

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The Next Generation of Wargame Scenery. Brought to you by 3D Printing.

 So I'm sitting here on a Friday afternoon in Leyburn. A local newspaper is in the office taking snaps of the 3D printer. Is it that much of a big deal? The printer is an Objet30 Pro. At times, it can reach an incredible 14 micron resolution and it is a fascinating piece of software well capable of producing plastic molds in such detail that until a few years ago, the concept seemed unimaginable. 
  You see, to a former Warhammer Space Marine collector (all be it a fair few years ago...) it's a dream come true. For years, I tried to create designs made of polystyrene and cardboard using knives and glue only to eventually come out with a design that looked like it had been mauled by a dog. Truth be told, I was never really the arty kid at school. I could calculate, read, run, cook and maybe come up with one or two cracking jokes (well I thought they were). But art just wasn't one of my things. I tried to improve but I just lacked the talent and know-how to make products that some of the Games Workshop guys could. This was probably due to the fact I had the delicacy of a baby elephant and lacked that flair that some gamers can muster out of nothing.  Don't get me wrong! Some companies and artists make some of the most imaginative and attractive scenery imaginable, however nothing which I could afford was ever really up to the standard I wanted. I flirted with a few companies' resin models but there was no market that offered serious value for the hard-working paperboy! Eventually, I settled for a grass mat and an open field with one or two trees. It worked but that's about all it. There was potential for so much more!
 This brings me back to the Objet30 Pro. It's a large piece of machinery that can print out models designed by 3D CAD software on computers. Look at the dinosaur above. Notice how the teeth are built and the skin is textured. We wish we could show you more. But due to customer confidentiality (it sucks, we know) this is all we can show. Now imagine that form of detail on your walls, houses and fortifications! The idea gives you goosebumps and this is why we're the first company trying to push the use of our printer into the wargame market. The printer is so good it can detail almost anything into the plastic. Details that can range from grooves in the wood to tiny pieces of armour. From what I've heard it can even replicate bullet damage so the early signs are very promising indeed. So them stats got me thinking. Maybe finally, seven years too late we can build that dream gaming board as well as helping the world build their own dream gaming boards at the same time . We aim to produce a cheaper building kits and small one-off objects for the gamer. I know that the market isn't a cheap one to fish in but I have been assured we can do it for half the price of some of the better designers.. 
  So, I'll be updating this blog regularly to show my insight into the projects here at Tabletop Workshop to the wargamer and keep you updated on my projects and ambitions, whether it's from designing North American Star Forts to World War 2 Searchlights. I'll also update you of products we're working on including our new hard building kits. These offer the war-gamer a new, cheaper way to collect a wide variety of buildings and is an idea which we're very excited about.  More news as it comes!

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