Saturday, April 14, 2012

miscellaneous: battlefoam

Back in November I took advantage of Battlefoam's Black Friday sale and ordered up a whole mess of custom foam for various projects. Last Friday, it arrived.


Two trays of custom-sized foam, two trays of Battlefoam-sized foam, and eight trays of Spartan-sized foam snuggly packed inside a new Spartan Bag. All the foam was custom-cut based on designs I sent them.

First we'll look inside the bag...


I used the Battlefoam Custom Tray Creator for my Dystopian Wars FSA foam. As you can see, it fits the models well and I added a little room for expansion of my forces.

The remainder of the foam in my "Spartan Games Bag Custom Load Out" bundle was designed for my Aeronautica Imperialis models and made from designs I mapped out in Illustrator and sent in as PDFs.




All 6 trays fit quite snuggly in the P.A.C.K. 216 I bought at Adepticon a couple years ago.



The Battlefoam-sized trays were designed using the Custom Tray Creator and laid out to fit all 2000 points of Iron Warriors I have planned in a single Spartan Bag. My only quibble here is that the "Vindicator" hole from the Custom Tray Creator is extremely tight at the dozer blade. While this'll help during transport, I worry about wear on the paint job as I pull the model in and out of the tray. We'll see once I've actually painted the damn things.

Last, but not least, is the custom-sized, custom-cut foam trays I had designed for Wizkid's Star Trek: Fleet Captains. The foam has been made mostly unnecessary in the latest printing of the game, as Wizkid's has re-jiggered the inside of the box to better support the models and cards without breakage. However, I'd already designed this thing up in Illustrator and paid for the foam, so I went ahead with it.


As you can see, some of the ships sit pretty low in their holes. I had Battlefoam send me the insides of the holes, and will likely pull out the wire foam cutter to make varying height bases in the bottom of each hole. As with the Aeronautica foam, I probably could've designed the holes a bit tighter, but this being my first experience with Battlefoam's foam, I played it safe rather than sorry.


The lid sticks up a 1/4" or so due to the foam's base. I think it's a small price to pay for the protection the foam offers.

My initial impressions overall are positive. The foam appears to be of high quality and fits most of the figures snug. All quibbles are based less on practical application than theoretical at this point. With one of the Fleet Captains foams winging its way to Los Angeles soon, and most of the other trays headed to Adepticon with me, we'll see how the models, and my impression of the foam, hold up.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

paint: iron warriors: polybolos beta

Got Polybolos Beta mostly finished late in March but didn't get around to posting until now. I also started in on the army's bases, but after a failure of a color palette they're all taking a long soak in Simple Green.

Painting this unit was more of a chore than either of the first two units. I don't think it was burn-out on the color scheme so much as having to paint such a laborious process on 5 more figures than previous. That extra 8-9 hours adds up quick when hobby time is running low and you've got other games/projects vying for your attention.


Polybolos Beta: CSM x11, plasma gun, las cannon (clickable)

Still need to fix the eyes (a failed experiment left them too dark) and address plasma and lascannon weapon glow, but I think those will be addressed at an army-wide level on completion. For now I need to keep the forward momentum going.


Polybolos Beta: squad shoulder-pad detail (clickable)

The plan is to give Polybolos Alpha the opposite half of the chevron on their left shoulder so I can tell 'em apart on the battlefield. Thematically, it effectively ties them together, as Ahnighito's Zigouilliers, (the CO and command squad to both Polybolos squads) have the complete chevron on their left shoulder.

Bases up next, likely followed up by a Rhino or two. I'd like to have at least one vehicle completed before I leave for Adepticon mid-month, but that may be wishful thinking.