Legion Rising

[Chainaxe_of_Khorne]

I'm all in to support you on patreon. I love all your work and products and am so eager to own more of them once you get the shop going.

 

In a Business manner I have to say it is very seldom to see someone put as much thought into everything for their company as you are. I wish more people would have even if only 10% of your measure.

 

Keep it Up, don't go crazy and stay on this track, as IT seems to be the right one

[Augustus b'Raass]

Consider me a patreon of yours as well, pal!

[Evil Eye]

As usual your work is utterly astounding.

Out of interest, are there any UK-based sellers of the Solus 3D printer? I'd love to get my mitts on one when I have the money, but it seems to be sold in the US only at the moment.

[Brother Casman]

I'll gladly provide support, too, SD.

[Eldrick Shadowblade]

Prepare the servitors... sacrifice the requisite number of slaves to rouse the demon machine spirits...

[Lord Commander Eidolon]

Always been a big fan of your work and products -- I promise I'll use the armour trim kit to make a sonic predator one day, honest guv.....

 

I'd gladly support you on patreon and fund stuff! Bring it on!! Don't forget that storm Raven:eagle conversion kit

[Eldrick Shadowblade]

Just sent 100$ USD your way. Looking forward to building some rhinos soon!

[Subtle Discord]

Thanks all for the feedback, encouragement, and support, past present and future. I'll say it again, I really doubt I'd even be even considering this if it wasn't for the community here at B&C. Cheers! I'm already brainstorming some way that I can do something for the B&C; I haven't come up with anything yet, but something will be in The Works when right idea manifests and the time is right.

 

I'm not nervous about convincing you all (Including the lurkers - yeah, I know you're there, hiding in the dark corners) it's all the new people I'll be marketing to going forward who don't know my work. While it's a great documentation of my progress and the work I've done I can't direct people to flip through Legion Rising. I'm sure I'm just overthinking it (shocker!) as a way to procrastinate on it; I guess I'm just not visualizing how I'm going to present the idea/concept so I'll be tentative until I start bringing it together.

 

Don't worry, I'm quite sure the list of potential projects will be very long and I'll be including everything I think is within the realm of realistic and that's going to include several large and ambitious kits. *Subtle eyes the Raven and Knight kits* I've got numerous notes and many thread pages to sift through to collect it all together, so it's going to be half fun and half daunting to see just how long it's going to get.

[Eldrick Shadowblade]

I think it would be cool that if anyone uses an SD kit they link his thread to it in their post. Let's help support the dark works!

[Subtle Discord]

Thanks E, I appreciate it. On that note, if it was one of you who pinned me on Pinterest, thank you as well. I've seen a sudden jump in traffic today at my shop and I suspect I can thank some form of social media. This just drives home that I need to get my butt in gear and get my analytics set up so I can know for sure where these spikes are coming from and I need to start showing my work more so I can generate them myself. Damn, why does this always have to feel like a mix of eager anticipation and uncertain forboding?! :)

[Paradogmatic]

I received your vehicle turrets today and just from handling the bits in a few moments I have to say at the least from a prep and casting perspective they are some of the best garage kit pieces I've handled; even in comparison to the pre-solus items I've picked up before ( which were also quite good ).

 

I'll post some photos up for folks when I have some time in the cave this week to assemble one of them

 

Keep up the good work.

[Subtle Discord]

"Garage kit"?! I'm located in a basement! Get it right! ;)

 

Thanks for the feedback.

[TheOneTrueZon]

What you need is residuals. I would wager that some one off designs on shapeways could garner your studio a revenue stream that can carry on well by word of mouth.

 

There's probably a whole menagerie of designs that you could never feasibly want to produce in casted resin, be it a one off sword design, a set of helmets, variants of other designs... I see a very low amount of good quality AdMech on Shapeways. Most of the market is pads, knights and Tau.

 

Also I'd love to give you rights to use my photos of models using your kits.

 

 

 

edit - spelling

Edited August 21, 2018 by TheOneTrueZon

[Pandoras Bitz Box]

I'm glad your getting some more interest at your shop, you deserve the custom. Social media will definitely help. I only really got involved with Twitter since we started a blog but I get a lot of feedback there, I'll give you a shout out there if you don't have your own account, see if that drums up some more interest. Also, the place we get the most hits from is Faeit 212. That guy has a blog roll that automatically displays posts from blogs that have registered their sites with him. When ever we post something new, 90% of our hits come from there because of the insane amount of traffic he gets. It may be worth drawing his attention to your kits so he can do a bit on you, or failing that, ask that if people use your stuff in their kits could they give you a shout out on their blogs and maybe stick photos of their stuff with a link to your site on Faeit 212's Whats On Your Table feature.  Obviously all the other Social media platforms too if they don't mind. I have I hear instagram is the place to be for any form of visual creativity but I find Ive had a lot more interest on Twitter.  Really pleased its taking off. 

[sarabando]

am i being dumb i cant see a link to Patreon (im assuming there isnt one due to forum rules) and i cant find it on their site.

[Paradogmatic]

Hi -- had a chance to take some images for other interested folks. I'm very pleased with these kits as I mentioned before -- will be picking up some of the missile launchers shortly for sure.

 

I still need to do some cleanup but the fitment was pretty much perfect -- all the slots sized correctly for the magnets etc. Didn't build up the alternate weapon but its extremely easy and there are enough parts for everything to work out fine. I like that there is a shroud for each weapon as I'll probably do some colour stripes on there to differentiate weapons from a distance with paint jobs.

 

As received :

 

 

Assembled on an old Land Raider :

 

 

 

Assembled on a Rhino Body :

 

Showing around the max angle it can be posed upwards without catching :

 

 

 

On top of a Kromlech turret ( sorry don't have a plain Predator one ) :

 

Edited August 21, 2018 by Paradogmatic

[Subtle Discord]

As usual your work is utterly astounding.

 

Out of interest, are there any UK-based sellers of the Solus 3D printer? I'd love to get my mitts on one when I have the money, but it seems to be sold in the US only at the moment.

Yes, contact Junction3D or Reify 3D and make an inquiry for your region. They're based in the US but have redistributors in different regions. There will likely be a turn-around time from the moment you make the payment to when it's shipped (I suspect they're doing small batch production) but they're very prompt with correspondence during the process. The forums they've set up for the community is also very responsive and full of solid information to help in setting it up and dialing it the adjustments and settings to get it printing properly. I suspect the setup process is a bit more involved than other 3D printers that are similar but use a different process but that's the tradeoff you need to accept to get the superior results that Solus can provide.

 

What you need is residuals. I would wager that some one off designs on shapeways could garner your studio a revenue stream that can carry on well by word of mouth.

 

There's probably a whole menagerie of designs that you could never feasibly want to produce in casted resin, be it a one off sword design, a set of helmets, variants of other designs... I see a very low amount of good quality AdMech on Shapeways. Most of the market is pads, knights and Tau.

 

Also I'd love to give you rights to use my photos of models using your kits.

 

I really appreciate the feedback and suggestion and I agree with the overall premise, but I won't be using Shapeways for a few reasons. For now, I don't want to consider any wholesale distribution; The Dark Works is very specifically about small-to-medium scale high-quality production with direct control of the entire process. I've worked with the Polyjet 3D printing process that Shapeways uses and there's a reason why I was compelled to find the better solution in Servitor Solus; Polyjet is an amazing printing technology and no slouch, but for this application, Solus is simply superior and all of my 3D models are designed with Solus' abilities in mind.

 

Nope, if I design it and print it for personal use (as a perk of running the studio that will happen from time-to-time) and a few people contact me and express interest, I'll happily throw some rubber around it and add it to my range - I have full control of the process, after all; even now all of the side projects I've done are, from the get-go, potential future kit/s for the studio. I'm going to focus on rebooting the old line because of how much interest there is for it still, and then I'll branch out. I want to do similar treatments to other Mechanicus models and then release them as a group, so there is a method to my madness. Just wait until you see what I do to the Knight and Armigers; it's still an image in my mind, naturally, but I think it's going look gooood! *insert maniacal laugh*

 

Absolutely! At some point, at the very least, I would like to create a gallery of images from people who've used my kits. Also, I am considering ways for people who are serious about it, to contribute to images used for the actual shop images. I simply won't have time to paint everything and it's not like I must have painted examples, but it's nice to see what something looks like with a good paint job. To be clear, there will be conditions and expectations in those cases but there's too much to muse about here and it's something for a later time when other things are sorted out. 

 

I'm glad your getting some more interest at your shop, you deserve the custom. Social media will definitely help. I only really got involved with Twitter since we started a blog but I get a lot of feedback there, I'll give you a shout out there if you don't have your own account, see if that drums up some more interest. Also, the place we get the most hits from is Faeit 212. That guy has a blog roll that automatically displays posts from blogs that have registered their sites with him. When ever we post something new, 90% of our hits come from there because of the insane amount of traffic he gets. It may be worth drawing his attention to your kits so he can do a bit on you, or failing that, ask that if people use your stuff in their kits could they give you a shout out on their blogs and maybe stick photos of their stuff with a link to your site on Faeit 212's Whats On Your Table feature.  Obviously all the other Social media platforms too if they don't mind. I have I hear instagram is the place to be for any form of visual creativity but I find Ive had a lot more interest on Twitter.  Really pleased its taking off. 

Thanks a ton for this! Yep, when I get a few more ducks in a row I plan to contact a few people/sites and get set up on some platforms including a 'formal' blog. I've been so busy and absorbed with college it was just more practical to ignore it all and focus on my studies; as powerful as they are for communication and sharing ideas they're also dangerous distractions when that was the last thing I needed. It's just the simple fact of getting it all set up and learning the interfaces while trying to juggle everything else. But it's all good, I know that as some things get checked off of the list of things to do it will get more-and-more manageable. I'm sure other things will gladly swoop in to make things less manageable along the way, so I'm not fooling myself.

 

At this point, the only active marketing I'm doing is posting in Legion Rising and in the past I was always struggling to keep up with demand, even with that light traffic. Each time I get even a little interest because my kits are shown in someone's project I get a nice spike that's very noticeable. I have no doubt that once I start being more active in my efforts I'm not going to have any problem getting traffic, especially once more people get my kits in their hands and provide feedback; I am very confident in my product. I'm trying to keep my expectations realistic but confident based on my experience so far.

 

Right now my biggest problem is the limited selection which simply limits how many people who will find something they want in my line. I know it's a matter of staying the course and simply getting 3D prints in rubber as fast as I can manage it to grow that pool of potential customers. It's happening, but the realities of life and this silly fixed constant timeline are also happening, so I need a wee bit of breathing room as I grow the line to the tipping point.

 

am i being dumb i cant see a link to Patreon (im assuming there isnt one due to forum rules) and i cant find it on their site.

Nope, you're not missing anything, I haven't got it set up quite yet. Thanks for the desire to help. I'm waffling a bit as I do some other things. Also, wording is hard sometimes. I need to write a bunch of things like introductions, some background, studio philosophy, direction/outlook, potential challenges, product lists, and I'm wondering if I should do a formal business plan along the way if I'm going to do all that. Yeah, lots of writing, and then I need to take pictures and screenshot of things that I can showcase, do composition and layout for images and graphics.

 

Learn this lesson well as it holds true for most endeavors people undertake; most things will take longer than you expect to finish! Especially if you've got limited experience doing it - usually by a factor of three to four; if you expect something is going to take an hour to complete, do yourself a favor and plan for three or four. Once you start to get better at the process you can expect improvement, but it's still a safe way to keep yourself sane. If you're wrong and you get it done faster, great, that's always better than running out of time.

Edited August 21, 2018 by Subtle Discord

[Eldrick Shadowblade]

I think relaunching your original designs would have tremendous interest in those kits. Also, I'd add those knight and armiger kits out. I can't see how it wouldn't be a winning proposition. I think there'd still be great demand for the trim kits, barricades, predator and land raider kits. the havoc missles and new pintle bolters look awesome too.

[Naryn]

Just think about how popular the Knight add-ons from Etsy and Shapeways are, almost to the point where they’re ubiquitous in online knight conversions. They sell out pretty much immediately after restocks, and get tons of free advertising from blogs. With the quality of your kits, you could easily outpace any of those stores.

[Augustus b'Raass]

 

I'm still waiting for rhino/razorback top-plate inner extension rings that make the copulas of space marine tanks fit the turret hole... :p

 

I'll just do a Cato the Elder on this until I can order those from your shop.

Edited August 22, 2018 by Augustus b'Raass

[Subtle Discord]

I think relaunching your original designs would have tremendous interest in those kits. Also, I'd add those knight and armiger kits out. I can't see how it wouldn't be a winning proposition. I think there'd still be great demand for the trim kits, barricades, predator and land raider kits. the havoc missles and new pintle bolters look awesome too.

 

Just think about how popular the Knight add-ons from Etsy and Shapeways are, almost to the point where they’re ubiquitous in online knight conversions. They sell out pretty much immediately after restocks, and get tons of free advertising from blogs. With the quality of your kits, you could easily outpace any of those stores.

The main thing stopping me from doing Knights is the current backlog and the fact that they will be more costly and challenging to develop. The parts will be quite large and I'm guessing some parts will need to be cut down into sub-assemblies to accommodate Solus. Large parts then mean large moulds which further increases the cost. This will happen and the components I did for the Dragoons is proof of that; I want to do my take on Lucius Pattern but instead of using completely flat panels the armour will have gentle curves with sharp creases and corners.

 

I'm still waiting for rhino/razorback top-plate rings that fit the copulas of space marine tanks...

I'm still waiting for rhino/razorback top-plate inner extension rings that make the copulas of space marine tanks fit the turret hole...

I'm trying to figure out what you're describing and I can't quite picture it. Can you elaborate and/or show an example?

[Paradogmatic]

 

Just think about how popular the Knight add-ons from Etsy and Shapeways are, almost to the point where they’re ubiquitous in online knight conversions. They sell out pretty much immediately after restocks, and get tons of free advertising from blogs. With the quality of your kits, you could easily outpace any of those stores.

The main thing stopping me from doing Knights is the current backlog and the fact that they will be more costly and challenging to develop. The parts will be quite large and I'm guessing some parts will need to be cut down into sub-assemblies to accommodate Solus. Large parts then mean large moulds which further increases the cost. This will happen and the components I did for the Dragoons is proof of that; I want to do my take on Lucius Pattern but instead of using completely flat panels the armour will have gentle curves with sharp creases and corners.

 

Yeah -- I don't think I'd touch the bigger 1-time sale items like Knight parts ( well maybe not 1 time sale but low quantity ); the small turrets are a great example -- I want multiples because I'll put them on all my vehicles, and rhino-scale mounts are pretty common. Also much lower barrier to entry on a $40-60 CAD kit than a $180-200 one so likely more sales.

 

Frankly -- work on what you like and want and sell copies to folks; Marines are ubiquitous but people will go crazy for the Admech stuff you're working on because the choice is not currently there. Also because its something you're passionate about, your product will reflect that passion in its quality and execution.

[Eldrick Shadowblade]

 l

 

Frankly -- work on what you like and want and sell copies to folks; Marines are ubiquitous but people will go crazy for the Admech stuff you're working on because the choice is not currently there. Also because its something you're passionate about, your product will reflect that passion in its quality and execution.

 

ADMECH?!!!! Subtle likes to court the favors of those technocrats.... but his soul belongs to chaaaaaaaaaaaaoooooossssssssssssss!

[Naryn]

 

Just think about how popular the Knight add-ons from Etsy and Shapeways are, almost to the point where they’re ubiquitous in online knight conversions. They sell out pretty much immediately after restocks, and get tons of free advertising from blogs. With the quality of your kits, you could easily outpace any of those stores.

The main thing stopping me from doing Knights is the current backlog and the fact that they will be more costly and challenging to develop. The parts will be quite large and I'm guessing some parts will need to be cut down into sub-assemblies to accommodate Solus. Large parts then mean large moulds which further increases the cost. This will happen and the components I did for the Dragoons is proof of that; I want to do my take on Lucius Pattern but instead of using completely flat panels the armour will have gentle curves with sharp creases and corners.

Agreed, I was thinking of the Knight 3rd party bits as a comparable example to the kind of bits you provide, not suggesting you hop on the knight bandwagon right away. Another example would be the three or four companies that make conversion bits for the Chimera; among Imperial Guard modelers, these bits are extremely common and get lots of eyes on them through build logs. Your Admech stuff, or the turrets and turret rings mentioned previously, would very easily slot into that niche, for the simple reason that it’s high quality. Your Chaos and Imperial rhino and land raider armor is already beloved, and it certainly seems as if i see a lot of people talking about picking it up in the future, so you already have a lot of eyes. As long as you don’t stray too close to GW IP and get Chapterhoused, you’re pretty much set. High quality work and good communication is the biggest thing, and you’ve certainly got both of those.

[Augustus b'Raass]

 

Augustus b'Raass, on 22 Aug 2018 - 10:33 PM, said:

 

I'm still waiting for rhino/razorback top-plate rings that fit the copulas of space marine tanks... tongue.png

I'm still waiting for rhino/razorback top-plate inner extension rings that make the copulas of space marine tanks fit the turret hole... :p

I'm trying to figure out what you're describing and I can't quite picture it. Can you elaborate and/or show an example?

Well you know those top plates of the predator? The standard rhino kit comes with either those two teethed top plates or the single top plate, on which you can fit either a razorback or a predator turret. Many people try to fit space marine tank copulas on that hole, but it doesn't fit as the hole is slightly too big. What I'M suggesting is that you create a ring-like bit that will fit the hole if the plate on the outside (So is the diameter of the predator top plate's hole on the outside) and the copula's diameter on the inside.

 

I suggested this idea to you before a couple pages back, when you were asking for ideas. Back then, you thought it was a good idea... *hunch hunch, wink wink*

Edited August 23, 2018 by Augustus b'Raass