Finger and Toe

I had several requests for more pictures, so here they are:

Tzak-Nal stepped pyramid with small temple.

ABove are the two types of altars.  The Chac-Mool has two different textures (the other is moss-overgrown).

Noble house and its ruin base.  There are three noble house textures, one suitable for use as small temple or palace.

Peasant house (there are two different twxtures).  The hovels and ruins are much smaller than the noble houses.  The stelae have three different textures.

A noble house on a platform made of four corner sections and a set of stairs.

The parts to make bigger platforms (center and side).   The platforms can be stacked to make stepped pyramids.

The stairs.

Finger and Toe’s next release will be a Meso-American small town for use with 28mm figures from pre-Columbian through pulp to fantasy and even sci-fi (as we saw when Luke blasted aloft from Mayan jungle-covered ruins).

Here’s a picture of the noble house showing how the shell fits over the (untextured) ruin:

Here is a noble house sitting on the platform.  When used as a house platform, only one set of stairs is used, but each corner piece (there are four in the pciture) comes with a stair set, so you can also use the platform for an altar.  There will be pieces allowing you to build much bigger platforms and to stack them like a ziggurat.

These are based on my trips to Tulum, Tehuacalco, and La Campan and use photorealistic textures.  Histo-geeks be warned: this is a game set, not a dissertation.  Ya’ don’t go to Star Wars to learn physics, do you?  I took some liberties (particularly Tulum architecture and Tehaucalco textures with La Campana platforms).

These will probably come out at individual pieces, with the platform first, then noble house, followed by the others (altar, temple, palace, peasant hovels).

Where ya’ been, watcha’ been doin’?

OK, life’s been a bit rushed, but things are moderately back to normal.  So here’s where Finger and Toe stands right now.

The hangar for Tango Prime has been released to a good reception (thank you, one and all).  Sci-Blocks II: Platforms has been released (yesterday) and is selling well.  It was inspired by a Wii Legos Star Wars game I was playing with my grandson Liam.  “Those are really cool platforms,” I thought as my character exploded throwing little widgets all over the room.  The blocks are reversible.  The biggest disappointment I had with Sci-Blocks was that it wasn’t reversible—I didn’t even think about it until a couple of days after release. 

So what’s next?

First is a Meso-American city for historical, fantasy, and pulp.  It’s based on three sets of ruins I toured: Tulum in the Yucatan, Tehuacalco and La Campana on Mexico’s west coast.  The starter is a little altar that’s admittedly more Aztec in flavor:

It still needs a monumental platform.

Ah, funny you should mention that.  Here’s a test shot of the platform that will support altars, noble houses, temples, and observatories:

That’s a stone texture from Tehuacalco.  I have to add the corner stones and surface. 

My thinking is that this set will be released in smaller pieces (altar, noble house, temple, etc).  I figure small might allow me to try my first multi-layer pdfs.  The three ruins have completely different textures because the local stone and constructions techniques varied so much.

The set doesn’t have a name yet.  Tehuacalco is my favorite, but Tulum is shorter.  I’ll probably go with the Mayan word for city.  (I can’t locate my Mayan dictionary right now.  Do you know where I put it?) 

Next I have to find software that allows me to build a model, then take an animated tour of it.  I have Vue, Carrara, and Bryce, but my candidate in Daz 3d with the Key Grip expansion.  The idea is to create a city and then produce a movie tour (“. . .  as the sun sinks slowly in the west, we bid a fond farewell to . . .”).

After the Meso-American set, it’s back to sci-fi for the last Tango Prime expansion (walls and a gate with turrets) or a Slagtown refinery, not sure which.

Ah well, that’s it for now.  Ciao and chow.

Well, it’s four weeks after my bypass and I’m feeling OK. I’m driving so that helps with the cabin fever.
So what’s going on?
I redid the website and will upload tomorrow.
There’ll be a forum. I’ll offer a couple of freebies to celebrate.
Then it’s back to products. Next up is a Tango Prime/Octopad hanger. It’s modular with both 28 and 15 mm parts.
Then will come the MesoAmerican city based on Tulum and Tehuacalco. (I hope to get the Egyptian temple out after that).

While the forum is up and useable, it needs tweaking.  Let me know if you see any bumps or glitches.

I’ll be out of town from Fri to Mon as we have to go to Phoenix to handle some things with my mother-in-law’s estate and see my  lawyer nephew’s new boat.  I’ll try to take my netbook and follow, but there’s no guarantees.

I almost forgot, one of my recuperation projects (besides a lot of HALO ODST) is to set up a forum.

Have a good time building, y’all.

Glenn

Strange Devices is out over at rpgnow and wargamevault.  This $2.50 set adds a power generator and a comm center for your Tango Prime bases (or any sci-fi setting). 

A couple of letters from fans are notable.  One shows a photo of an Octopad holding a GI Joe gunship.  Properly engineered, paper structures can be pretty strong.  When I was in college, a popular book was Nomadic Furniture by Victor Papanek which included an entire section on cardboard furniture.  His work was part of my inspiration for Finger and Toe’s first release, Slagtown.  That set was tested with heavy pewter figures from that game company that likes to sue people (but produces the best figures in metal and resin).

Second, a customer rebuilt Octopad using foamcore.  As I told him, I’m usually too lazy to do anything with foamcore, but Finger and Toe was founded with an eye toward kitbashers.  Bash away, guys!  (And send me pix: glenn@fingerandtoe.com)

Last, I’m heading off for UCLA in a little bit to have a single artery coronary bypass done by a robot.  I’m not sure whether I’m imagining R2D2 or Skynet!  (or even the little submarine from Fantastic Voyage—I kind of like the idea of Raquel Welch swimming around my arteries!)  Anyway, I should be back next Monday (with robot pix, I hope—it’s a DaVinci, BTW).

Bye for now.

Glenn

OK, this is entirely not business-related.  I love video games, although I don’t get enough time to play (and after a day at work at the PC, I’d rather a cigar and brandy downstairs).  But . . . we just got a Wii so I could get a Wii fit plus with balance board (tres cool, btw) .   Feeling a bit ambitious-ish, I went to a big box electronics store which shall remain nameless (but whose colors are similar to the national flag associated with Ikea).

They had an Xbox 360 (including Halo: ODST), bundled with a second wireless controller, an HDMI cable, and a Windows Live thingie.  The bundle cable had an Xbox logo on it.  The price was $299.00—same as Wal-Mart without the extras.  At the register, they rang up each item separately, carefully removing each from the strap, for a total over $500.00.  When asked why, the explanation was that the greeblies contained by the Xbox logoed strap were just to show you what you COULD buy for an Xbox (because we’re toooooo stupid to notice the HUUUUUGE Xbox rack next to it?).  I walked out without purchasing and will buy from Wal-Mart. 

Here’s the deal, I was also going to buy a new car stereo with built-in satellite radio and Bluetooth (I live in California, and it’s illegal to hold a cell phone, talk, and drive)—total would be a little over five hundred.  SO they lost two sales and about a grand.

Morons.

Well,  OCTOPAD is out!  It’s been very well received.  Thanks to all of you who’ve bought it.

I updated the website today to show the new OCTOPAD page, including the promo photo.  I had fun photoshopping a THUNDERBIRD landing on an OCTOPAD that had been erected on an LA golf course.  (Of course, to be realistic, I should had added a pair of golfers trying to play through!)

So what’s new?  There’s FREPOD, finally.  She went through a total redesign.  First off, the old design really, really was  . . . dull.  Second, I had the devil’s good time trying to figure out out to add the heavy weapon to it to create a fire support version.  I decided to go with a pad, similar to the CHARIOT’s, but bigger and more rugged looking.  Third, while I like the simplicity of the CHARIOT, I felt the FIREPOD needed a bit more oomph.  Here’s a comparison of the original and the final:

By the way, the pirate logo is my dad’s old B-36 6th Bomb Wing stationed at Walker AFB, NM in Roswell (yes, I’m from THAT Roswell).  The lettering above it is NOT ten or one-oh; it’s Io (eye-oh), the Greek mythological feature, and my first granddaughter’s name.  The grandkids appear frequently in my designs.  Look for Io, Azha, and Liam.

Here are the two other versions of the FIREPOD, the cargo carrier and fire support weapon:

The fire support weapon use the same pintle rotation method as most of my weapons as well as the plug and sleeve swappable weapons introduced with GUN TOWER.  That should give you a lot of flexibility in arming your pods.

The shell in the first picture fits over the red-checked holdfasts you can see in the cargo and fire support pictures.  I haven’t decided how many color schemes will come with FIREPOD, mainly because I want to keep the price down to a reasonable level.  For sure, I’ll include the Russian yellow/brown aviation camo scheme (I think of it as “smog”), and maybe a digital scheme from the Chinese PLA.  If I can’t hold the price down, I’ll release a set of shells separately.

I thought I’d spend some time explaining the technology involved in my re-entry vehicle series (the “de-orbit transports”—a term that seemed sufficiently military bureaucratic, although it ought to be transport, de-orbit.  BTW, the initials D.O.T. form my wife’s name, Dot).

First, the launch system is a tube with magnetic rails similar to a rail gun.  The circles on the launch rails are the “magnetic bearings” for the launch system.  The pod is loaded, placed in the launch position and accelerated down the tube.  There are gimble-mounted maneuver rockets on the tops of the pod’s launch rails.  Obviously, troops are selected for stomach stability!  After re-entry, parachutes slow the pod until the braking rockets can safely set it down, like the older Martian landers.  Both the cargo pod and the fire support version have disposable shells that eject sufficiently high up that they won’t land on the troops already on the beach head. 

After FIREPOD is a platform and walkway set for TANGO PRIME that right now includes some fire support weapons in turrets.  I haven’t done any renders of them to show you.

Then there’s a hovertank based on the 1950s Avro air car (the Canadians actually built a flying saucer for the US Army that literally never went any where).

After hovertanks (and I’ve also got a behemoth tank still in design that’s over twelve inches long and nine wide!), I’ve begun texturing the first Meso-American scenery set base on Tulum and Tehuacalco ruins in the Yucatan and the Mexican west coast coast, respectively.  (if you ever get a chance to see either set of ruins, go—Tulum sits on a cliff above a Caribbean beach, and Tehuacalco sits in a jungle valley surrounded by four huge peaks).

This week I’m going to try to relaunch the forum over at the website, and rebuild the site itself.  That’s not a promise, just a goal.  I’ve got to load some website building software on my laptop and netbook as well.

I’m actually officially retired from teaching at the local community college.  I’ve filed the paperwork and am waiting for the check (part-time faculty can take a pitifully small retirement annuity or a lump sum—I went for the cash since I’ve got a civil service retirement already and don’t need the extra money each month).  Pretty much, except for the “honeydew” list, I’m full time with Finger and Toe, and looking for some graphics arts work and online teaching jobs.

On May 12th I go to UCLA for robotic single-artery bypass surgery.  I have no idea how long it will take to recover, so there’ll be a long dry spell.  In preparation, I bought a Barnes and Noble e-reader the Nook (I’m finally going to read some of the classics a supposedly educated person should know—and lotsa junk sci-fi, yum).  I’m planning on picking up an Xbox with all the Halo games, strictly therapeutic, of course!  Die, Covenant scum!  In preparation, I’m working my way (finally) through all the Dawn of War games. 

That’s all for now.

The Mantis has progressed from a simple one page drop pod to a full family of orbit to combat vehicles.  There are six camo schemes based on modern American and Russian vehicles and aircraft.  The versions in the package are:

armored personnel carrier (closed and open-topped versions)

tank

non-line of sight fire support vehicle

medevac (battlefield ambulance)

mortar carrier

In my tilt of the hat to the typical LA resident, notice the golfer going for the pin beneath a nuclear cloud.  (It is, as well, an homage to a sixties-era Playboy cartoon.)  That’s the fire support version (tank) of the Mantis equipped with its shield generators that turns the thin-skinned Mantis into a formidable battlefield actor.

Release should be within the next two or three days.

I’ve been focused on family issues for the past three months or so.  It’s been a trying time.

My program at the community college where I teach was eliminated, so I’m technically out of work.  (There’s virtually no hiring at California community colleges.  You may have heard our state has spent itself into bankruptcy and is retroactively taking money from our budget.)  It’s a new experience for me.

Our dog had to be put down.  When you lose a long time companion, even when it’s an animal, there’s a hole in your home.

But the big one was the loss of my mother-in-law to pancreatic cancer.  It was a long , slow decline, but her actual death was a miracle: she was pain free and passed peacefully surrounded by her family.

Cumulatively, those were pretty big hits, but I’m back now and have prepared several new releases.

The first  will be a gun tower to go with Tango Prime and Arsenal.  It introduces a swappable weapons system to complement the system Arsenal uses.   It’s six inches high and has several optional parts.

Second is the first in a series of drop pods, Chariot.  It’s a basic ten-man (if you’re all REALLY, REALLY CLOSE friends!) that comes in two versions: open and closed.  It comes in multiple camouflage schemes and markings, heavily influenced by my research of Russian weapons, color schemes, and markings.

Third is the Mantis “orbit to combat” droppod/armored combat vehicle.  Again, there are several camouflage schemes and markings.  Mantis is a family of vehicles and comes with an armored personnel carrier, a fire support vehicle (tank), and non-line of sight support vehicle (vertical launch missile tubes), a mounted operations in urban combat version (four remote weapons stations giving the supported infantry four machine guns and four grenade launchers).  There are kitbashing pieces to make an open-toped personnel carrier and swappable weapon pieces to allow you to use the Gun Tower’s weapons on a Mantis.