bradgrier.com

Category: In the life

  • 3d printing small board game accessories

    I’m really happy when I can com­bine two of my hob­bies. This time it’s Boardgam­ing and 3d Printing. Often, many games have tokens or chits that are pooled for play­ers to take at dif­fer­ent times dur­ing play.  Usu­ally, these sit in piles around the main game area. On Thingi­verse, swholmstead shared this neat design — which I…

  • 3d Printing Terrain for tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons

    Pretty cool what a little time, 3d Print­ing tech­no­logy, some cre­at­ive design work, and a spool of PLA will get you. I’ve been test­ing vari­ous dun­geon com­pon­ents to see how well they’ll work with our play style. And how good they’ll look once painted and finished. The crates above have yet to be fin­ished. Usu­ally, I…

  • 3d Printing some feet to display photos on my desktop

    We had these ugly plate-stand style photo stands for some alu­min­um photo prints. Had that ‘wrought-iron’ look. Totally not suit­able for a very white shot of our dogs. 3d Print­ing to the rescue. Then I found these simple ‘feet’ on Thingi­verse — a per­fect solution. I prin­ted off one batch, but had a bit of a flash­ing…

  • Friday: Lander

    Friday: Lander

    Stand­ard Lun­ar Lander — because it’s Friday.

  • Lazy Long Weekend Project

    About five years ago, we got a cute little R‑Pod 173T.  It’s a trail­er with a pop-out tent to extend the intern­al liv­ing area by about 36 sq. ft. Very cute and just the right size to be towed by our Santa Fe. A couple of years ago, my very patient wife sug­ges­ted we remove the sofa…

  • More progress on painting Alien Frontiers Field Generators

    Work in progress, painting Alien Frontiers game components.

  • Alien Frontiers — Colony paint complete

    Well, I fin­ished paint­ing the colony com­pon­ents. Look­ing at the pho­tos, they kinda look messy. Note to self, don’t rush, even if you have 40 of the little bug­gers to paint. Ah well, on the game board at nor­mal view­ing dis­tances they look ok. I did­n’t want to paint the ori­gin­als that came with the game so…

  • Painting the components of Alien Frontiers

    Recently I’ve become aware of a trend to paint the often gar­ishly-col­oured mini­atures and game com­pon­ents you find in mod­ern board games. My first attempt was with Mice and Mys­tics, and now I’m work­ing on Ali­en Frontiers. This time, I decided to pro­to­type my  col­our schemes digit­ally. To do this, pho­to­graphed the com­pon­ents just after prim­ing, so…

  • Painting Mice and Mystics Miniatures — Part 2

    Well, I’ve finally fin­ished them. I’ve learned a lot, and quite a bit has changed since I last painted minis (about 20 yrs). I think they turned out fine, and I’m look­ing for­ward to my next set… not sure what that will be yet. Maybe some­thing Star Wars. Here’s a gal­lery of the fin­ished Mice and Mys­tics set.…

  • Painting Mice and Mystics Miniatures — Part 1

    It’s been about 20 years since I last painted any­thing remotely sim­il­ar to these mini­ature game fig­ures for Mice and Mys­tics. I have a lot of re-learn­ing to do. Paint is now mostly acryl­ic, not enamel. New tech­niques like Dip­ping make the work easi­er. And the dif­fer­ing plastics used on dif­fer­ent minis makes each attempt interesting.…

  • Team Tracy Mod — A Thunderbirds House Rules Modification

    We felt that these modifications allowed the entire Tracy family to participate in the game, as they usually do in the TV show. And by allowing the turn order to be flexible and responsive to the current situation, we felt it better reflected the TV show's theme of teamwork -- hence the name, the Team…

  • I will vote Oct. 19. Will you?

    Every so often we have the abil­ity to influ­ence the future. Oct. 19th, Cana­dians will have that oppor­tun­ity, if they choose to. I will be vot­ing for a change of gov­ern­ment. This one has failed repeatedly and has not earned my trust for anoth­er term. So yes, I will be vot­ing on Octo­ber 19th. Will you?