Soldiering On

It's been a while since my last update. Between the overtime, and the not quite up to par new laptop, it's been difficult to make a lot of progress on this progress. I have been working on it though, a bit at a time.

I decided to go ahead and work on the graphics for the soldiers. That's been a very interesting learning experience. I've never been very good at drawing people before; but the work I've been doing on on my first soldier is causing me to rethink that opinion.

All I've got done so far is the face; I still have to add the hair and ears before moving on to the rest of the body. Nevertheless, the result is very encouraging so far. It's more realistic looking, and less iconic, than the resource icons; but I don't think that's such a bad thing.

Have a look see at what I've accomplished so far:



I don't know how many hours I've spent on this one face so far; it's quite a few, that's for sure.

Of all the graphics to be done for this game, I get the feeling the soldiers are gonna be the ones that take the longest to do.

I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong with the eyes; or rather, I know what's wrong with them, I just don't know exactly to to fix them. I'll be working on that soon.

Aren't We Resourceful?

A couple of new developments to mention in this post; I'll start with the less visual one.

The playing card blanks arrived a couple days ago. They're thinner than I expected; reminiscent of playing cards you'd buy from a dollar store. However, it is definitely the kind of card stock that would be used for playing cards; so I've got high hopes for how things will turn out. The only thing that concerns me about the card sheets is the way the rounded corners of the cards are punched/perforated. The cards have a very tight perforation like most business card sheets; but the corners are not perforated, so much as they are punched, so the corners are kinda loose. I'm just hoping that doesn't pose a problem for the printer that I'll be using to print the cards.

Now that the cards sheets are in, I'm probably going to ramp up my search for a suitable coating medium. I may email the company from which I got the card sheets to find out what they recommend; in the abscence of the coating spray that they sell.

Now for the next bit of news, which still concerns the cards (gee, what a surprise). I finished up the design for the resource card faces. As I mentioned, I added a section at the bottom of the cards that shows the building costs for elements that can be purchased/built with each particular resource card. It looks pretty sharp, and should be nice and helpful. The icons in this bottom section are quite small, so much of the detail is lost; but when printed, they're still nicely legible enough to work.

Have a look see:



The resource card face design is pretty simple; it's the same shield shape as the logo on the back, with banners top and bottom for the resource name, and the building costs respectively. Simple, but elegant. I think this face design sets the precedent for the rest of the cards too.

So, other than finalizing the color of the card back patterns, I think that about finishes off the resource card designs; now to move on to the development cards. I'll probably design the five special development cards - the ones with the various buildings. I think those will be the easiest to design. Either that, or I'm gonna bite the bullet and get working in earnest on the soldiers. The way I figure it, I've got at least three designs to do for the soldiers; a french soldier, a british soldier, and an aboriginal/native soldier. I may want to do more than just one design of each though, so I might end up with a total of five or six designs. It's gonna be a lot of work, and I think that's why I'm reluctant to start the soldiers next.

Well, we'll see what I decide to start next, when I get to it; I'm ready to start the soldiers or some of the development cards.

If You Build It, They Will Come.

I mostly finalized the Building Costs Card this morning. Have a look see:



It's simple and elegant, yet maintains the graphic theme used on the card backs. I didn't put a little graphic of the roads, settlements, or cities on the card; the reasons being that I would want to put on an actual photographic image of those 3D pieces - which are not yet constructed, and the card is smaller than the commercial game's version - since I'm opting to use the same playing card sized card for ALL the cards, including the special cards. I don't think the lack of graphic for the various buildable/purchasable elements is problematic in any way.

Now I'm moving on to the final design of the Resource Cards faces. I'm still debating whether or not I want to try to include a small banner at the bottom showing how each particular resource card can be used to build stuff. That'll take experimentation to see if it works out or not.

I'm Back In The Saddle Again!

Did some work on the card back design today.

The first step of that process was importing the Iroquois Confederacy flag graphic into Inkscape, and creating a pattern of sorts based on it. I made a few modifications to the pattern design. I gave the tree symbol at the centre smooth sides, as opposed to notched/variegated sides, and I centred all the elements along a horizontal axis instead of having some of the horizontal bands and the tree lower than other elements.

Remember that I'm placing my custom shield logo on this card back also; so the border pattern has to look good around that logo.

So, with the shield logo in place on the card back's centre, I then played around with how to arrange the pattern on the card back for best appearance. I first tried developing a border that would paralled the card back's perimeter; but it just didn't look quite right.

My next attempt, and the one that seemed to look quite good, was to put two bands of the pattern across the card back, one across the top, and one across the bottom. The pattern, both top and bottom, is oriented the same way; the shield logo is non symmetrical across the horizontal axis, so there seemed little point in mirroring the border pattern.

The final step was to determine the color of the card back's field and of the border. There are two distinct types of cards in the game, which in the commercial editions by Mayfair Games, uses different card backs to distinguish them. I figured I'd take a similar approach; it's logical. In my case, though, I decided to use the same card back design all around, and simply use colors as the differentiating aspect of the card backs.

I went in two directions with the card back colors. I first tried a colored field, with white border pattern, in a number of different muted colors; the resulting card backs look pretty good in my opinion - but I'm probably biased. Check them out:



I then tried a white field with brightly/dark colored border patterns; this turned out quite nice too. Check them out:



So, now it seems that I have ten viable card back designs, but I only need two; maybe a third one for the building cost cards, and the special cards - the largest army, and longest road cards.

The bulk of the cards will be resource cards, and development cards - only two card types; so I think the best solution will be to use one back with a colored field one of the card types, and one back with a white field for the other card type, then choose yet a different back for the special cards.

I'll decide on the specific color choice later; but I'm leaning towards purple 'cause that's my favorite color.

I'd like Economics of Art for 400, Alex.

I realized recently, that when compared to the standard set of Settlers of Catan by Mayfair Games, my purchases for this project have already surpassed the cost to purchase it. This isn't suprising; it was pretty much a given that this would happen.

However, the real benchmark will be comparing the cost of this project to Mayfair's 10th Anniversary 3D edition of the game. It's the most appropirate comparison.

The comparison will encompass only the ecomonic aspect of the project; how much it costs me to produce my set of Settlers, compared to the cost of buying a 10th Anniversary set. There will be no comparison in terms of the detail of the 3D sculpture, or similar aspects; I'm going for a very different look to my set - particularly, a more cartoony look to the 3D sculpted pieces.

Looking around online game stores it seems that the average price for a set of the 10th Anniversary 3D Settlers of Catan is about $400. Add taxes to that and we end up with an approximate total of $450.

So, that's my benchmark. Will I be able to produce this 3D set of Settlers of Catan for $450 or less?

I've probably got just a little bit of equipment still to buy; but not much. I'm mostly set up and ready to go for the cards. I just need to look for and buy Clear Satin Acrylic Sealer/Finish; that'll be relatively easy to find.

Other than that, most of what I need to buy is more Fimo poly clay. Given the quantities I need, I'll be looking for deals wherever I can get them. But if anything is going to push me over the $450 dollar mark, the Fimo clay will do it.

It should be interesting to see how it all works out in the end.

Pasta Point of No Return

Wow, what a day! I went and did some shopping around looking for hex shaped cookie cutters and a pasta machine. I never did find hex shaped cookie cutters; I may have to go online to get some of those. But then, that's if I even decide to go the cookie cutter method after all.

What I did find today though was a crazy deal on a pasta machine and a whole pile of Fimo soft poly clay.

The day started with a trip to Fairview Park Mall only to find out that the Castle & Barnes housewares store that used to be there is gone. Since I was at the mall, I decided to check out Wal-Mart; that was a bust, but unsurprisingly so.

From there I headed to Sunrise Shopping Centre at the opposite end of Kitchener and checked out Benix & Co. - who were having an inventory clearance sale, Bulk Barn - who does carry cake decorating and candy making equipment and supplies, and finally Linens & Things; that trip turned out 0 for 3.

I passed by S.T.O.P. restaurant supply; but they're closed on Sundays. So being in the area, I decided to check out Herrschnerrs craft shop. My wife, Carrie was with me, and I knew she'd be happy to check out yarns, and stuff; so it seemed like a good idea.

Was it ever a good idea! Due to poor demand, Herrschnerrs stopped carrying Fimo poly clay, and related equipment. However, they still had a couple of used pasta machines in the back room that they used for craft classes they provide; they sold me one for ten dollars. At their cheapest, such pasta machines are thirty dollars; usually, up here in Canada, they tend to go for forty or more. That was a great deal in itself; but it got better.

Although they returned most of their Fimo stock to the manufacturer; they still had a small stock of it left in their clearance area. They had a bunch of the standard 56g blocks on sale for twenty-five cents, and a few large 350g blocks on sale for around six dollars. Around here, these packages sell for around three dollars, and seventeen dollars respectively. I started off with just a few blocks of Fimo, 'cause I didn't have a whole lot of money to spend. But in passing, while the cashier - who I guess is also the manager or some such - was starting to ring up our purchase, I asked if she'd make me a deal on cleaning them out of their entire stock of Fimo clay. Since they no longer carry the product, I figured that she'd probably be receptive to not having to have this little remaining bit in inventory. My hunch was right; she offered to sell me the remaining stock for just a couple dollars more than the few blocks she had already rung in at their already discounted price.

All in all, I got five large blocks of Fimo Soft in varying colors, and at least fifteen of the small blocks mostly in yellow, but with a few other colors also, all for less than twenty-five dollars. Essentially, I got over $130 worth of Fimo for a bit over twenty bucks; that's a frikkin' deal.

It's true, not all of the colors of the clay are quite what I would have chosen in thefirst place; but colors of Fimo clay can be mixed to create new colors, so I'm sure it'll work out in the long run. Besides, I can use some of the less desirable colors as underlying build-up layers to be covered by the finish layers on many of the scuplted pieces; or failing that, I can keep it for other crafts that I might decide to do with my young son Alex.

The colors of Fimo that I have now have put me in a position that I can probably starting planning and building some of the game pieces - the roads, settlements, and cities - for the game.

The project is really taking on a sense of definitive reality now that there's more going on than just cute little graphics.

I Must Be Getting Soft

A few items to post about tonight:

First, I went and checked out what was available at Hobby and Toy Central, here in Kitchener, regarding Fimo polymer clay. All they had in stock was Fimo Soft; that was a bit disappointing, 'cause I'd prefer to use Fimo Classic. Fimo Classic, which is stiffer to start with, and needs more working to make it more easily malleable, is also supposedly more durable after it's baked/cured.

So, not finding Fimo Classic in stock, I inquired if they could special order it. It turns out that Fimo Classic has been discontinued; so Fimo soft if gona be the product of... well, necessity, I suppose. It'll do, I guess. I bought two 54g (2oz.) blocks so that I could play around, experiment, and get familiar with working with Fimo, as well as what it's like once it's baked/cured.

On that note, I suppose I ought to mention that since I've started buying material and equipment for the project, I've added a table, keeping track of all the money I spend on the project, to the porject wiki over at ForgedRPG.

Next, as I prepare to start drawing up my soldiers for the development cards, I've been scouring the net hard for decent pictures of colonial era soliers, predominantly french soldiers, to use as inspiration. As part of this search, I've been checking some north-american history, particularly regarding the french-indian war, which was a war of key significance in Canada's history. Also as part of this search, I've been looking for pictures of aboriginal warriors of the era, and french and british soldiers of the era.

Well, I found out that key aboriginals involved in the conflicts of this era were the tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy. The Iroquois Confederacy consists of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and the Tuscarora. The flag of the Iroquois Confederacy, which is based on an ancient belt of wampum is shown below.



I also found a few, well at least a couple, of good pics of aboriginal warriors - mohawk and oneida, I believe. So added to the inspirational pics of the french and british colonial soldiers I've got, I've got a solid basis to draw a series of soldiers that will be a tribute to the french, british, and aboriginal origins of this great Canadian nation.

Since I'll be going ahead with drawing aboriginal warriors (and british) in addition to the french soldiers, I've decided to use the motif of the Iroquois Confederacy flag in some way on the cards, most likely as a sort of border around the cards.

Well, I think that covers everything I wanted to mention in this update. Stay tuned.