Saturday, August 27, 2011

One Last Prototype - and Progress on the TRO


FWL Zukhov II
Art by JP Sphagnum, color by Jim Lafferty

Hi! Good to see you again.

Here is the latest with the TRO:

- Lee Madison has finally responded to my email. He had a broken computer. We have some additional tweaking to do with the BARS, but it is shaping up nicely.


Draconis Combine BARS second draft

- I owe Karl Olsen $100 and should have that cleared up soon. Below is the work he did on the FedCom Roland:


Finished Roland background

- Jim Lafferty has been paid up to date.

- Anthony Scroggins has taken the last coloring commission – for the Periphery Vehicles entry – and should have it ready in a few days.

- Stephen Huda has taken the last commission, a re-do of the Blackjack OmniMech.

- Mike Sullivan’s commission on the FWL Jaguar is in progress. It is taking a backseat to his day job, but in this economy that is a good thing – it means he knows his priorities.

- We still owe Paul $40 and Dave Dryburgh $70. Income has increased at least temporarily due to our Ebay sales.


Working the Layout

- Bill and I are scheduled to work on the layout tomorrow. Some corrections and issues have come up, of course. We have the corrections listed and will fix them one by one.

- One of the issues is that a good portion of the art is too ‘light’, the lines too thin for the purpose of illustration. At least it can be said that the line thickness varies wildly from entry to entry, and so I have done some extra work and ‘thickened’ the lines in most of the offending pieces.

As you can see, there is a noticeable difference without losing the details:

Bill is still unconvinced that this issue is worth the time and effort we’ll make doing the replacements, but it is a problem that has been pointed out by at least three of our Readers. Thus I consider it up for consideration to the point where I have prepped all the pieces and am ready to punch in the ‘thicker’ art as needed. Better now when we have only 2/3rds of the Houses done than later.

New Prototype Available Soon!

The latest version, Prototype #5, will be available for your inspection next week. Bill was not able to make it here this Sunday, but we are going to meet again next week. Or try.

This will probably be the last public offering for the Prototype – after this, we will send it to a select group of reviewers to save time and keep some secrets! So don’t hesitate to check our work and send in anything you think we missed or should correct.

Lending a Hand…

- Several people have donated mightily via the PayPal button, one reason we are catching up on the art payments so quickly. I want to thank you donors, one and all. Keep sending if you can – we are nearly done.

Doing My Part... Part II

- The original FASA version of Battlestar Galactica sold for about half of what I expected – we got $40 from a fellow in New Zealand.

- I put up an extremely rare Pokemon collectible, a sealed Trainer Deck B. It went for $142, a huge boost to our Artist Fund.

John is keeping the proceeds to his Tarmogoyf – seems he is getting back into the game! However, I have put up more stuff on Ebay:

- A pair of old-school WH:40K Space Marine Rhinos, still sealed in their boxes.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/120769316538?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

- A pair of WH:40K Imperial Guard Mordian Iron Guard squads, still sealed in their boxes.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/120769315976?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

- An old-school WH:40K Space Marines Predator (the one with the rounded sponsons and turret). No box, unfortunately, but it is still on the sprues and comes with the instructions.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/120769317028?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

- A WH:40K Imperial Guard Catachan Sentinel Squadron. This was the initial issue – the box is not sealed, but it comes with 3 of the Sentinels, all still on their sprues and with instructions.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/120769315340?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Thanks for stopping by.

Steve

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Really like way AFV are looking wish catalyst would hire some of artist that did AFV in this tro would allow them to redo illustrations for clan afv. Can wait till this released any idea how much longer? J.Baker

Anonymous said...

Love the bold look!!! And I will get the playtest of the Scorpion 2 to you soon. Some things to fix:
1: not fast enough, and
2: AMS did no good.

thecircus

Steven Satak said...

@thecircus:

Not sure what to say about either of those until I get your battle report. But I will say this - the speed is not going to make a dramatic change.

As for the AMS, I may have to adjust my expectations, but my experience suggests it is not very useful when you are getting spammed by SRMs. It is meant mostly to deal with large, long-range missile strikes - where it performs (at least for me) quite well for the allocated tonnage.

Steven Satak said...

@J. Baker: Patience, sir. We are working on it as much as we can. Please to remember that we have to pay our artists off before we can publish. That will take a few more weeks (and some additional Ebay sales) but we will get there.

That said, I have Stephen Huda and Mike Sullivan working on the final two pieces. That will come to $60, the final color piece from Anthony Scroggins will be about $25 and I still owe Paul Skowronek $45 and David Dryburgh $75. Total of about $205 and guess what? School starts next week!

Steve

Anonymous said...

Steve,

I have been looking for the latest update. Something wrong?

thecircus

Steven Satak said...

Yes, Bill had to cancel our Slogging Sunday work session last week and while I noted it in the blog, I forgot to lift the mention of it showing up 'no later than Monday'.

We are planning another all-day session tomorrow. I will update the blog again after Bill departs.

Steve