Prototype MFT
It's been a long time since I've posted an update. I guess I needed a break to recharge my artistic batteries, and re-evaluate what I wanted. Over the last few years I've not be idle in the hobby. I've been collaborating with Ed over at TFM (Troll Forged Miniatures), helping out with his Kickstarter, and writing up a new game. Once component of this game is a new range of Modular Floor Tiles (MFT) that will be sold by TFM. Here are a few shots of the 3D printed prototype, used to evaluate the product's structure so I can iron out any wrinkles that may present themselves before moving on to detailing;
As you can see from these photos the floor tiles are assembled from two parts: a '40mm' grill floor part (with 5mm border), and a wall part (which when connected covers 5mm of the floor part, the border bit). Using these two parts you can build any type of floor tile you like: cross, T, or L junctions, corridors, and even rooms. The idea is to reduce the variability of stock held by TFM, streamline fulfilment, and make shipping easier via flat-packing. It's a bit like Legos only for Terrain. These two parts will be 'Trollcast' (which is Ed's fantastic spun cast plastic) with each spin yielding around 8 parts. This should keep the costs down. Well that's the concept...
40mm
I made the tiles large enough to take 40mm bases, and I thought this would be enough to accommodate the new terminators, and the 25mm based Genestealers. It's only when I received my 3D prints that I realised there was a problem. I noticed that the Genestealers that came with my original box of Space Hulk were too wide for this 40mm tile. It's only by getting these 3D prints that this issue came to light. The card floor tiles that came with Space Hulk have 30mm squares, and it was easy to fit the Genestealers 25mm base within them. However card tiles do not have walls, and the Genestealer arms are much wider than 30mm! I completely missed that. The Genestealers are far to big for the Space Hulk card floor tiles!
50mm
I'll be redesigning my MFT to 50mm. The floor grill will be made up of 4 x 25mm square grills. This means it will be compatible with a lot of other 25mm based terrain, though it will not exactly be compatible with my original set of Space Hulk. This is a shame, but one day I may come back and do a 30mm based design just for the sheer hell of it (not sure they would be made, but I love puzzles and it would be fun to work it out!). I hope to have a whole range of floor tile types, and as I only need to make a couple of parts it's very doable and low risk. Time will tell is this is idea is as good as I think it is 🙂
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Hearing feedback is very important to me in developing my ideas. Much of my designs are inspired, and crafted, by chatting to fans on forums before snowballing into a full concepts posted on this website. I would like to thank all those who have contributed critiques and participated in discussions over the years. If you would like join in, you are most welcome!
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