*Blink* A friend of mine bought CWU on Monday. Today he had finished as close a build to the one shown with Denny's smiling face as he could.

What the heck? How fast was he building this thing? It looks great, but well, I know that I can't build that fast!

And he built it just to have a castle for to give his little brother for Christmas, he does not even plan on using it in a game.

The Auld Grump, feeling like he came in second in a two man race...

Auld, I don't think your friend took time off to eat! Can he "sleep-eat"?

Making a castle Denny's size would take, AT LEAST, 1 hour of printing, 8 hours of cutting, 6 hours of scoring, 5 hours of gluing and 4 hours of edging. Those hours guestimates are uninterrupted hours of solid work with, what I imagine, would be the most nimble and efficient of handi-workery. Multiply that time by 2-2.5x and you'll get close to what it took (in solid hours of work) for me to make just 80% of what Denny has there in the photo.

Erm... if he's like me, he probably sat in front of the computer all day making them pieces! Paper modelling and internet radio go well together

I wish I had tracked my hours spent creating the castle more carefully but as I said before developing and building at the same time kind of destroys normal estimates.

It's funny you mention the internet radio thing. I'm a die-hard Shoutcast user when I'm developing. Internet radio and paper modeling really do go hand in hand Here's a station I frequent for inspiration: http://www.radiorivendell.com/ .

Well, I know that he has a much better and faster printer than I do, a Cannon - but I don't remember the model - that he spent as much on as I spent for my computer, but still... (At work he uses something called an Iris (?), which he is very fond of.) How'd he do it all in 3 or 4 days? He used to do paste ups for one of our local magazines before they went digital, then he took the jump with them. (He is not one of the folks bemoaning the loss of hands on paste ups, I think if they had an intravenious attachment for his computer at work he would never go home.)

The Aud Grump

Hokey smokes! I just looked up the Iris printer he mentioned using at work... here's a quote that I found (bold face added): If you are in the $45,000 price range , then order the FLAAR report on the Iris printer (part of the Giclee Series).

$45,000 for a printer! Yikes! No wonder he spent more on his printer than I did on my entire system, if this is what he uses at work...

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* Okay, the Iris that he uses at work is for the originals for the covers of the magazine he works at, and for art prints that they sell through the magazine. I was wondering why they had such a beast. The dots used by the inkjet are about the size of a human blood cell, and the printer adjusts their size, allowing a very fine touch for shading. I asked if he used it for printing his castle and he just laughed, it is apparently also an expensive printer to run, using both ink and a process called 'wax sublimation', basically using colored waxes reduced to vapor... The more I find out about it the scarier it becomes.

Well, he's getting a few other sets as well, including The Maiden. Bet he takes less time than I did to complete it. (Maybe I can make some hints that I wouldn't mind having a second Maiden... )

The castle looks gorgeous, far biggger than any that I would build. He continued adding to it after copying as much of Denny's set up as he could. It... is just incredible. If they take any digital pictures of it for Christmas I will post them... I swear the final build is about six feet on a side. I don't even know how his brother will be able to get it home.

I realize that part of it stems from what he does for a living (professional graphics and layout), but gods I am jealous. Then he tells people that I introduced him to World Works, and they expect me to have something to equal that... leaving me holding up my tower bridge and saying, 'dur yeah, I made this...' I hope his brother realizes just what he is getting. If I find out he just threw it away or something I think that I will kill him.

The Auld Grump, my oh my...

*EDIT* And I haven't even looked at the inside of it yet... The thing would dwarf even the biggest dragon miniature I have.

Aha! Much is revealed... The second part of Chris' gift to his brother is a DVD set of Gormenghast...

*EDIT* Nevermind, he bought Gormenghast after getting the first, Denny inspired, part of the castle done, he then expanded the castle to be more 'Gormenghastly'. The outlying parts are mounted seperately and are removable.

The Auld Grump, read the book, never saw the miniseries.

I know that his family takes pictures, don't know yet about digital.

Chris doesn't even own a regular camera, despite being a graphics designer... I don't really understand that, I know why I din't want to pay $200+ for a digital camera, but he would actually use it!

Has anybody else seen Gormenghast? I liked the books, but I really don't watch much TV these days. (I have one, but it isn't even plugged in, just sits there collecting dust.)

I still haven't gotten a look at the interiors, and asking Chris if I can take the roof off his castle seems a bit much.(And the cat is being most firmly kept out of the room. He was not amused by the idea of Kitten Works...

The Auld Grump

Heh, I am likely buying a cheap (>$75) digital camera in a couple of months. But then I've been saying that for a year now... (I just keep finding other things to spend my money on... and I are a cheap bastiche.)

Right now my personal collection consists of one (1) board for Mordheim, one (1) Tower Bridge, one (1) Wizard's Tower/Lighthouse, and one (1) Seaside Inn. All except the Wizard's tower/Lighthouse showing signs of wear. There are also one or two woebegone Village Works buildings. Most of the village ended too crumpled from the move to salvage. (I am not complaining - it was over a year old, and saw an awful lot of play. Village Works and Castle Works were the first two purchases I made of WW terrain, I am just sad that both of the first two things I made are gone...

For the Modheim board - just a foam board glued to a sheet of masonite, with gridless masterboard sheets glued to it, and a 'street' made by brushing paint thinner on the foam. The whole is covered with 2 coats of non toxic black spray paint, some tan brush on acrylic on both the street and the edges of where the masterboard was going, then some sand here and there to give texture, followed by a brown wash on the tan paint.. In places where there is grass or at least something green on the massterboard I added green flock. For glue I used the last of my spray on 3M adhesive to glue the masterboard sheets to the foam.. It sounds much more exciting (and difficult) than it really is. It may have taken an hour, not counting picking out the sheets of masterboard, and waiting for glue, paint thinner, or paint to dry, counting that it took two days.

Chris is packing up the castle, for some reason I thought that he was having his brother over to give it to hin, but they are both going to their parents. And it turns out that he didn't do much with the interiors, it is intended to look at not play with. Which makes me feel slightly less defensive - my Wizard's Tower/ Lighthouse may be small, but it has furniture inside! (Though given the length at which I just described the process for making a sheet of painted foam insulation I think that there is still some defensiveness there... ) He doesn't think any of his family has a digital camera, but he is not sure, so I will hope he gets some photos. I still find it strange that one of my nongaming friends has made the most impressive World Works model I have ever seen, at least in person. This is also the first paper modeling he has ever done outside of art school. He just thought that CWU was pretty... (I showed him the CWU movie... that's what sold him on it Denny.)

And he used a neat cheat for scoring - he used an old X-Acto strip cutter and a steel rule, allowing the weight of the knife to do the scoring, and setting the strip cutter along the steel rule. I used to have a strip cutter once upon a time, I don't know if they still make them. (Basically a rounded block with an X-Acto sized hole in it and a metal shim that can be slid back and forth. It was intended for cutting strips of paper (for copy editing at a guess, I used it to make strips for quilling). Now that computers have taken over typesetting and copy editing...?

The Auld Grump, no time to model much right now... Time to make the donuts...

Well. there is a digital camera at Chris' parent's house - unfortunately the first few he sent me were too dark to see much, but I sent off an e-mail too him and hopefully tomorrow I will have some to post. (All you can see are a few Christmas Tree lights and what I think are glass ball ornaments... and a bit of roof.) The photos look enough like the ones I took while testing out the $20 wonder that I suspect that it is the very same model. Very dark, and fairly grainy. I asked Santa for an ink refill kit for Christmas, if the fat bloke leaves it in my stocking I intend to print up more CWU for myself tomorrow. I want my own private Gormenghast dang it! Seeing his had me going through the set trying to figure out where all the stuff is. The set is very impressive seen in a large scale like that. Besides, I need to get ready for this summers Morheim campaign. And Green Ronin is coming out with a second edition of Warhammer Roleplay, so I may end up killing two birds with one castle. Now I need to conquer my lethargy of late.

Meanwhile, bed.

The Auld Grump

Does anyone know how to repair a digital photo that was too dark to begin with, then some idiot tried fixing it in Photo plus, botched the job, but saved over the original? (Yes, that was me... I have to learn to stay away from graphics programs with more than 16 colors...) Hopefully Chris will have others, but since he didn't reply to my e-mails over the holiday I am not sure he has any others. The camera wasn't his, but belonged to one of his aunts (I think).

The resolution is pretty low, and it was very, very dark. Enhancing it only made the lights on the tree seem bigger, while the castle became lost among the presents and Chritmas tree in a large, dark jumble. Photo Plus 4 has no undo, otherwise it would have been easy to at least go back before I modifyed the image.

I can't complain really - the program was free, just old. On enhancing digital photos - What did I miss? Or was it a hopeless cause to begin with? (Which would make me feel better at any rate.) I used the tool labeled 'Brighten'. Darkening it back down only resulted in a greater loss of detail, Brighten and Darken are apparently not exactly opposite operations in this program, you cannot use one to undo the other. Each has a sliding bar, and the same numbers, so I thought that it would work. I should have wondered why they were seperate tools, with both bars starting at '0'. I practiced with Brighten on the sample photos they included, and things came out okay on those, it was only on the actual photo that I muffed the job.

Photo Plus 5.5 (also free, and still available as a download) has undo, but doesn't have a Brighten tool (but a lot more shiny buttons). Neither has a working help, at least on Win XP, and because they were free they came without manuals. I kind of think that problems like mine are why neither 'Brighten' or 'Darken' show up in PP 5.5, they caused more problems than they solved.

I more want to know this for when (if) I get a cheap digital camera - I am pretty sure that this photo is shot. But there is always later. I will also be showing the results to Chris so he can laugh. (I saved later renditions seperately, each worse than the one before... the last was a black square with a few dim colored lights and some grey smudges. But that one was (almost) deliberate, trying iteration after iteration to see what would happen. Like translating and retranslating a sentence in Babelfish.)

I also have Corel Photo-Paint, but it too is old and without a manual. (I have used it more, and should have stuck with it, but the brighten tool looked like exactly what I needed.)

If anyone wants to take a look at Photo Plus 5.5 you can get it free at: http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/ They have a bunch of older Serif programs for free download, I use Page Plus a fair amount (One of the more recent versions, not the free one). While this may not sound like a shining testimonial, the probems had more to do with operator error than the program.

The Auld Grump, a graphical Luddite...

*EDIT* I have had Photo Plus for years, and got it for my old Wndows 98 machine. Photo Plus 5 was a fresh downlaod for this computer.

The Maiden is at least 100 pages. I have a B&W laser printer so I have to get color prints, I use my own cardstock, and the Firey at OfficeMax. Costs around 40 cents a page in bulk!

And with perfect irony the newest version of Acrobat Reader includes Photoshop Album, which has a feature to repair pictures that are too dark....

Bah!

The Auld Grump