I am posting this to force myself to upload the pictures tonight on the work i have done, and so i will upload some other things.

Ever since Shadow Core Prime was released, no scratch that since it was announced I have wanted to construct something out of it that was very specific, and over the weekend of June 21-22 ’08 I finally started construction of these items.

Here’s some background.

Years ago (wow I guess around 2003), back during the publications of the New Jedi Order series of books I was running a SW RPG campaign set in that era (NJO), during that time line I was using just a chesex mat, and markers, but for me it was always kind of lacking. In that campaign the players had a few missions where they had to infiltrate some of the living buildings of the baddies in the SW universe (the Yuzzhan Vong), the crux of the adventures revolved around these bioengineer structures called Damutek. In the novels are basically big starfish shaped things, with different arms for areas etc. I wanted to build one with SCP as soon as I heard of the concept of that set back in 2006, however it’s Mid 2008 and nothing has come of it, till now. I have sat down a number of times and tried to make some design layouts but always gave up because I could never get it right (for various reasons we shall see bellow), Friday June 12, I finally figured out what I want to do and I over came that problem, and started printing over the weekend, and building.

Here is the Story
In 2006, three years after the campaign, when SCP was on the horizon I had the idea to do the Damutek for the first time, because it was such an integral bit to the adventures I had run and they crop up in many of the novels, one of these type of buildings had been the center point for several adventures and goings on in the novels I knew I had to make one. However in the three years between the end of the game and SCP the importance of the Damutek became very warped in my mind. I got to the point where I forgot about all of the support buildings for it, and it kind of got stuck in my head that it was the only building. Which was the big problem in my designs attempts since I had this false fixation that it was the only thing, it had to do every thing, and so it was always this behemoth of a structure that could never be realized.
I tried all of these ways to try to mash everything it into the starfish type building, and fit with the mentality of the species that used them. So I needed arms for the different casts, and it was just unworkable, needing possibly 6 massive arms, to up to 8 shorter ones, it was something I could never get worked out. Every 4-5 months I would sit down try again and give up, as it was in my head it was completely unworkable.
So I got into a cycle of decide I want to do it, try to plan it, can’t plan it and give up, repeat. Fast forward to two weeks ago, I was looking for older pictures of WWG stuff to re-populate the gallery with, in digging through really old files on my computer I ran across a folder that had some notes and the adventures from that campaign, I remembered I had mapped it out, as 5 pointed starfish type building at the time, I remembered the basic building and had tried to do it in SCP but I could not recreate it easily in SCP, but I figured I’d take a look at the adventure I wrote anyway, maybe for ideas and a bit of nostalgia.

I found the stuff I had written for the Damutek, and yeah I had made it a 5 armed Starfish, but it was much smaller in the dimensions I gave it than what I had been trying to make, which seemed odd, and when I flipped to the maps of it I had made, it hit me why. I had all of these support buildings, minishals (the smallest) and grashals, and four different versions of the Damutek depending on which caste it had been grown for. With the remembrance of the other types of buildings, and the sketches I had done for them I was energized because this crazy false notion I had gotten fixated on that the Damuek had to be this big structure that served every purpose in it’s varied multiple arms went poof, I remembered the support buildings, after that the task was actually really easy.

So Friday the 13th 2008 I grabbed some paper and started doodling how I could make the Minishal, Grashal and Damutek in SCP. Starting with the small simple ones first, there would/could be no direct translation of the sketched maps, small pimple like buildings, I had originally designed with bisected areas inside to form room’s to SCP. So I tried to recreate the idea and concept in SCP. The minishal, was done as a 3x3 core room with 3 S9’s forming the walls to get the feeling of the rounded little pimple hut. The Grinshal was a basically scaled up version of it, with a 9x9 foot print, with S3’s on the corners and more S9’s to give a rounded look. But when I sat down to design the Damutek, and it’s “star fish” I decided to go more with the “star” aspect than the “fish” and forgo the preconception that a star fish should have 5 limbs, and went with the easy 4 pointed star, because it kind of fit with the two types I had just made. As soon as I did that I flowed effortlessly, and I had again banged out about 7-8 different “room types,” that could work as the arms, and since I didn’t have to make a “huge” structure holding everything the simple “+” shaped worked. The more I looked at it; the desire to go back and do a minor redesign of the minishal and Grashal became evident to allow for a flow and continuity. The Shallow bump designed to make it as round” as possible, actually became less important and a very pronounced bump off of each end off of the 3x3 became very nice looking, it pushed the shape into making the Minishal into a + as well. So I had a nice flow and pattern through the various buildings, as if they all followed from some same general origin, and was grown to different sizes and uses as needed. The minishal got redesigned to take s10’s instead of S9’s and the flat door was replaced by an Airlock. The new look worked and fit well with the flavor of the species, so I had my Vong pattern set, over about 3 hours I designed about 10 different buildings to make with SCP (not all of them may end up being made) and started printing them on Friday night, and construction began on Saturday and Sunday, over the past few weekends I have been working on them...

Pictures to follow!

Minishal


Grashal

Minishal





Grashal



More pictures

Again more

The Big one is actually almost done, but i want to do the link system on it so i don't have to re make certain sections, so need some spray mount.

That's coming along quite nicely!

The transparencies are really nice, good job.

The "funny" thing is the Damutek, the reeeally big building (which isn't shown yet) was done pretty much first, the only thing that was done before it where the 4 Minishals, becuase they all came off of one floor tile. Its just i have been debating how to mount the Damutek.
I at first was just going to make 3-4 different ones, but then there are storage issues, so what i have is the main hub for the 4 arms, and currently 5 different rooms/arms. So i would have to either make 3 more rooms, a and a second hub, to make another single Damutek, and then make 4 more rooms, and another hub two more times, or do something else. A number of the rooms would be duplicates (in a few cases 3-4 more times) to make all of the different versions if i wanted to make the 4 different versions i conceptualized. , While i like cardstock modeling, i don't have that much free time. It takes about a night to build a room, (what with the added support) and i went really hog wild on the support for these builds.
You can't see it in the builds, but all of the buildings are reinforced inside. Every surface has from 2-4 extra layers of card stock inside to really make it sturdy, and keep seems from poping, and give support...

But when i was looking over the direction for the props i think i came up with a happy medium. Make another Hub, and do the Link system on both of them, so if i want two buildings i have two of any varotey and can make the two buildings, i don't think in any setting i would want more than two out at a time so making two that can be converted back and forth should solve my desire for variety, and but make this so it isn't a monumental task to construct.

I hope to get some Spray mount tonight to finsih the linxs.

Now that's what I'm talking about.

Just stumbled upon this, great work, I approve.

Hehehe i was actually going to Message you Pall_S once i got the Big building posted, as soon as it is done i was going to set a bunch of them up on some real terrain instead of just the builds with some staged shots, and take nicer pictures... till then i have just been plugging away at getting the basic "buildings" done and having fun. The scarry thing is i have like 3 more building types i have designed but still haven't built.

I have really wanted to do this since Back in March when Gazelle lit a fire under me with his , it's an idea i wanted to do too, but i was going to go more the route of recreating some of the maps from the game in 3D, but haven't gotten around to it, and then i thought this could be kind of first step along those lines. Make these to be used with the Minis/RPG, maybe using Hintelands or Mars Station to do the ground and make a a "real" map....

I think this set (SCP) was a bit of a disapointment for WWG in terms of sales. But i like it, and i have been Trying to do something with it since it came out, but if you read the first post you can see why i never did much of anything with it till now, but after that mental block got solved it's quit fun to work with. I think SCP has some great potential, but off the top of my head the only other builds i can ever remember seeing was Robby's build.

I have to admit that working on this current project has got me wanting to revisit this,

Just today at lunch i have redisigned it, and i think the new version looks more "Alien", i might have to put one of the buildings on hold and whip the new version of the ship out, before i finish this grouping up.
The sketch i have sitting next to me here at my desk, i think looks really sleek, i'm itching to build it.... (as soon as decide where to put the darn entry way...

Well over the long weekend, i did take another go at that ship.

While i like the first one, the one a did on Friday and Saturday i think looks way cooler. Same basic layout as the first one. 2 7x7's with a Turret off the front, and the bit off the back to break up the lines. This go around i did more to try to break up the boxy look of the ship. The front and back have some very intersting addations to make them far less boxy. The sides i am still working on, can't deciced 100% if i want the extra bits at the front or the back. I was leaning toward the front, but the more i think about the back seems to "flow" better.
I just need to make the Shell for it on pop in some Props and it's good to go.

I also mounted the less static one on foamcore, it also needs props, but i plan on only mounting a few into the different buildings that won't be interchangeable so won't need to make loads and loads.

I hope to finish them up tonight, i will at least try to take a few shots of the finished but not decorated ones tonight.

This project is largely finished, yeah!

I have been looking for a personal use for ShadowCore Prime since I first saw it, and consistently came up with zero ideas. I could not even imagine using it in any capacity for any of my games. Even in our Star Wars Miniatures games, we played the Rise Of the Empire or Rebellion eras, so no Yuzzhan Vong for us.

But recently I began playing Vor: The Maelstrom again, and ShadowCore Prime is PERFECT to represent any number of weird alien structires found throughout the Maelstrom, either just as a strange environment to fight around or to be actual scenario objectives. I think once I finish out my current batch of projects, I will have to buy this and do something special with it.

Thanks to Ghenghis_Ska for stimulating the ol' imagination...

Well they are done, about 99%, i set a bunch of them up on some black foamcore and will be taking pictures of them all tonight.
Much joy in my house as this is finally done.

The reason it has taken so long since the 7th is i was working on the new version of the ship. It is also done and ready. I have to say i really like the new ship. To me it looks much more interesting and "finished" than the last version. It is the object currently waiting to have it's pictures taken.

So i hope to have them up tonight or tommorrow. Expect more pictures comming very soon.

Then i may work on a SW version of the Battle maps like people are doing for DDM/RPG in the thread. many of the maps are pretty simple, the biggest problem is actually getting the floors and consules right... will have to look over the different sets to see what would would best.

I mentioned abovr i took a crack at a new version of the Ship, i took some pictures of it last night, but instead of putting it here i am will be updating the Ship Thread found here

Enjoy

I doubt i can get the pictures of the last building tonight as i have the SW game, but i hope to do some "action" shots of the ship and the compound on Wed or Friday.

Well here it is the big structure, but when all is said and done i don't think i have a picture of it as one whole!, it's still set up so will take a big over view shot before i take it down.

Agian more shots in the gallery but these are some i liked....

What are the critters in the foreground?



Are they a D&D mini? They are cool looking

The blue ones? Yes, those are D&D.

The Ethereal Marauder (49)

http://www.iconusa.com/online/D&D_Blood_War_singles.htm

I like collecting the odd looking critters too, from all the different lines pre-painted minis. They work well for fantasy, scifi, Lovecraft and etc.

I actually pulled the Knobby White Spider awhile back and thought we would due nicely for multiple genres:



I'll most like repaint him a bit and maybe have scarfing down on corpse