The weekend didn’t really turn out the way I thought it would. There was a neighborhood watch meeting/social that Mrs E really wanted me to attend on Saturday, but she forgot about it until 2 hours before it was supposed to start. It took four unplanned hours out of my day, and I just couldn’t get back into my coding headspace at all. On the bright side, I did get to meet some nice people and eat some decent grilled burgers, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.
(Coding is very heavily reliant upon short-term memory and concentration, and it’s very easy to forget what you were doing if you’re suddenly distracted. There are a couple of good blog posts explaining that phenomenon here. In a nutshell, distractions completely wreck my productivity–it’s not “just a couple minutes”, it’s more like 2 minutes of distraction followed by half an hour of trying to get back in the zone.)
I ended up working on the taxicab instead just so the rest of the day wouldn’t be a total loss, and by the time my bedtime rolled around, I was so close to done that I decided to spend today finishing it up, along with some bonuses.
I decided I wanted to go for a sort of General Motors thing where the same base platform is re-badged at different trim levels and given different names. There’d be the midrange luxury trim level with chrome accents and nice interiors that private citizens and car services would buy, and then there’d be the nasty and cheap trim level that appeals to tightfisted rental companies and taxi companies. In addition to that, there’d be a police version.
This is the upmarket version, the DMC-Northstar HL 300, with chrome accents and leather/wood interiors:
This is the stripped-down economy version with all-plastic interior and hose-it-out plastic upholstery, the Stercus:
BONUS CONTENT BONUS CONTENT BONUS CONTENT
And this is the Stercus with police package installed:
In addition to all that, there are 3 editable versions included. One for the fancy HL 300, one for the regular Stercus, and one for the Stercus with police package.
Update: Ever have one of those moments where a whole bunch of things just kind of serendipitously flow together and you get to kill a lot of birds with one stone? Yeah, I just had one of those moments.
Mrs E needs a new pair of shoes, I want to test out a new download delivery service named Pulley because the way it works seems ideal for sending out review copies and comps on the new WWG storefront, you guys have been very patiently waiting in the face of months of endless teasing for something new to buy, and I happen to have something that fits the bill much earlier than I originally intended, thanks to The Weekend That Did Not Go As Planned. Nice!
So, without any further ado, I present you with a Pulley-powered buy link for this model:
(Link removed because my Pulley trial expired. Thanks for helping me test it, everyone!)
If you snap it up, let me know how Pulley worked out for you. It’s really slick and no-fuss, but I want to see how it works under practical circumstances. It should take you right to PayPal, and once you complete the transaction, you should see an email appear in your PayPal email inbox with a download link in it.
Well, eventually, anyway, this was in my inbox:
"Your news story – "Cardstock hovercabs (and limos and cop cars) at Chez Ebbles" – has been received by TMP. It is currently #42 in the queue. Since we publish an average of 7 news stories daily, your story will probably be published in around 6 day(s)."
so you may see a second bump in a week…
LAW: Heh. It's sold 34 copies over the past 2 days, which is significantly more than I was expecting, all things considered.
Alexio: Oh, dear. It's a good thing I still have 10 days left on my Pulley free trial! I was planning to let it expire. (If anyone who bought it needs a new download after my trial expires, just contact me and I'll fix you up. I love my Dropbox account, it's so convenient.)
I think you accounted for at least a dozen or more sales, actually. I recognized a lot of names and emails from the Two Hour Wargames group in today's sales log. Thanks!
Well, they are nice models, and I knew they would be appreciated. And Mrs Ebbles needs new shoes!
Sorry about the lag, though, I'd hoped it would go out faster.
COMMENTS ABOUT KITBASHING LAYERS:
Just want to comment that they work extremely well… for users with no PS skills it is easy as you only have to tweak with one color layer… for hardcore kitbashers it is more than enough with three layers provided… so I took my approach to the Spanish Guardia Civil scheme, judge by yourself (about 45 minutes work):
http://tinyurl.com/HL300-Guardia-civil
Kitbashing files are a must have!
that looks awesome Topo, great job sir. 8)
@Topo; That looks really interesting; I hadn't realized that the Guardia Civil cars were so colorful. Please post a photo of the completed model!
I'd also note that the cars look even cooler when airborne; something as simple as an old GW clear plastic flight stand will do the trick.
Carl Fishman
Really nice TOPO! I should do a UK variant.
Simple and painless here, on Linux/Firefox (which is often a good data point, I find).
Looking forward to dropping a few of these on the tabletop in the next few weeks.
Thanks for the comments!
Building time of this model is pretty good, about 30min scoring and cutting and about 15min building… so, it isn't hard nor time consuming to build a small fleet to break fire alleys in Infinity.
I'm not sure if someone posted a link in the infinity forum… I'm going to check it right now and post it.
I couldn't get logged in on Paypal from my iPad, but I don't know if PayPal might be acting up. I'll try again later and if that doesn't work, I'll see what happens when I try to log in from the desktop. Someone commented that Flash is involved, that could be a problem for the iPad.
TOPO: Nice work on the Guardia Civil version!
Dan Summers: 🙂
Becky: I'm not sure if the frontend uses any Flash, but I know the backend definitely does. Not a big fan of Flash myself, as it needlessly excludes people on alternative hardware.
I got my Classic Police #335 built. Nice model. Now I need some police officers to go with it!
Forgot to try again from the iPad, but the sale just went through fine from the desktop. I don't know why Apple can't implement Flash. The rest of the world isn't going to stop using it because Steve Jobs has a bug up his butt.
I'm getting better (or at least faster) at building these things. Pretty close to Topo's estimate. (Though he leaves out edging, which is giving me problems, since I don't have the right palette for some of these colors.)
I'm really glad that you decided to release this one to us early, Mel; I've been enjoying the heck out of it.
A friend pointed out to me that what your line really needs, and you haven't mentioned yet, is an open-top vehicle. (A convertible, in effect.)
I know; building the interior is going to be a pain. And the concept doesn't really make a lot of sense. But it is an old sf trope; long before Lucas had jedi jumping in and out of open-topped flying cars!
Hmm; maybe I can kit-bash one using parts from the LEV?
Carlfishman
Becky: Thanks for the business!
Carl: Not a fan of open topped vehicles in general. Well, for gaming at least–the reason I like enclosed vehicles is because it's easier to pretend there's somebody inside the thing when you don't have an empty driver seat mocking your sense of order.
What about robo-vehicles? Something with open stowage (pickup truck style) but with a sensor stalk instead of a driver? That would allow figs in the back and finesse the lack of driver figure.
Sorry, I have no plans to do any sort of open topped vehicles as part of this line. It just doesn't fit in with where I want to take things visually and technologically, and would also not make any sense given the nature of the vehicles.
Fair enough. I'm enjoying seeing what you ARE planning to do.
Cheers for that. Download system worked perfectly.
The pully brought me to paypal, and paypal redirected me here after payment, but I wasn't provided with any download or download link.
Did you check your email inbox? That's where the links are sent.
False Alarm. The system works perfectly.
Received the Email with the Link. There was a delay between the Paypal Confirmation and the Download Link message.
In part the confusion was I accustomed to some sort of direct link from the site, or paypal, immediately after payment. Just didn't expect it to work like it did, but they system works fine.
Thank you for getting back to me as quickly as you did.
Well, it came up on TMP today in the midst of a bunch of hobby news stories, so I hope that gets you some more sales too.
Aside from GMX persisting in moving Mel's mails to the spam folder (again!), ordering + dl'ing went without any problems. Good stuff!
Yourlordandmaster: Glad you got it in the end! I agree there should be some intermediate opportunity to download the purchase, and if I'd written Pulley myself, I'd have implemented that feature.
Alexio: Yeah, that accounted for a few more sales. Surprisingly, the biggest sales traffic came from my blog, the Two Hour Wargames group, and TOPO's 2 posts on the Infinity forums.
Zorg: Thanks!
Unfortunately I missed the test period, so I was wondering if/when will this be on sale again and where?
Thanks in advance
Graham
Beats me. I'm busy for most of the week, so I won't have a chance to figure things out until maybe Wednesday or Thursday. But I'll make sure it gets released again somehow.
Thanks 🙂
I just re-started a project that's been sitting on my desk (for months) to finish painting — 54mm-ish plastic scuba divers from the grocery store toy aisle (for "James Bond Scuba Adventure" gaming).
As I was touching up spots I'd screwed up (it's a pretty impressionistic paint job I gave them) I realized that the Northstar would make a fine substitute for the undersea Lotus sports car from 'The Spy Who Loved Me'… I just need to modify the pods slightly and add a few fins.
I'll have to print it bigger, but I can do that at work on 11×17-inch cardstock. I will post pix once its done.
Alexio