DM Thoughts: Session 14
This session was always expected to be an important one for me. The main reason was that this is where things ceased to be centered around the city of Sasserine, and instead everything was now to revolve around our two ships: The Blue Nixie, and the Glaive (formerly the Sea Wyvern).
To help underline the importance of this turning point, I therefore planned from the get-go, to have the unveiling of my 3d ship model be saved for this day. There had been a fight on the Nixie earlier on - but somehow that didn't seem the best time to reveal the ship, since it would not be needed again for quite some time. So I knew this was the time to do it.
However, as you might imagine, putting together the ship was a much longer ordeal. One that took me about 24 hours of meticulous work, spread out over the course of many months. In fact, the first printing of the sheets I would need to construct it took place almost two years ago, back when I spent the summer working at a print shop.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's start from the beginning, as I explain how exactly the whole model idea came about, and how it was put together.
It first started when I was first hearing about the campaign, which had not yet been published. Some posters on the Paizo message boards began to discuss the existence of cardstock models, and a particular one that made for a lovely ship.
That model, made by WorldWorksGames, is called the Maiden of the High Seas.
I checked out their website - here - and found the ship in question. It sold for 16.99 - BUT, what you were buying wasn't anything tangible, but only a multitude of PDF files. On those files, you would find nearly 200 pages of color printouts, tiled and marked with details on how to cut them, fold them and score them. In other words, the file wasn't worth much, if you didn't have both the means to print it all out on proper cardstock, and the motivation and patience to actually piece it all together afterward.
But as luck would have it, I had that aforementioned print shop job - for a company I'd worked for part-time for about 7 years. So I was able to print out the costly order, for a very sweet discount. Using a very high-tech laser printer, and top-quality cardstock, the printed sheets looked fantastic... much better than I could have hoped for from a home printer (not to mention the home printer would have probably needed 3 or 4 ink cartridges, to get through the whole job).
So now that the printing was done, the hard part began. I purchased the tools I would need: cutting blades, cutting mat, lots and lots of liquid glue (of a type designed for scrapbooking, that wouldn't warp the card too much), and a few panels of foamcore.
Then I began some testing. Basically, with each sheet, you first had to score either side of the sheet with your blade, using pre-marked score lines. Scoring is the process of cutting very gently into the card, lightly enough to break it, but without actually cutting through. By doing this, you could later fold along those score-lines, without cracking the card, and making the folds very nice and even.
After scoring the sheet, you then cut around the edges, and folded along the scores. Now comes the most crucial part - gluing it properly into place, both evenly and precisely. If it's off by just a millimeter, then that error will in turn compromise the precision of every other piece to come, as ship slowly comes together, bit by bit.
Altogether, I spent many many nights, and many afternoons, cutting, scoring and gluing, while watching tv. At times it was a bit frustrating, at times things didn't make sense and I had to read over the instructions over and over... but for the most part, it was actually fun, and very very satisfying as I saw it all start to come together, looking great.
The final product exceeded my expectations. In the end, I only made one ship (even though I printed out the materials for two), because it was too labor-intensive a process to do twice. But I remain very happy and proud of the ship that I did make.
And to show it off - I took some pictures :)
To help underline the importance of this turning point, I therefore planned from the get-go, to have the unveiling of my 3d ship model be saved for this day. There had been a fight on the Nixie earlier on - but somehow that didn't seem the best time to reveal the ship, since it would not be needed again for quite some time. So I knew this was the time to do it.
However, as you might imagine, putting together the ship was a much longer ordeal. One that took me about 24 hours of meticulous work, spread out over the course of many months. In fact, the first printing of the sheets I would need to construct it took place almost two years ago, back when I spent the summer working at a print shop.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's start from the beginning, as I explain how exactly the whole model idea came about, and how it was put together.
It first started when I was first hearing about the campaign, which had not yet been published. Some posters on the Paizo message boards began to discuss the existence of cardstock models, and a particular one that made for a lovely ship.
That model, made by WorldWorksGames, is called the Maiden of the High Seas.
I checked out their website - here - and found the ship in question. It sold for 16.99 - BUT, what you were buying wasn't anything tangible, but only a multitude of PDF files. On those files, you would find nearly 200 pages of color printouts, tiled and marked with details on how to cut them, fold them and score them. In other words, the file wasn't worth much, if you didn't have both the means to print it all out on proper cardstock, and the motivation and patience to actually piece it all together afterward.
But as luck would have it, I had that aforementioned print shop job - for a company I'd worked for part-time for about 7 years. So I was able to print out the costly order, for a very sweet discount. Using a very high-tech laser printer, and top-quality cardstock, the printed sheets looked fantastic... much better than I could have hoped for from a home printer (not to mention the home printer would have probably needed 3 or 4 ink cartridges, to get through the whole job).
So now that the printing was done, the hard part began. I purchased the tools I would need: cutting blades, cutting mat, lots and lots of liquid glue (of a type designed for scrapbooking, that wouldn't warp the card too much), and a few panels of foamcore.
Then I began some testing. Basically, with each sheet, you first had to score either side of the sheet with your blade, using pre-marked score lines. Scoring is the process of cutting very gently into the card, lightly enough to break it, but without actually cutting through. By doing this, you could later fold along those score-lines, without cracking the card, and making the folds very nice and even.
After scoring the sheet, you then cut around the edges, and folded along the scores. Now comes the most crucial part - gluing it properly into place, both evenly and precisely. If it's off by just a millimeter, then that error will in turn compromise the precision of every other piece to come, as ship slowly comes together, bit by bit.
Altogether, I spent many many nights, and many afternoons, cutting, scoring and gluing, while watching tv. At times it was a bit frustrating, at times things didn't make sense and I had to read over the instructions over and over... but for the most part, it was actually fun, and very very satisfying as I saw it all start to come together, looking great.
The final product exceeded my expectations. In the end, I only made one ship (even though I printed out the materials for two), because it was too labor-intensive a process to do twice. But I remain very happy and proud of the ship that I did make.
And to show it off - I took some pictures :)
The Ship
Garland at the helm
Lavinia and Gustave enjoying a quiet moment together
Crimson up in the shadows of the crow's nest
The full party posing on the deck
posted by Markus the Mad | 10:39 AM
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