Raggy's Gaming Adventures

Scale75  have just put out a post on their facebook page  calling an end to piracy in the miniature hobby. 3D printing is here to stay. The last few years have seen quality improve, equipment and running costs fall as the technology evolves. Unfortunately it has also lead to an increase in piracy in our hobby. I normally steer clear of the political side of the industry on this blog but piracy is something that I feel kinda strongly about. My first job out of college was working in DVD distribution of foreign language films in the UK. In the span of a year, piracy virtually killed off the whole industry. Film and movies have been able to build out streaming infrastructure but it has still hit their profitability massively - particularly for the smaller, independent studios. So what does this mean for the hobby market? Well in all honesty it is tough to say. I haven't seen any studies on the level of pirated parts in the hobby, so this is all going to be pure specula...

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on nature based scenery / basing. One of the responses was that I should do a series of these articles looking at differing terrain types. I'm not sure how far I'll take this but for the next post I thought I would look at more Urban environments... We're going to start in Galway, mostly because I happened to be there and have this article on my mind. It provides some good variety of building ages and because of the climate, shows some interesting weathering effects (buildings here literally go mouldy). Concrete/Brick/Stone Stone - brick - concrete. The basic construction element has shifted over time and an interesting thing is that as the materials get more modern... they also seem to get more prone to breaking down. Stone and brick will stay pretty much the same from the day they are laid. Concrete is a little different. It   Stone's resilience is really pretty incredible. Stonehenge, Pyramids, endless castles - Stone st...