Saturday, July 29, 2006, 11:33 AM
Its been in the upper 90's here for the last couple of weeks with no break in sight. Kind of challenging to sit at a hot computer and the printers are humming. Actually they make a zipchunk, zipchunk sound.
One plus is that the kits are getting a humidity check big time and none of them are comming appart. I have a tough decision to make. The warehouse has sold better then I would ever have expected. the problem is it's a pain to printand ship. It just doesent quite make me happy when I sell one.I havent yet but I may suspend the sale of future Warehouse kits pending a redesign. One thing for sure is that I'm breaking the kit into components to sell seperatly so people can kitbash their own designes. Yea, I know I've said this before but what isn't obvious is that I/we have been doing a lot behind the scenes. A lot of stuff including an entirely new section of the web page will be coming online in the weeks ahead. We have been working on a lot of ideas about flats and have a whole bunch of new textures in that direction. Some of our recent customers have seen the results as I have been slipping in extras into their orders.Now it's time to show them to all of you.
Soon.
Thom
[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ]
Tuesday, July 25, 2006, 11:52 AM
So much is going on.
I just worked a large media project for a huge chip manufacturer. Their CEO's and VP's always have to have flashy videos to prove how powerful they are and of course they don't have to make any final decisions till 2 days before the need the show. That means very littl sleep for me (18 and 24 hr days) but good money too. It's crazey but I love the life. It gives me free time to design great models.
So where was I before all this started...
The small house is done. test built and the few who have seen it, love it. I still need to arrange it for printing and I'm thinking of adding a couple of custom options like a bay window but it's done and will be a great addition along with its 4 sisters (different shingle and board choices)
We have a lot to do befor the big IHobby expo in October plust ther is an S scale show i want to try to attend. The S scale folks have been super suportive. As I mentioned before we are building more kits in HO because wile we have been cautious of marketing them, it's unavoidable. I admit to being a bit freaked out by the potential. HO orders are constantly climbing and our small manufacturing methods could get swamped. Sure we have a plan in place but still it makes me think hard and long. October will be very telling. The models look so good in HO, mabey better then in O. That I anticipate they will be well recieved.
But back to important stuff. More design. I still want to get a station out by October.
One other thing. the Warehouse has sold way better then I ever expected it to. thats good and bad because wile its a cool kit, I have never been happy with the printing quality. After the stock on hand is gone, I'm going to redesign the kit (thanks to a suggestion from Jan W) to print in a smaller format. It will probably be about 32 pages in O and that will effect the price which is unrealistically low at $54. Its not a high priority because frankly we don't make a dime on it, but we will keep it in the line for now.
On to finishing the "Other side of the tracks_small houses" Oh Yeah, I almost forgot. We have a whole bunch of new textures ready. Some shops have already seen them and ordered them. they are specifically for industrial "flats" some of you saw prototypes at the O scale show. well, there's a lot more comming in that direction. Just got to get them up on the web.
thanks, sorry for the long gap in bloggs. I'll try to do better.
Thom
[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ]
Friday, June 30, 2006, 10:37 PM
thom (thom<at>clevermodels.com)
Friday, June 30, 2006, 05:37 PM
When I build the test prototypes of kits I'm looking at a lot of issues. Most importantly of course is to find errors and then fix them. On the small house for instance (finished this morning) I made 4 big changes and discovered several possible modifications.
the biggest change made after building a first pass model was to add a second window or double window to the front wall. The second even bigger change came on the test of the production model which was to scrap the front porch design and replace it with something smaller. Those changes really brought things together. The kit looks great with or without the dormer. The damage system I talked about earlier is better then expected and will be a unique feature in our kits from no on. The skinny brick chimney and inset cellar windows are super details. the back porch which is enclosed and has a trellis like mesh below it can also be mounted on a side wall with a slight trim down in height or ever leave off the bottom trellis. This looks very cool and will help to individualize similar houses placed next to each other. I'd love to see an entire neighborhood of these. perhaps 30 or more with diminishing scales as they go back away from the viewer. O scale up front followed by a row of S and finally HO. It would look a lot like the part of Chicago I grew up in.
One totally irrational desire though is to cut one in half diagonally to make 2 flats. That will definitely have to wait for a wile.
Speaking of which. I have made a first test on an industrial flat in forced perspective. My goal is to have it ready by October for the international hobby expo. It's either going to be the coolest thing ever or go right over peoples heads. I have a lot of work to do. I have to find out how to post pix here in the blog. I know its possible, I just have to figure it out. I would love to share some of these very early tests.
later
Thom
[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ]
Thursday, June 29, 2006, 02:22 PM
thom (thom<at>clevermodels.com)
Thursday, June 29, 2006, 09:22 AM
TAKE THAT Spammer scum.
You shan't soil my blog. Be gone.
Ha Ha
Thom
[ 1 comment ] ( 357 views ) | [ 0 trackbacks ]
Monday, June 26, 2006, 03:10 PM
thom (thom<at>clevermodels.com)
Monday, June 26, 2006, 10:10 AM
Continuing to prototype the small house. With all the extreme amounts of layering possible there are so many variations. Of course I like to make the houses a bit distressed, so I'm cutting out extra panels of loose and missing insulbrick. Then again you don't have to distress it at all or leave off all the layers and have an all tar paper building. I've built all these variations and they all look good. What I really want to do is combine two houses into an L shape but that will have to wait.
Once I start working on a design, I start noticing the real thing all around. I notice that some have 2 or 3 layers of siding and many different sidings all on the same building. It makes me want to build an entire block of these things but I just don't have the time. (you know this isn't a full time endeavor, though it feels that way)
I hope to be able to offer this kit to you in a couple of weeks. I need to figure out how to show the flexibility of these kits in a way the average builder will understand. I understand of course that none of YOU are average.
One frustration I want to share. I have been sending new ad art to the various publications that we advertise in and for the last 2 consecutive issues, They have not run the updated ads. So you're not seeing pix of new kits, finding out about new textures or that we aren't going to try to get a kit a month out. We want to focus on quality not quantity but I just can't get the word out.
That's life, maybe next issue.
Thom
[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ]
Back Next
