#WIPWednesday, January 17th, 2024

Click to see full album

 Hey there, everyone!

This past week hasn't gone too poorly. I have my desktop PC back, which means that not only do I have all of my files back, but I also have my full-size mechanical clicky keyboard, so typing isn't a horrible chore with these big old sausage fingers! So, what's been going on since last Wednesday?

First off, the printer has been running until Tuesday evening, when I ran out of Polymaker CosPLA and Amazon pushed back my order until Thursday. However, in the time I've been printing, I've completed the Rogue One Stormtrooper Blaster by Galactic Armory, a Star Trek original series Tricorder and Communicator by UnimatrixRed, and most of a Dagobah-version of Luke's Blaster Pistol from The Empire Strikes Back (I need to print the main scope body and the right grip, that's it) by Big Fred's Customs. The blasters are for me, 100%. I want more Star Wars blasters. However, the Tricorder and Communicator are definitely getting pushed to the top of the list to get finished for a possible discussion table in March and the Props talk in May. Why are they getting pushed to the top? Honestly, it's because they are recognizable props that aren't based on real-world firearms, like all of the blaster props from Star Wars. I am definitely going to represent the pew pews, but I want to have pieces that aren't just guns.

Next, I've been able to spend some time in the workshop the past few evenings, so I've started assembling some of the lightsabers I've printed over the past few months. If you don't recall, these are lightsabers I've printed "in color," so they look like the actual props, at least from a distance. These are lightsabers that would cost about $20 each if I sold them, and they're going to be examples of "Fast and Cheap" for costume props. So far, I've completed the Qui-Gon Jinn lightsaber from The Phantom Menace, the Yoda lightsaber from Attack of the Clones, I'm three quarters of the way done with the Darth Vader saber from A New Hope (need to attach small wires), and I snapped part of the emitter on the Obi-Wan Kenobi lightsaber from The Phantom Menace, so I am currently waiting for that to get reprinted. You can find pictures of all of them in the Google Photos folder that I attach to my blog posts.

Click for full album

This coming week, I'm going to continue assembling lightsabers while I wait for my filament to come in. This filament also includes some metallics so I can finish up some of the other lightsabers I'm building. I'm also going to start work on some of the props for the talk, probably a Sting sword from Lord of the Rings that I printed in resin months ago, and the communicator from the original Star Trek. In addition, I've got the project I've started over on my Ko-fi account that I need to put some work into, though it's not getting much until I get some backers over there.

With that, that's all I've got in progress this week. As a heads up, on Friday from noon until approximately 7 PM Eastern, I'll be part of an online game of Blades in the Dark for work over on Twitch, as we show off our new TTRPG campaign management software, Lore Link. So if you want to see me play a TTRPG, go ahead and check out the channel. In fact, you might want to go ahead and give them a follow, because I'm fairly certain I'll be on it next Tuesday from 5-6:30 PM Eastern as the creator of Lore Link mentors me in adding the "Quick Play" adventure for Star Trek Adventures into the software for my first game.

Finally, if you want to help support my building and writing and all that jazz, you can visit here to see everything from donations to Amazon Wish Lists to Amazon Affiliate Links. Plus, anything you see me printing and building, I more than likely have merchant rights to sell prints from the files, so hit me up if you like something. Seriously, I took a hit with a $500 computer repair on top of getting things around for my Geekling's birthday in a few weeks, so if you'd like to give any help, it would be greatly appreciated.

Until next week, please remember to take good care of yourselves, and each other. The world sucks out there, so try not to make it suck even more. In fact, if you can, try to make it suck a little bit less.

Tony