TerranScapes ~ Yahoo! Group and Newsletter

7/25/10 - Summer Days

As many of you who have been in email contact with me know, July has been a very busy month for me. Typically, this is the month that has the most outside distractions from friends (birthdays and summer parties), family (relatives staying with us for 3 days) and home projects (such as refinishing the kitchen floor and the driveway). This inevitably leads to challenges in getting into the shop to keep up with orders and custom projects. Conversely, it affords me structure to the year wherein I can focus on getting these sorts of projects completed during a slightly slower time of the year and compresses them into a bite size time frame.

To top off all of the above distractions, there was the fantastic release of Warhammer 8th ed. To celebrate I hosted a Warhammer Party here at the TerranScapes shop and set up four full sized table decked out with as much terrain as I could muster, which I'm proud to say was quite a lot. The event was attended by a 10 or so gamers from the local area club and we gamed until the sun came up. Everyone seemed to have a great time and I can't think of a better way to welcome in the new era for Warhammer. There has been a call to make it an annual event from some of the attendees and I think holding it in June next year would be great. *grin*

While it may be a little unconventional for a business to share personal life stories, I have to come realize it's important (and enjoyable) for TerranScapes to make personal connections with its customers. As a one man shop, this connection has been rewarding as I continue correspondence with repeat customers or, over a long timeframe, with a customer for a complicated custom project. While doing it all myself limits TerranScapes in size and output, it provides a niche resource for gamers who enjoy a personal connection with a small company making products for their cherished hobby.

So with all of that I'm happy say that I have been able squeeze in enough time to keep up on orders with a small delay here and there. I have been chipping away (slowly) at a few new releases, including a truly massive piece based on the Hirst Arts Ruined Fieldstone tower. In addition, I have decided to tackle the next three custom projects simultaneously to get that part of the business back on track. Ambitious? Yes. Achievable? Probably. *smile* I am finding that I chronically underestimate how long things take so I can only say that all of these things will move along as fast as I dare while keeping my quality at the highest level possible. I have not forgotten about the new modular board set and it will also begin to move along once the aforementioned projects are complete. My mind is filled with new buildings for the new sci-fi themed boards and I think Warhammer 40k gamers will finally be able to see TerranScapes structures on their tables as well, before the end of the year.

Until Next Time.

Mike

6/17/10 - Work Guarantees and Warhammer

I recently shipped out an arena (see the structures page for this item) to a customer and was dismayed to find out that when it arrived, one of the halves had seemed to 'melt' out of shape. The customer was great about sending me photos of the damage and I immediately told him to ship it back, at my cost, so I could repair it. While I was waiting for it to arrive, I decided to sleuth out the cause of the damage, as the box it shipped in was in perfect condition on arrival.

The arena is a urethane plastic shell backed by expanding urethane foam and I have made countless casts using this method and had not come across this problem before. In the past however, I have noticed that some areas of a very few casts had seemed to 'melt' a bit during the curing process and I attributed it to improper mixing, or perhaps water vapor that had contaminated the urethane resin, which is a known hazard. The arena half that I shipped did have a slight dimple in one of its sides but it wasn't that noticeable and had been dimensionally stable after sitting out for over 2 weeks while I worked on it. I suspected that dimple might have been the problem though, lurking below the surface.

I had another arena half here in the shop that I had de-molded a couple of weeks ago and decided to place it in the sun for an hour to see if improperly cured urethane might change in the presence of heat. This cast also had a slight dimple in two areas. In the sun, those areas quickly deformed, shrinking and making the piece unusable. For that cast, I had forgotten to shake the resin before mixing and this led to this hidden problem. While I am sad that the customer has to wait for the repair, not to mention the cost for me for the labor and shipping to replace the half that was damaged, I was relieved to discover the problem and know how to prevent it in the future.

I wanted to share this story to highlight that when you purchase terrain from me, you can expect that I will always stand by the products I ship and correct any problems that occur. As a small business, word of mouth and repeat customers are the only things I can count on to keep TerranScapes afloat. Should you ever have any problems with my terrain due to manufacturing defects, please contact me at once so I can do what ever I can to make your experience with TerranScapes as positive as possible.

On a brighter note, as many of you are probably aware, Warhammer 8th Edition is being released with the preview copies in stores now. What you may not know, (but may have guessed from many of the figures in my photos) is that Warhammer is what led me to start TerranScapes and has been the only miniatures game I have been devoted to for almost a decade. While I don't play as often as I would like, I am grossly excited for the new edition and have been quite a bit distracted by it for the past week. I expect some of this giddy distraction to carry over the next several weeks and, combined with the arena repair, will soak up a little bit of my time. Luckily I am disciplined enough to keep my nose to the grind stone most of the time, but I expect to get pulled away from the shop a little more than normal while I frantically paint up more Dark Elves and get a few games in. I hope you will be patient if I run a couple of days overdue on projects for the next couple of weeks: nothing out of hand mind you. I'm just refueling my love of the miniatures hobby to help power TerranScapes into a great summer and rest of the year.

Happy Gaming!

Mike

5/27/10 - A new bridge and a new plaster

As you may have noticed, I only sell Hirst Arts building kits that have been built here first. This allows me to show better what the final product can look like and allows me to see what modifications can be made to the kit to improve it. The newest release, the Traveler's Bridge is no exception. Looking at the kit, the first thing that jumped out at me was to widen the deck so a unit of 5 troops on 20mm bases could stand abreast on it. Since I am long time player of Warhammer Fantasy, this seemed like an obvious improvement to make. What it also did was make a really big bridge even bigger. The standard Traveler's Bridge takes as many casts as the 4" round towers (18) and feels just as big in the hand. The wider deck means even more casts of the deck pieces. On top of that, shipping a bridge like this becomes tricky as the deck has a very small amount of contact area with the sides making it pretty vulnerable to the shearing forces that would break it. Thinking about that over the past week (and after I shot the video for it) I decided that the deck needed some wooden beams underneath (similar to rafters) to strengthen both the deck and its attachment to the side walls. While I think this makes it a fantastically durable model, it does add to its cost and so the wider version is priced accordingly. For gamers on a budget, I always recommend you pick up the kit form of the bridge and assemble it yourselves. Its fun, not too difficult and very satisfying if you have the time.

Adding to the durability of the bridge, and all subsequent Hirst Arts based releases, is a new plaster I am using. I have shifted over to Tuf Stone which is a polymer reinforced gypsum cement that is nearly twice as hard as the UltraCal 30 I had been using. (And three times as hard as the more common Hydrocal sold by many Hirst Arts distributors.) The plaster actually is filled with millions of very tiny plastic fibers that help to bind the plaster and reduce the frequency and size of chips. My own simple experiments with it have show that is quite a bit stronger than the UltraCal and I hope customers will find their models to much more resistant to damage. I have found over the past several years that the buildings can fracture along the glue lines as the plaster literally pulls away from itself. This new plaster should prevent that from happening as the fibers will distribute the pull force to deeper areas of the block. This plaster requires a bit more finesse to cast but I have decided to not add any cost to the Hirst Arts kits. Currently I have the kits priced at $2/cast which is pretty standard for the Hirst Arts Kit market.

Speaking of Hirst Kits, I have another one ready to come out of the shop. The Greek Temple has been sitting on the shelf for a while now as I didn't have any high quality acrylic paints in shades of white to finish it. I have placed an order for some and when it arrives I am eager to finish it up. The temple features several structures and several statues that I think will really show off the Hirst Arts Roman molds to good effect. Keep an eye out for its progress meter to start moving in the next week or two.

Talk to you soon.

Mike

5/10/10 - What happened with updates to the site and YouTube?

Things may have looked quiet lately for TerranScapes if you have been checking the front page or YouTube for updates. A few factors came together to set me back a bit over the last month including two unusually large orders, one for hedgerows and one for multiple kits for the Hirst Arts Dragon inn. To top those off, I forgot I was taking a week off for vacation.

While I have had a fairly good eye for the time required for regular orders, I really misjudged the time required for the hedgerow order, which included over 120 individual sections. While I put in a peck of time on that I was then stymied by a week away from the shop. Actual vacations are a rare event for me and I neglected to account for it in my regular orders and the custom order queue. As a result everything got pushed back a couple of weeks and I have been loathe to even touch the site as I felt it more important to get the work out to the customers as fast as I could.

The hedgerows are done, the Dragon Inn kits are well underway and I have really pushed the current custom project ahead so I feel like things are returning to 'normal'. *smile* During all of this though I have been accumulating materials and casts for the upcoming new ruined refinery board set and I am really looking forward to beginning it. I plan on visiting this page a bit more often over the summer to provide updates on how that project is developing.

Lastly, I have the new Hirst Arts Traveler's Bridge ready and I've gone with a new color scheme to help break up the ubiquitous gray scale so common for stone structures. The video and photos should be up in a week and I am looking forward to seeing how the color scheme is received.

Talk to you soon.

Mike

3/15/10 - New ideas on the horizon.

One of the constant challenges of running TerranScapes is balancing the need to meet the ever growing volume of orders, meeting the unique challenges of custom projects, and developing new products. Creating new pieces for the store is one of the most rewarding aspects of TerranScapes for me and I can't help but feel excited about the prospect of seeing ideas in my head become a reality on gamers' tabletops. Each new release features new techniques, materials and depths of skill that keeps the business fresh and motivating for me. This year I am setting my sights on a few new additions that I hope visitors will find useful and dramatic.

First, I am working to release a small set of pieces for the 6mm gamers. A recent contact by a customer spurred me to investigate this scale and there seems to be a lack of quality terrain for this tiniest of scales. To help me get a handle on the scale, I purchased a few sample packs of 6mm WWII figures from GHQ. I must say I was blown away with their detail and it almost swept me up into MicroArmor gaming. (Time for this seems limited so I have held myself back so far.) The purchase did however entice me enough to want to add a small section to the store dedicated to this scale. I am planning on few basic pieces to start out with (woods, hedgerows, and the like) and see how they are received by the 6mm community. As always, I will be looking for customers to guide future developments for releases so once you see what I have available, please feel free to make suggestions for additional pieces.

On a larger scale, I am planning to finally dive head first into a new modular board set designed to feature a ruined refinery/cityscape for the sci-fi gamers. I recently purchased several of the industrial piping and machinery molds from Bruce Hirst (a.k.a. Hirst Arts) and these will provide a visual framework for me to build around. Because this project will be fairly involved regarding new molds, building techniques, and the like, I am aiming for a release sometime mid to late summer of this year. If I can realize even half of what I envision for the set I think TerranScapes fans and customers will be very pleased. Clearly with this sort of project, and my heavy existing work load, some delays may occur but having committed some capital already to the project, its safe to say you will see this completed sometime this year.

Some visitors may also have noticed that some prices have changed slightly on the site. These prices reflect what I call 'quality creep', meaning that I am constantly improving the finish and detail on many items in the store but simply don't have the time to reshoot the photos for them. This gradual increase in detail on pieces is unavoidable, (as I can't seem to stop myself) and as my skill and time investment on pieces grows, some price increases are inevitable. As always, every purchase must meet your strictest approval and comes with an unconditional refund policy. Many customers have been telling me over and over how much better their purchases look in person compared to the pictures on the site so it seems like I'm doing something right. I don't post customer testimonials as that seems potentially disingenuous as anyone could pick and choose the best responses to post. Rather, I ask you the customers to tell your friends, forums and gaming clubs about your perceptions of the products you receive. This is the most honest and valuable feedback any small business could ask for.

Mike

2/11/10 - Back from TempleCon

Vending at TempleCon was a great experience! TempleCon is a steam punk themed Con and as such, the Warmachine contingency was in full force. As the Con provided hotel rooms for small vendors to display their wares (called the Clockwork Bazaar) I was able to affordably attend the event and could use my room creatively to showcase a considerable amount of terrain.

For the first time, I was able to display a wide variety of my work in person to an avid mass of gamers and get some first hand feedback on their perception of my work as well as their needs as gamers. Overall, I was pleased and flattered by the positive reactions gamers had to my displays which included a full 6' x 4' layout of both the martian and verdant modular board sets. Many visitors expressed that the terrain looked even better in person which was both a compliment and a disappointment, as I strive to provide the best photographs and close ups of TerranScapes products possible.

One visitor who runs Warmachine tournaments sat down with me to go over the detailed requirements/recommendations from Privateer Press regarding specific terrain to use at events. This gave me a good chance to see how I can adapt my current line to meet the tournament level requirements for Warmachine. For those of you who are interested, you can see the diagrams of the terrain here. I would like state here that any item you see on that list can be produced on request and visitors to the site are likely to see a few new products added to meet a couple of the pieces I don't currently carry (particularly the shallow water piece) over the next several months. Always remember that specific terrain pieces can be modified in size to meet specific needs at no extra charge usually.

Now that the Con is behind me, expect to see a flurry of activity as I work to fill orders, chip away at the list of custom projects and throw in a few new items along the way.

Mike

1/11/10 - New Custom Orders System

Looking back at last year, I have been amazed with the increase in sales and requests for customer work. While these changes are positive in many ways, it has become painfully clear that in order to achieve the level of professionalism I demand of myself, TerranScapes needs to improve in two key areas. First, I need to shorten the time frame between orders and shipping. I have made some big changes in the shop over the last few weeks to help with this and I had set a personal goal of reducing the wait time to 2 weeks for new orders by the beginning of February. It looks like it may take until the end of February to achieve this goal but I will not be satisfied I am serving my customers fully until this happens.

Second, I desperately need to create a more organized and open system for accepting and managing custom work requests. Around the middle of last year I was literally swamped with custom project requests and I really wasn't sure how to best handle it. I underestimated how long it would take to complete projects, and left too many potential customers waiting to hear when their project might get into the project queue. I apologize to everyone who has been waiting and hope you can understand that I was truly surprised and unprepared for the overwhelming amount of work that was being presented to me. So, in an attempt to improve this situation for 2010, I have created a simple and open format to manage custom work requests.

In the revised Custom Orders page, you will now see a work queue with 6 slots. These represent the current projects that have been 'accepted'. As projects are completed, they will be removed from the queue freeing up a slot for a new project. I believe this will keep the wait time for new projects more transparent for potential customers. I ask that visitors not request to be placed on a waiting list to be added to the queue, as that puts me back in the same position I was in at the end of last year with too many people waiting an unreasonable timeframe for me to recontact them. Instead, as a slot opens, the first person to contact me at that point will be added to the list. As a final step, I am currently recontacting every person that has made a custom work request over the past 6 months and asking them to review this page and process so that the slate can begin clean for the new year for everyone. It is possible that the queue may change a bit over the next week as the process settles and the top project is finished, so please revisit the page if you have interest in being added to the queue.

Finally, over the next few weeks TerranScapes will be making some public appearances for the first time. I will be attending the Conflict GT in Nanuet NY on January 16th and 17th and will have a small display table showing some wares. This is my first Warhammer GT and I am looking forward to playing in a large, all painted, high caliber tournament. I don't know how my Lizardmen will fare, but I am looking forward to it and I am proud to be a small sponsor of this event. Then, on February 5th I will be attending TempleCon in Rhode Island. TerranScapes will be selling out of a room in their Clockwork Bazaar on Friday and Saturday and on Sunday I plan on playing in their Warhammer Fantasy Tournament. Again I encourage you to stop in and say 'hi' if your planning on attending this event. It will be TerranScapes' first convention and I am excited to participate in it as a vendor and as a player. Hopefully I will see you some of you at either (both?) of these events.

Mike

12/8/09 - Its the crazy time of year.

With Christmas around the corner, I am receiving orders with requests for delivery by the holiday. Unfortunately however, unless I already have the item being ordered in stock, I will not be able to get new orders out before the end of December. I have a few projects that I have already promised by January and they are absorbing a considerable amount of my time. If you would like to order gifts for your favorite gamer, I would be honored to bring them holiday cheer but you may need to place a picture of the purchase in a card, and let them know that Santa will be making a second pass by the house after the holiday to deliver it. *smile*

One of the projects I am working on is a gladiator arena for the guys over at Avatars of War. They took notice of my last custom arena and wanted one for their use and play testing. I decided to make another go at turning this into a regular store item and have the new master and mold almost ready. This version, while very similar to the first arena, features some new details, crisper lines and better seams. I am very excited about its progress so far but I need to balance my enthusiasm with the reality that this project represents the largest, most complicated mold I have attempted to date and there may be some problems still lurking ahead. This is one of the projects that is on the fast track in the studio at the moment so expect to see it soon in video and pictures.

Until the end of this month I will burning the midnight oil trying to get more work done than the I have seen in the shop since I started TerranScapes. Your patience, support, and enthusiasm during the holidays is greatly appreciated.

Mike

11/3/09 - Making progress on catching up!

For the last several weeks I have been making an effort to close the gap between orders and shipping and I have been able to shrink that gap to something like 5 weeks or so. I am on pace to close the gap to a week or two within the end of January. This is great news as I have a large custom project on my lap at the moment that is going to take a lot of extra resources for the next several weeks and I feel confident I can juggle it and the regular orders successfully.

I have been surprised that my sales have held strong despite the economy here in the states and the fact that I have stopped advertising on podcasts and on Tabletop Gaming News. I think the strong euro and australian dollar overseas has helped to balance the reduction in domestic sales. It has given me pause however, as I would like to put the name of TerranScapes out into the community more, but I fear being overwhelmed. I am pleased to see however, that so many customers recognize that TerranScapes quality is worth the wait and have been very flexible in working with me to see their orders and projects through.

I'm still looking forward to TempleCon and recently built a portable gaming table to take with me to display products (and for me to game on!). I plan on revealing it in videos and pictures on the site soon but recently had a set back with one of the legs. Once I redesign it and 'play test' it more I would make sure to get it up on YouTube for public review and comments. It might be the kind of item I would be willing to make for local pickup but I want to see how the community reacts to it before I consider that further.

Mike

9/3/09 - Custom Work Requests

Recently I have been receiving a growing number of requests for custom work, and for the last month or so I have been adding people to a waiting list. Looking over that list, I see that I have work that could extend well into next year. While this a great sign that gamers are finding my work desirable, I don't feel comfortable adding more names to a contact list that may take 5+ months before I can recontact customers. This means that until next January, I will no longer be accepting additional custom work requests, nor adding new names to the wait list for custom work projects.

This decision has been further motivated by my plans on attending TempleCon in Rhode Island this coming February. I would very much like to attend the convention with several display pieces and these will need to be constructed on top of the normal work I have. The time between now and February also gives me the chance to reduce the wait time for ordinary store orders, from the current 7 week wait to a more reasonable 1-2 weeks.

So until February 5th, I'm turning up the steam in the shop and putting in extra hours. Keep an eye on the custom gallery to see the current projects as they are completed, and don't forget to check out the videos on Youtube for more information.

Mike

8/5/09 - Lessons are always being learned

The first half of the summer has been marked by a few projects that push my limits and some lessons to learn from them. Around a month ago I finished a large Mountain Display board for an overseas customer that incorporated a lot of new techniques and represented the pinnacle of quality for me to date. The two boards, featuring a 24" high mountain, two waterfalls, improved techniques for flocking and enhanced water effects, ended up better than I had hoped and would make a stunning display platform for an equally well finished army. Unfortunately, I discovered that the mountain made the size just a tad to large to ship overseas for less than $700. As ridiculous as that sounds, the time I spent researching overseas shipping (totaling several hours) will ultimately be valuable as I can plan accordingly for other similar projects in the future. The project is slated for a re-do with some modifications that will allow for more economical shipping and an even better finished look I think.

More recently I have been working on a gladiator styled arena for use with Avatar's of War miniatures. This piece represents the most ambitious project for mold making to date. The area will span over 24" across and be composed of 4 quarters that will be cast individually. Creating tight edges for finished casts and defect free surfaces are the biggest hurdles in a project of this scale. Unfortunately, my previous casting technique of painting plastic into the mold and back filling with foam seems to be insufficient for getting consistent high quality casts. This has been compounded by underestimating the design of the mold from the master sculpts which may be contributing to some of the problems. The costs associated with this type of 'learning' are high as silicone, urethane resin and foam are very expensive and the thought of scrapping the entire mold for a redo is a little disheartening to say the least. The saving grace is that the masters were pulled from the mold without any real damage so making another mold from them is possible. I am motivated however to conquer this project as it paves the way for more intricate, larger molds in the future.

As for delays in shipping, the wait has been held firm at about 8 weeks and I think I can see some decrease in that wait time come the fall. I have several custom projects underway that once finished will begin to lighten that end of the business and I can begin to better judge how many I can take on and still ship orders in a more timely fashion. Again, I am flattered and grateful that so many customers find TerranScapes work to be 'worth the wait'. Looking back I see that I had planned for price increases and still haven't implemented them in all areas of the store. Sometimes its a decision between working on the site, or customers orders. *smile* Look for sporadic changes in the prices of some items over the rest of the year as I chip away at updating some areas of the site.

Happy Gaming!

Mike

5/28/09 - Delays Continue

Recently I have noticed that I have had a surge in requests for custom projects from new customers and (a growing list of) returning customers. This is excellent news for the long term sustainability of TerranScapes and I am honored that so many gamers/collectors desire to make TerranScapes terrain an important part of their hobby.

I have also become aware that this increased workload is reaching the limits of what I can complete in a timely manner, and this is evident in recent delays in meeting deadlines (including the martian board set release) as well as delays in communication. It is very important to me that every order gets detailed and professional attention and towards that end I am making a few changes for now to help manage my current custom projects.

For the next couple of months I will no longer be adding any custom projects to my work queue. Be assured, if you currently have a project under development or have made a deposit for such, there will be no change to your projects status. Returning customers with projects that add to previous work are always a priority for me so regardless of current development or deposit status, your projects are already 'accepted'.

I would ask that while I 'catch up' on these orders to please accept my apologies in advance for any time delays in returning communication or meeting completion dates. Custom projects demand a lot of my attention since I am frequently incorporating new techniques and styles into each one. Getting them 'right' means giving them extra energy and I don't want to rush any of the work. (Current projects will have a follow up email sent soon, with details specific to those specific projects.)

5/7/09 - Martian themed modular board set nears release

This month sees the completion of a project long in the works. In about a week or so I will be releasing a new modular board set themed on a martian or desert setting and well suited to the 40k universe. This project, like so many for TerranScapes is the product of collaboration with the initial customer and will feature a brand new outcropping and river look. This project really highlights how many of the products added to the TerranScapes store are born from specific requests from customers. Contracting with TerranScapes for custom work is the best way for customers to get the specific terrain they are looking for while providing me with the imperative to develop new pieces. Since current order volume is so heavy, many new projects get put on the back burner in order to get already purchased items out of the shop. When the board set is released, it is my intention to add to it over time. Custom work requests for new boards to accompany the set are always welcome.

Speaking of heavy order volume, more and more it is looking like I will be producing store terrain items on a as need basis. I have been unable to 'restock' the shelves with product so most orders will remain in the 4-6 week window for shipping for the foreseeable future. The positive side of this is that customers are generally getting the newest work from me, and I find that over time, even ordinary pieces have improved quite a bit as I gravitate towards improving color schemes and vegetation placement. Recently I pulled a set of walls from the shelves that I had finished quite a while ago and discovered I needed to add to them more to meet my current expectations for work from myself.

4/5/09 - TerranScapes News and Price Adjustments

Recently I completed this years taxes for TerranScapes and it provided a detailed look at the past year for the expenses and revenues for TerranScapes. I was dismayed by how much material costs are impacting the business and as a result I am reluctantly increasing prices over most of the product line. Generally prices will be increasing 5-10% depending on the item and these changes will be implemented over the next week. It has always been my personal goal of making high quality terrain that the average gamer can afford, so this decision has been carefully weighed against the sustainability needs of the company. On the positive side, the quality of work leaving the shop has been growing continuously and I am confident that customers will find that the products they receive will still maintain a very good value for their price.

For views of the latest work, I suggest subscribing to the videos I am posting on YouTube. These videos showcase the latest releases and custom projects being completed and provide the best view of the quality and diversity of work being produced. I have been encouraged by the positive reception the videos have been getting and they will continue in the future. An important work ethic for me is to provide customers with the most detailed and accurate representation of the work being produced in the shop so that they can make an informed decision about where they can invest their hobby funds. It is what I look for when I am shopping online and I think it has been successful to date.

Lastly, TerranScapes has been experiencing a surge in sales this year and as a result shipping dates have been pushed back. I would like to thank all the great customers who understand that high quality work takes time and delays sometimes occur. Currently orders are backlogged about 4 weeks but that number can vary depend on the project request/size of order.