Review: GaleForce 9

A friend of mine has been lamenting the fact that we have no water features in our terrain collection. So being the kind and considerate soul that I ma I had a look for what I could do to rectify the situation. Ultimately, due to time constraints I knew I wouldn't be able to make it (despite some excellent tutorials out there), but would have to buy it. There is tons of resin casters out there so I looked there, but they seemed rather expensive. Then I found GaleForce 9. Prepainted terrain peices? Sounds good, although I did question how good is it painted?, or would I simply have to repaint it? Ultimately I gave them a shot, to see what it was like. Here is my result.

 Fully painted sounds great, but I wasn't sure of the quality. Picture looks nice though.

 

Nice info on the back. The dimensions seemed okay, and its nice to have the base sizes represented in the lower left corner. 

 Nice neat polystyrene packaging.

 This I was rather impressed with. Custom cut to fit the exact river sections. Very nice and snug. Awesome for storage.

 The back looked promising as well. Not too hard, a little flexible, and not too rough as to damage the table.

 This I considered a little odd. As I intended this for our gaming table, which is not verdant green, I could live with out this tiny sachet. However I seriously doubt that thing could coat much, let alone three river pieces.

 Not a hope for this to do that.

 Ultimately the final test as putting it together. And as I suspected, there is infinite ways to combine them, even with the other River expansions that they have released.

Overall, very happy with the purchase. I also got River bends, Ponds and River islands I believe. Not too expensive for a ready made river sections that are durable and come pre-painted. Considering that the River sections come pre-painted, very close to my existing table, so much the better.

If I was buying this for a nice green table, I'd admit to being a little irritated by the small sachet of green static grass, but then again, most gamers would have scores of the stuff, let alone if you did a table with it, so not too big an issue. I'm just glad they let you decide what extra flock to put on the sections. Makes it very customisable to anyones table.

So I say if like me, and you were hounded by a Lizardmen player, that wins more than he loses, about the lack of water features so he can use his special rules. This might be worth considering. Then again, you could always tell him to bugger off.

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

Review: Orangemonkie foldio

It certainly has been awhile since I have posted anything, but I tell you I have been painting....honestly!

I thought I might do something a little different and give a review of a product that I purchased recently and thought it would be cool to share. I'm not been paid for this or given anything for this review, I just thought it is a handy tool and perhaps others who are in the same boat as me might find this useful. Or not. Or whatever.

Orangemonkie: folio

I came across this product while going through some hobby blogs. It looked like something I could use so I bought it to give it a try. Basically it is a fold away photo studio, with lights and backdrops included. I thought this would suit my needs as I have two young boys running around, and they love to get into 'Daddy's' stuff. So something that can be set up easily and put away would be ideal.

Here is my old set up. White paper for the backdrop, lamp shining in. Very basic, so I was looking for an upgrade.

The box in all its glory.

It comes with 3 foam inserts for the backdrop. White, grey and black. They seem okay, though I do have a concern they may be a bit fragile. However, I have since discovered Hangar18 Miniatures do some awesome backdrops, so these will do for now.

The fold away studio itself.

Its made of a plastic sheet material, and also has magnets which you can see as the round circle dots there.

Very easy and quick to assemble. Seems okay for sturdiness, as in it won't collapse when taking pictures and such. Though I do notice it loose its structural integrity when I adjust that top flap to direct the light.

There are 2 versions to get. You can get them with 1 or 2 strips of daylight LED's. I thought I would try the 2 strips, to see what it was like.

The batteries simply 'stick' to the magnets in the side of the foldio.

All it up.

 

Here is a picture of my current Hammerers. Very crisp.

For comparison, here is a picture of the same unit, under the old conditions. You can definitely see that the second picture has more of a yellow tint on it, being the lamps globe. There is also a slight gradient on the backdrop, which frames the unit nicely. Something to keep in mind for the foldio. Might have to grab some backdrops after all.

So from the photo's, you can see that it pumps out a lot of light, and is easy to set up and take down. I do have concerns about the backdrops, though I may address that with some Hangar18 Miniatures backdrops. Perhaps though for the short term I may make a basic backdrop to put in there.

My other concern is that it is quite small, and that it may be restrictive in taking shots of a bigger model. But for the majority of the things I paint and take photo's of, it does the job nicely, and I don't have to worry about doing it during the day, which is an added plus when there are 2 curious boys around.

Overall, I would say its a 4 out of 5 stars for my purposes. I like its compactability, and the LED's are nice and bright. I figure I can tone the light down by not attaching one of the LED's. Cost was not too much, around $50 to $60, so certainly not too prohibitive to get a more professional finish. Overall not a bad product.

Again, here is the link to Orangemonkie. Hope this might be of use to some people, who are after an upgrade for their own 'photoemporiumlab'.

Thanks for looking.

Cheers!