Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Tools of the game : X-Wing acrylic templates

More X-Wing goodness!

After seeing Rodent Mastermind acrylic templates on his blog:
http://www.afewmaneuvers.com/topic/1462-rodents-hobby-blog/

I just knew I had to get a set. His ideas never cease to amaze me (the inspiration for my B-Wing base come from his).

X-Wing acrylic templates, imperial green, after painting
The templates are sold by Cog'O'Two : http://www.cogotwo.com/war-gaming/gaming-ruler-set-orange-detail and only set me back 15.5 pounds with shipping to France.

Packaging was top notch in a nice padded envelope.
Each template is protected on the top with a layer of paper like material, while the bottom is protected by a layer of plastic film. I'm guessing the paper material is part of the industrial process used to etch the designs on top.

You can see the raw templates in Rodents blog.

I decided to paint the etched design to give them a little more contrast.

The idea is to leave the paper layer in place, paint the designs and then remove the paper which acts as a natural mask. It would have been long to paint them by brush, so I broke out the airbrush for the white coat.
Here you can see the finished templates on the left after removing the protective layers and the airbrushed templates on the right.
I was curious to see how they would match up with my store championship range ruler so I made a quick side by side comparison:

Color is almost exactly the same, a bit more yellow for Cog'O'Two, but probably invisible in action. Technology is different though, FFG etching technique is smoother somehow, leaving a pattern of very small dots, while Cog'O'Two leaves a pattern of very small lines a bit more visible.
It's minute though and I'm really happy with the templates.

Time to reload,
Ica



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