DSA Toy Theater.

[Deslock]

I'm just so disappointed now.

So I went online to find out if there is any online help with this program besides Youtube, and I laughingly stumbled upon these quotes from other people:

And Now, when I want to manipulate image files, I often slip up, and try to use gimp. I try. Yoda might say, after trying Gimp, With Gimp there is no do. There is only try, and do not. Generally I give up before accomplishing my goal, which is usually really really simple, something like “remove part of this image and replace it with white fill.” Gimp sucks. I have never opened Gimp and tried to use it without swearing. That I keep opening it is a testament to my ongoing descent into lunacy.

The UI is so infuriating; at the very start it opens windows on the Mac which obscure other applications. When I activate the other applications the GIMP windows stay on top. Why? Because that’s the most infuriating thing it could possibly do, that’s why.

When I highlight part of an image and click ctrl-C top copy that portion, I get – and I’m not making this up – everything EXCEPT the part I highlighted. You would think that would be a simple thing to correct, right? There’s even a “Select” menu with an “Invert” menu item in GIMP. You’d think if a COPY action was copying everything EXCEPT the thing I wanted, then inverting the selection and retrying the COPY action would do what I wanted. But no. Why? Because it’s the most infuriating thing possible.

There are people who say, “I’ve been using Gimp for 2 years. Sure, at first it’s a bit hard to learn, but after that it’s awesome.” That’s stupid. Absolutely idiotic. Software shouldn’t be this hard, sorry. Just because you invested your valuable time in compensating for a software designer’s madness, does not mean the software is good. It means you don’t value your own time as much as you should.

I’ve been using GIMP on and off for years and it’s never made sense. No matter how many times I have to reference their poorly written online docs as I am trying to do something simple. Something as simple as making a selection never works as one would expect. I don’t think it’s just that the author learned Photoshop first; something as intuitive as making a selection and manipulating it easily should be just that…intuitive and easy, and Photoshop gets that simple UX mechanism while Gimp seems to fail.

My wife is an illustrator. She uses Photoshop. I’m a Linux evangelist, and a few years ago I asked her if she’d give GIMP a go. She lasted about a minute before starting to say things like, “What the f**k is this? Seriously? If I copy a selection and then try to move it, the whole image moves? What have I selected? Who would ever use any of those horrible patterns, apart from a 10 year old? Who the F is this aimed at?”

I just opened Gimp and tried to do some very simple image editing – the type you could easily do in Microsoft Paint. I simply gave up after cursing spittle at my screen. The interface makes no sense. The way that the tools work makes no sense. I completely agree with the author of this post – just because some people have damaged their brains in order to understand this dreadful UI, doesn’t mean this is a decent program. I have no doubt that a brain damaged GIMP user can create wonderful images though.

But all hope is not lost. I've been told to check out paint.net for a more user friendly interface.

I WANT TO GET THIS DONE ALREADY !!!! ARRRGH ! MS paint is too simple, and Gimp is waaaay too complicated in its GUI.

[APAT]

I agree Des. Gimp is very complicated and frustrating to operate. I've yet to find a free/cheap editor that I like.

[Deslock]

Well, to get rid of all the crap those programs did to my registry, I had to re-format my hard drive, and everything is working the way it should.

That damn copy of Corel fragged up everything. My computer wouldn't recognize my flash drive, or my camera. I downloaded paint.net, and it's nowhere near as bugged up as Gimp was. It seems like it has a much easier interface, and works the way it's supposed to. Now all I have to do is play around with it for a few days. Hopefully this one will work out.

[Deslock]

I'm really liking this new program. It's a lot easier and intuitive to learn. It doesn't have some of the nice features that Gimp has, but I'm not tearing my hair out and inventing new swear words. :D

The line tools work perfectly, as well as many types of blur. I need to figure out how to make explosions and fire, but I should be able to figure that out quickly enough.

I went to a few websites for Gimp, and I found out that why Gimp had so many problems for me and many others, is that it was made for the Mac OS, and it has many problems with Windows, and that explained a lot to me about why it would glitch so badly sometimes when trying to work with the layers.

( Just look at my above post, those comments were made by professional Graphic Artists ).

Went over to a neighboring city to buy some dollhouse supplies to prop out the sets. My Holy God, those damn things are EXPENSIVE !!
Time to hit Amazon, lol !.

One small bathroom set was $50.00 ! Just for a little toilet, sink, and bathtub in action figure size.

On another note, the Castle is completed, I just need to finish up the groundwork for it. Base painting, grass powder, trees and whatnot.

The ships are done, but the pirate cove needs more detailing and painting, but I should be able to have that done in one day.

I still need to finish detailing the large ruined building playset. It only has the bare bones paint on it from the factory. I need to add torn posters, weathering, and Graffiti.

I have all the parts and props needed for the barracks. (minus the bathroom)
My Mother went into my Art Studio the other day to get online, and damn near fell over exclaiming: "What in the name of Hell are you going to do with all this stuff !!!!" Lol ! :D I have toys, vehicles, and sets everywhere ! Heh. I have well over 31 generic power team action figures, just for BF4 alone, not counting the hundreds of others I have.

Right now I have a complete Death Star, 2 Tie fighters, a Tie Bomber, Tie Interceptor, Darth's Tie Fighter, a Tie prototype, a Millennium Falcon, Slave One, Dewback, Sith Speeder, Hailfire Droid, a Nabooian Starfighter, and an X-Wing.

For our Battlefield I have 4 tanks, two Heli's, two ATV's, one motorcycle, three mobile attack vehicles, and one armored APC. The only thing I need for this is at least two of the jets.

I have three complete sailing ships, and the pirate cove.

And much, much more. So now you can see just why I've been so frustrated in having the only thing holding me back was a lack of a decent affordable graphics proggy.

But it does seem this new program should fit my needs perfectly.

I'm soo excited, I'm sooo excited, I'm just SOOOO excited !!!! :D :D :D

Maybe now, I can finally get all these skits up and done !!! It's been the only thing holding me back all this time. (minus the jets for Battlefield.)

God bless you all, God bless RaTix, and the DSA.

Des.

P.S., Thanks again Daz for all of your kind help and assistance. I would've not been able to do this without your help.

[Deslock]

I agree Des. Gimp is very complicated and frustrating to operate. I've yet to find a free/cheap editor that I like.

Dude, check out www.getpaint.net

I've been trying it out all day, and it's waaaay easier to use and understand.
And the tools do what they should do. Granted it doesn't have all the bells and whistles GIMP has; but for me at least it's worked just fine.

Give it a try and let me know what you think about it. I've been playing with it all night, and I really like how it works.

I've been in the Youtube tut's for it for hours, and it just has a much easier user friendly GUI than GIMP.

[Deslock]

I need to spray paint a few of the new backgrounds and sets, but I'll have to wait a few days for it to warm up. It's about 28 degrees here, and if I were to spray paint in the house, it would make the whole house smell, and Daz would kill me.

These are the figures I'm using, and this vid will give you the ideas of what I'm looking for in regards to explosions and stuff, but in picture format. :



I'm SOOOOO drooling over that A10 he has here; I want one so bad, and the fighter jets. I'm only missing only a few of these figure and vehicle sets.:



I got three more figure sets yesterday (Thank you Daz, Love ya !!). Now all I have to do is to focus all my attention and time to learning Paint. It really shouldn't be a problem, as it's 100 times easier to use than Gimp. :D

[Deslock]

One of the good things about the PTE series is the amazing level of detail, and as price goes, they are waaay more affordable than even G.I. Joe per se.

The problem with them is that they are severely limited in dealers. Here in the U.S., we only get them during the holiday season. So even though they are actually pretty cheap, all the scalpers buy them all up, and hyper inflate their prices on Ebay and Amazon. I refuse to pay $99.00 or even more, for a set that sells by the company for $36.00. And the jets are outrageous ! I don't mind someone wanting to make a profit....But DAMN !

In my searches for this project, I did run across this 'lil gem of a site:

http://www.fighting118th.com/forum/index.php

This site is wonderful for collectors in 3.75 (or 1/18th scale)

And they had a link for a dollhouse company that makes the props for 3.75 scale.

This scale should work perfectly for me, and the props are spot on. Check out Ol' Mr. Skywalker grabbing a snack :



I have the next four days off, and Daz has pretty much ordered me to spend the entire time learning my new program...Heh. Actually no heh. She was pretty serious.

I just got the PTE attack boat, seven new figs, and the DSA stadium is almost complete, I just have to make four rows of bench seating. I have to thank my Boss for that one. She knows about this project, and keeps her eye out for me when we get new cool stuff and lets me know about them, or saves them for me. :D

[dazwellia]

I'll be checking up on you, Des . You'd better be working on it! Don't make Dazilla come out. ;)

[Deslock]

No thank you. I'm been on the receiving end of Dazzilla, who makes Godzilla look like a Teletubbie:

[Deslock]

Paint.net is just so much easier to use. :D

Now if the damn weather would finally cooperate and just warm the "F" up so I can get these new backgrounds painted up !!!!
It's supposed to get up to 57 degrees here this Saturday. Last night I was laughing with Daz, that you can actually see your breath in our kitchen. *Brrrrr* I'm just sooooo tired of being F'n cold.

Daz found some great extra large foam boards for me to use as backdrops, but it's just been too damn cold to paint them. If it does warm up, I'm going to try and post some test pics over this weekend.

Apat, Boss, Rage; I'd really like you guys to try out paint.net, and give me your opinions on it. I was surprised to find out paint.net was to be the official replacement for MS paint.

[Deslock]

I've got most of the buildings weathered, and I just need to finish highlighting them. They came in just plain barely painted plastic.
And I recently got more grass powder to finish everything up, and now Daz has her very own scale bakery.

I couldn't find any cheap bathroom equipment, so I've been sculpting them. I never thought I'd use my art skills to make scale toilets...Heh.
But it came out even better than I expected. All I have to do now to finish up the barracks set is to make a scale shower stall and sink.

That's one of the good things about playing Warhammer 40k. It makes you get good at scenery building. I really wish I had an art supply store closer. To get supplies I need, it's an 80 mile round trip. Oh well. It's worth it.

Yesterday Yentis and myself went out toy hunting, looking for pieces I need to finish up the DSA spaceport/landingpad. I didn't find the exact pieces I was looking for, but it did give me some good ideas.
And Yentis recently got some killer airbrush equipment. I'm really looking forward to help teach him how to use them all.

Now if it would only warm up. As I told Daz, this is the absolute last year I'm going to be in a house without a heating system. I'm so beyond being cold all the time.

[Deslock]

I found this link on the 1:18 scale forum. This guys work is amazing.

This will really help out, as most of the Power Team elite series re-use the same stock heads. This guys even has helmet sculpts from both factions in Starhawk for goodness sake. Check his fantastic work out here:

http://starwarsgeek.ecrater.com/

Tonight Daz bought me the PTE Seal team with the beach landing boat, and another accessory set with the .50 cal sniper rifle. :D

[Yentis]

Yeah man your stuff is coming along well. Your buildings look amazing. I also look forward to seeing what you and Daz have in store for us man should be very funny.

Also really looking forward to start airbrushing, and if you need some stuff done once I have the skill; I will be more than willing to help ya knock it out.

[Deslock]

Spent most of the night doing the highlighting on the buildings..."Phew". Much more work than I expected.

I still have to go to the hardware store and buy some pins for the back door of my fast attack vehicle that I cut out, so that way the door can be opened or closed. As amazingly detailed that these vehicles are, I'm truly surprised that they overlooked having opening doors and hatches. And I have to buy some camo green spray paint for some of the accessories.

Daz recently bought me three awesome scale sets of military accessories; but for some absolutely insane reason, they molded them in powder blue plastic. Why would they do that ??!!!.

Yeah man, your stuff is coming along well. Your buildings look amazing.

Thank you for the compliment as you're the only DSA member as of yet that have seen them. I can't wait for everyone here to see them in action, as I've put so much work and money into these sets. :D

I went online to find anyone that makes scale posters, artwork, and such in 1/18 scale, and I haven't had much luck. Most of them are for car garage dioramas. That and 1/18th scale sandbags.

So I guess I'll have to find a way to make my own besides using scale dollhouse stuff. That stuff is priced insanely high..

I recently found a website that carries a lot of the scale props and weapons I need, and I foresee me sending a lot of money their way.

With this series Daz and myself are making, I'm so beyond sure it will be a hit.
And I'm very, very proud that the DSA website will be it's home, with many thanks to RaTix. :D

[BOSS]

Can you give us a teaser of the set? It sounds like things are shaping up well.