DSA Toy Theater.

[dazwellia]

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

[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

[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]

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'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]

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.

[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]

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.

[Deslock]

The fellow DSA member here did copy those programs for me, and is going to give them off to me on Friday; so I can finally finish this up.
I'll try and post more about it tonite.

Well, sigh....

I did get both copies that a DSA member made for me. The Adobe program was missing all the .dll files making it unusable, and the Corel program corrupted my windows I.E. files with "appcrash", so now I have to just use Chrome to surf, or either hard reset my computer back to it's factory original settings, and lose everything I have if I don't back everything up.

On a good note, I did get just about everything I needed today to finish up the new sets for the pirate cove and sky scenes for the Heli's, jets, and the new castle. And I also scored a PS2 disc that has all of the 60+ retro Intellivision games on it for $5.00. :D

So I guess I either have to bother Boss, or be doomed to trying to really figure out Gimp.

Oh well, such is life.

Ours is not to wonder why; ours is just to bitch and cry. As we used to say in the Army.

On a good note I did get a lot of really good figures and sets now. All I have to do now is paint them up and properly weather them in true DSA style. I'm just tired of being Snuffy.



There are times, when you just can't win.

[dazwellia]

Des , it has been my pleasure to help out, especially now that I'm a jr member of the DSA myself. I have come to know these guys and see why you love them and being part of this site. You know I am always here for you, and I'll do anything I can to help.

[RageProphetXIII]

Well we have all been on the edge of our seats....but as impatient as we seem we'll keep standing by. We just want to make sure you have what is needed.

Also, have you set up a pay pal account?. We'd like to donate, as this kind of project takes time and money. I know it would help to get a little bit if a boost.

[Deslock]

Okay, that last post was a quickie, because I had to leave for work.

Des, I don't know why this is so expensive. The toy store here sell this similar stuff for cheap. Next time I stop by the shop I'll see what I can find.

Maybe they aren't the same quality. Let me look and see next time I'm out there.

The main product line I'm using is the "World Peacekeepers" line as they are more realistic, and appropriate for the Battlefield series. Just check Amazon and Ebay, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

And they're not really expensive, but rather expensive for me personally.

Some weeks I only get a check for about $80.00 a week, and $50.00 of that has to go to our house note, and the rest for food. Not a lot left over for toys, but I've really been doing the best I can, with what I can. That's not an excuse, but merely an explanation.

Getting the toys (besides the jets) really hasn't been a problem, it's been waiting on a good user friendly graphics program that's really holding me up.
I have a ton of toys. Literally. I've probably spent hundreds of dollars for this project bit by bit over time. Actually, I know I have. Within the last two days I've even bought more, since I've been given more holiday hours.

I've got in work at least 4 entire story lines for this, with all the necessary toys for them each. This project is my pride and joy, so I will not rush it or come out with crappy substandard versions of it. As an artist and a Chef, I am a perfectionist in what I do or make.

You all are DSA. You are the best of the F'n best. And you all deserve the best that I can make for you. On this I will not settle.

Like I said before; a fellow DSA member downloaded both Adobe and Corel for me to finish this, and I should have them by Friday. Just give me some time to learn them both. This series should make internet history, and I have anything to do with it, it will. :D

Like I said before, the hardest part has been finding the pieces I need in the proper scale. 1/18th scale has not been easy to find, but it has been a labor of love. I just got a entire castle in 1/18th scale for a literal steal.

The only thing I've been waiting on for all this entire time is a decent user friendly graphics proggy, and hopefully that should be fixed by this weekend.

This might've taken a year, but I promise all of you, it will be worth the wait.

And I have to thank Daz for all of her help and support, and most of all her monetary help with this also. :D

[Deslock]

The fellow DSA member here did copy those programs for me, and is going to give them off to me on Friday; so I can finally finish this up.
I'll try and post more about it tonite.

[RageProphetXIII]

Des, I don't know why this is so expensive. The toy store here sell this similar stuff for cheap. Next time I stop by the shop I'll see what I can find.

Maybe they aren't the same quality. Let me look and see next time I'm out there.

[Deslock]

Another setback has been that the "World peacekeeper" series that I'm mainly using, only comes out at Christmas time. I've been waiting over a year for them to get their damn website up so I could buy the figures and sets that the stores aren't carrying, and they still haven't finished it.

http://www.powerteamfigures.com/powerteam4/index.html.

And the Ebay and Amazon prices for their stuff is outright robbery.
I can fully understand wanting to make a profit; but charging twice or three times (or even more) for what these toys originally sell for is obscene.