The Lazy Forger — Blog

Progress with Overdrive

Mon, 09 Nov 2026 14:17:39 +0000

PSA: Black Friday Sales have started on MMF!

Time goes by, deadlines pass, and everything seems to be frozen in their progress. That's definitely not the case, but I figured a few posts would be really needed to keep everyone up to date on that.

Overdrive 0.8, or "The Actual Book"

The gap between 0.7 and 0.8 of Overdrive is massive. Not just in terms of time frame (it's been already 4 months? really?), but also in terms of content, organization, and everything inbetween.

What was a sold draft for a game is now the first version of the final book, complete with all the chapters and sections that will eventually become the complete product. This, however, means that there are a LOT more gaps than there were before: parts that need extra content, grey areas that have been finally highlighted and need fixing... enough stuff that made me keep this version private, to avoid wasting my testers' precious time.

Testing with a friend - new hands appearing in my shots!

It's... a lot to talk about, and for now I just wanted to give a general overview of what is happening.

Consoles and Graphics

The graphic aspect of the game is critical to nail the right kind of setting, to complement the ship designs and to convey the gameplay choices properly. I've been working with Sime Peracchi (DAGA) on that, and with the help of Cedric (Bishok), Brennan (NullVector), Artur (Indietabletop), and many others, trying to get nail the decoration and graphic language.

It's a very difficult task, because the setting has existed for half a decade at this point, and there are expectations in many directions. Not just that: the game should help sell the models, and while it's not the core principle in the design itself, it should be reflected in the visual choices of it. Again, easier said than done.

The Consoles, in particular, are getting some attention.

Phisical components should be never mandatory, but they do add to the experience.

Having modular systems means that the consoles too should be able to accomodate modular slots, and... that's been another challenge to work on.

Watch this video on Patreon

It's always a trade-off: the game should be accessible by someone with barely a black and white printer (the 2d kind!), but there should be design choices that open up options for deluxe components for whoever wants to try that.

Art

The illustration style have been the main dilemma for me at this point - and there are several other posts about that on this blog. I'm still in the verge on whether to go with a Moebius-like take, or lean instead on a more realistic and painterly style. Huge upsides and downsides for both, and not much to say about that here.

Gameplay

One thing that seems to work pretty well at this point (and it's a big one!) is the gameplay. There's ton of content to add, but it's content on top of a working game engine, which is... very reassuring.

Thanks to Pawl for the test!

With the help of many designers (the latest testing the game being Pawl, author of Omen Tide and AoDG) the flow of the rounds is getting tighter, and each game brings enough storytelling to the table.

Of course, a very crucial aspect of the game experience will be the campaign, that not only will help with the immersion, but will also add extra elements during the battles. For now, and for the tests, I'm adding pre-set side missions and lists, but that part will be entirely based on player choices.

It's all very vague for now, and I realize that half of the reason for this post is to share a few nice photos. Still... worth staying tuned.

Also - bonus pic:

Jack

Thrust the Process

Sat, 07 Nov 2026 21:31:14 +0000

Sometimes you just roam the internet and see some designs that just click in, and you MUST make them into miniatures. Not sure if that happens to everyone, but it surely happens to me quite often.

And sometimes you get a pretty neat and flawless flow, from the references to "understanding what is what" all the way to the finished piece.

The image that caught my eye was this. A simple thruster, and I think I kind of understand the way the flaps work, with the actuators pushing the flaps in a concentric movement tightening the nozzle. Or something like that.

The mechanism translated pretty well in digital form too.

And that's about it. Together with another "nozzle + pipes + tanks" sort of generic variant, it builds up the permutations of spaceship styles you will be able to get with Full Spectrum Overdrive.

The printed version might be a bit small for what's supposed to do, so I might try enlarging it to show better at the end of models - either way, one of those happy accidents that can happen in creative projects.

Resculpting the Tech - for free

Thu, 05 Nov 2026 11:42:42 +0000

Last January's campaign was wild. The results went beyound my expectations, not just because it made quite a bit, but because I really wasn't expecting that much of a reaction for a solo mode for Full Spectrum Dominance.

The plan was simple: make some fun space crabs (thanks to AL Voss and their imagination), and a brokend down version of the Tech, my best-selling faction and the first one to enter the FSU (Full Spectrum Universe. I've decided it's a thing!)

Remaking

Making broken-down tech models implied starting with a non-broken-down version of them, and the old one was old, underdetailed, and the meshes were a bit all over the place.

Lately I've been doing my hard surface in Plasticity, and it felt pretty logic to use that to resculpt the robots. So I did, and the results were pretty good.

Stepping Up

At that point, the logical step was simple: redoing all the Tech robots in higher details. How would I distribute them? It's still a ton of work, but selling them as a new package felt wrong.

Luckly, the campaign went really well, and I felt justified to simply doing the new models, and upgrading whoever got the Tech till that point onwars. It's... probably not the smartest move business-wise, but I feel that the community that is supporting FSD has been so consistent throughout the campaigns that it's only fair. And hopefully people will appreciate all the extra work poured into something "just to make it better".

Lastly, having one of my 6 factions so obviouisly behind in terms of poly count, detail and general readability was not great for my image. Now I can say that all six factions are something I'm proud to showcase.

Zenos and Socrates

Resculpting the base meshes is one thing, another is posing all the variations, support them, test them. That took a while, and I'm still working through the rest of the forces. But, to this day, both Zenos and Socrates have been updated in the army bundle.

The six Zenos have been replaced with the six new poses, roughly matching 1:1 the previous ones, but with a much better sculpt for the body
The Socrates feature all the weapons and body options from before, plus six pre-posed versions, presupported and ready for play.

New Socrates Cards

Another change, coming in the 1.8 of FSD, is that the three old profiles for the Socrates have been replaced with SIX new loadouts. I still did not want to go the Corsair way, where each weapon implied an extra card, but wanted to offer more options, using ideally all of the potential weapons in the pack.

The new Socrates have the Unique keyword, which means that you won't be able to field two of the same kind, and that only adds to the feeling of each being a unique thinking being, with its own preferences and peculiarities.

So yeah, here's that. A considerable amount of free stuff for a considerable amount of people. Yay!

Jack

A Moving Moment

Thu, 15 Oct 2026 10:08:28 +0000

So, because of (fairly good) life reason, we are in the process of moving to London. We're going to stay here for a while, and so far the only piece of furniture available is this table. I've set up a temporary studio while waiting for the rest of ...everything.

I'm quite overwhelmed, exausted dealing with contractors and movers that would rather be elsewhere, and the bureaucracy of a whole new country.

On the bright side - new people to meet! I already met a considerable amount of people in the industry, both in London and at SPRU Con a couple of weeks ago, ... and who knows, there might even be a club in London where they play FSD!

Anyone around these parts?

New Zenos

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 13:51:32 +0000

So, a big deal from the latest SWARM campaign was my pledge to re-sculpt a considerable part of the Tech models, using my more recent techniques and overall quality standards.

I am not gonna lie, it is A LOT. And it's ALL FREE for everyone who purchased the Tech till this point, and clearly for everyone buying that range in the future.

It's also a great way to elevate the quality of the first faction I sculpted, a faction that existed BEFORE FSD, and that was showing the signs of its age.

So yeah, the zenos.

They are seven year old, and it shows. I've made up my color scheme on them, and it has been a lot of fun, but they really, REALLY needed a boost in detail and quality.

The new sculpt is done in Plasticity, trying to be close enough to the original design, but with a stronger design language and more balanced details.

Since most of the work was already done for the Detached designs, this part was easy, and I came out with six new poses, frankly better than the old ones.

A lot more, however, is still in the works.

Stay tuned, and ready your printers!

Jack

Fortifying the Wastelands

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 14:44:20 +0000

As part of the SWARM campaign of last January, I had a "Wasteland Fort" to sculpt, and to release as a freebie for everyone who supported. It was due for this summer, but life got a bit overly complicated (all good news, but distracting ones, and too many at once!), and things got dragged all the way through September.

This was not just another piece of terrain: for the first time since 2021 I was putting some work in the Shanty Town style of buildings. Those are still incredibly popular, and it's been a long time since I wanted to do more, and better ones. I always got sidetracked by *points at everything shiny*, but this was an important one I really wanted to do. And I did!

The Three Sections

This piece is meant as a fort, but rather than having a big armoured building (which is kind of boring!) or yet-another-range-of-modular-walls (which might come in the future, but was ways out of the scope of the stretchgoal, I went for something closer to a manor-house. a fortified building, surrounded by chunk in a functional - and protective - way.

What started as the back-side of the central building became the central building, and the setup left a handy open area in the center.

There is space for a few bases, which is a pretty nice narrative hook for any game (even though functionally, at least according to the rules of Full Spectrum Dominance, units outside of the walls can still claim the cover as they're considered as "basically inside"), and you can always organize the walls into a larger permiter, maybe combining them with the rest of the Wasteland range.

A Stepping Stone. Or Cinder Block.

As hinted above, this piece is an important step in the direction of a new shanty range. with the Wastelands well covered, a more urban-yet-ramshackle range of terrain is something I've wanted to do for a long time.

So... yay. Stay tuned.

Jack

Medieval Distractions

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 08:02:40 +0000

Back Then

The year is 2022. A young(ish) Lazy Forger is working on the Union range of models for Full Spectrum Dominance, and his squirrel-brain starts mumbling.

People in the local club are playing warmaster, but the models... kind of suck? They're all in long strips and repeating over and over, with thick bases that need to be masked with putty, and the results are ...underwhelming.

Lazy sits at the computer, and starts reworking the freshly made mannequines for the Union. The goal is an opponent force for the Western Kingdom, but a few notches up. Like, quite a few: nothing wrong with the underdetailed 6mm infantry done back then, but clearly 10mm (which is nearly 12mm to the top of the head) is a better scale for armies with no tanks, and no big buildings of sort.

And the bondi, and bersekers, are born.

The playbook is the usual: tight supports under the feet, with the rest of the outer supports bundled in a way that makes them easier to remove, while you can paint your models on the strip.

And... it's that simple. No solid bases, no rigid strips of 8 figures standing stiff for the class photo... with the extra twist of having bundles of 2-3 figures joined to form lines of shields. That reads right, and sends the right message.

And these two jumping guys, because of course IU had to do that.

Now

Fast forward to... I guess, last Friday?

After chatting with a friend who's into Warmaster Historicals, I got the mojo back, and realized that back then (the chapter above!) I also spent some good time with geometry nodes in Blender to make a convincing chainmail.

This kept me up one night (not even joking), so Friday morning decided to set aside all the other pressing deadlines (some of them past due!) and try out doing some armoured troops to go with the Bondi and the Bersekers.

The test print went flawless, and more and more piled up.

My discipline with files and organization has improved quite a bit in the last 4 years, so I spent some good time reorganizing the old files as well - but within the day, I had the Hirdmen done!

Grouped and individually based, to give the best dynamism to each base.

Compared to the Bondi, there's three main differences: I didn't put any spear (that's not entirely realistic, but it's true that richer and fancier soldiers tended to prefer more expensive weapons, like swords), shields are larger (made of better wood, so light enough to make them. Also helps players reading what-is-what from a distance), and no kneeling poses (that's for peasants!)

I know, none of this makes sense, but as long as there's some internal consistency, it's fine.

And here they are, small strips, printed with flexible resin to prevent those small axes to snap away!

Chainmail was a tricky one to nail, and in 2022 I remember doing several iterations and test paintjobs. Now, it should really shine (pun intended) with a simple coat of dark brown wash over silver!

I ended up with 25 poses. Many are pretty close between them, but still: not bad for a weekend project!

That's all for today. Lots of pictures!

Jack

Drawing my own Cards

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 09:34:29 +0000

I've written before about finding a convincing art style, and how that's ...well, not easy.

The neat thing of using a ink-and-flat-colors (more specifically a modern take on the ligne claire style) is that mixing renders with hand-drawn components works well, and integrates seamlessly.

However, figuring out a hand-drawn style that fits well with the rest of the art isn't easy. I have my own style - or styles, but I need to zero in into something more suited for the rest of the art, for a better integration.

(Trying to) Learn from a Master

...And that's when I found Josan Gonzales, aka DeathBurger. As soon as I saw it I was like "yep, I'd like to be able to do that".

Now, obviously I won't be able to do that. Not even close.

But, for what I need, I can focus on a FRACTION of that, some specific approaches to the side content of his incredible illustrations, which would work even better for me, and they are (hopefully) within my reach.

As an example, starting with this excellent piece:

Art from @deathburger ...it is SO cool.

There's a lot, but I would need to do something with the scope of ... just one of the background characters, meant to fit in a poker-size card, for which I can take more time, and of course a less exceptional result.

With this in mind - there is a LOT to learn about line economy, dynamics, composition, color management, and detail language from every image of Josan.

My first Take

So I started drawing, trying to learn from his pieces, and clearly I am just scratching the surface. I filled a few pages of a notebook, and then tried a first small composition.

It's... not great. But I would rather bring it to a finished state, and if necessary re-do it later on.

Inking is always fun, even when done quickly on a Moleskine small journal. Again, plenty of rushed choices, but getting to a first completed point is a good start.

The palette is very temporary - but cool.

First Conclusions

The result worked ...ok. I don't think I'd use this in the Overdrive cards, but I like the feel of the piece. Things i would change are:

-> Lines should be slightly thinner, and more solid. The .3 liner turned out to be too chubby for the size of theart. A good solution is probably to draw these on an A4 sheet instead, keeping the same line density, but resulting in sharper and clearer lines.
-> Reduce the detail density: I always have a horror vacui and try to fill any flat area... which works ok for the spaceships, but not so much for 2d illustrations. Flat spaces aren't bad, especially when printed on a 3 inches wide card.
-> Integrating the 3D elements also would work well: some of hte industrial components could use some better perspective and cleaner lines. I can always mess them a bit later on.

That said - a fun side-project that piles up on the ever-growing project that is Overdrive!

Not all Ships have a face

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 13:41:09 +0000

So, this has been a shape in my WIPs folder for quite some time, and it is part of my effort to make Overdrive a game different from other fleet wargames: less about warhips, more about various ships that find themselves fighting for resources.

In this context, a factory/refinery/shipyard vessel that, basically does stuff around is a great pick. And, as you might have noticed, it has engine muzzles on both sides.

Also - more containers!

Not so Easy

There are a few problems with this approach:

Players want to have fun. And that means that each player wants to be able to do a bit of everything. Considering a battle would likely just field one of these, maybe followed by a smaller support ship, I can't have super-specialized ships, because they would kill the fun to players. Similarly, if the alternative is a massive warship, the choice would be obvious for everyone: pick the one with the guns.
The ship must look the part. Let's say that the factory-ship does everything: does it look like it does? If I make a mobile refinery made entirely of pipes, it won't feel like it can pack a punch, or move around, or be useful at all. So, I need to add the kind of readability in the model to make it fit its capabilities
Size matters. Silly jokes aside, printers have a limited volume, and I don't want people to waste resin. At the same time, I am aware that even in 2mm scale (1:850 roughly) the limit of how big a ship can be is pretty strong. So, as much as I would like to print a whole shipyard... it would simply not fit the scale of the game.

A corollary of the points above is probably the biggest issue when planning a new game with "unique" components: how different should they be, in order to feel distinct entities without having a wide range of super specific models that don't match? Or, in other words, how do I prevent myself from sculpting 40 different ships just to cover all the general archetypes in a setting that is clearly much, much wider than a simple battle between two military fleets?

To be clear, I don't have an answer to this.

Design Compromises

There's still a lot to do on this one, and hopefully I'll post updates soon with more readable shapes and functionalities.

My goal is to add one hard weapon attachment or two, and shape the various parts to make it look distinct enough from a more fully fledged ship like the Opulence, while maintaining the same design language.

I'm shamelessly reusing parts of the other ships. Yep.

It's important that the language is similar to the rest of the ships. It's meant to be a "Size 3 Ship" (more on that in future posts), so it's gonna be quite big.

Stay tuned!

Boarding Corvette

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 16:15:29 +0000

First of all - I'm aware I've been neglecting the blog. It's not like I haven't been sculpting, or working on other cool stuff, but there's quite a lot going on in real life and that is distracting. Good things mostly, but still, a lot.

Boarding Matters

Speaking of the new little ship, I was testing new ships and mechanics in Overdrive, the game I'm working on at the moment (or should I say "one of the games"), and the dynamics of boarding were indeed a bit underused. I wanted something more defining, and more importantly I wanted players who don't have a very aggressive Capital Ship to still be able to annoy opponents with breaches and troops trying to take control of their ships.

Besides, Brennan is busy with a house move, and I really wanted to draw a bit.

Concepts

That meant, I had to sit down and draw myself. I'm not a pro artist (even though people did pay me for concept art many tmes in the past, so I guess I technically am?), and my sketches are not really pretty... but, in terms of exploring the design space, they do the part.

There were quite some options out there, and honestly some of them might come back handy in the future. I settled with an external pod, with its own hooks, which needed some functional design too!

With this settled, and the basic functioning of the magnet sockets and such, I started again with a new shape, a bit more in line with the other corvettes of the game. Which I realize now might not have been showcased here on the blog before. Dang.

Sculpting

Sculpting right after the sketches is a great way to get things right: all the volumes are still clear in mind, and you "only" need to make it in 3D. Easy. :D

It's never just a single iteration. Volumes are blocked out, some stuff added, and people give feedback based on that. This one was too straight, read as if it was moving in the opposite direction of what it was meant to be, so I turned it, and changed some weights.

Fast forward a good day of work (or so), and we're having a better design, with a slanted front, and whe added capacitor on the back really takes away the ambiguity on the direction of movement.

I didn't document the development of the pod itself, but the pencil sketches above were by far the most important step for that.

With that said, a first finished version was ready!

Still some stuff wasn't working right: the pod was too close to the body, both for readability and for simple clipping issues, so I added some spacing in between. Thanks to the advice of a few fellow sculptors, I added a hidraulic spacing between the two parts, and ended up with the actual final piece.

More renders, of course.

The other corvettes, mentioned above, are my current golden standard for the language of this miniature range. And for good reason.

Printed and In Hand

As always, the last step of my process involves cleaning up the 3D mesh, making sure there's no resin sacks, decimating it for ease of handling, and supporting.

The supporting of the Corvette was easy, but the pod was tricky: not only it has some thin spiky parts, but It needs to showcase both the top and the bottom when in use. For that reason, I went for a vertical supporting, which implies a lot of side-beams that made this step definitely painful.

The print came out pretty easily, and no support changes were needed. And here we are.

There might be still some tiny supports, but all in all I call this a success.

That's it for today. Things are evolving fast, and still there's SO MUCH to do before any release. Stay tuned, hold your (space) horses, and keep an eye on the development! Your support matters a lot!

Jack

Autonomous Orbital Gantry

Wed, 20 May 2026 17:21:11 +0000

We've seen Ships, we've seen Platforms, but what Overdrive needs is something to fill the table. You can't just put a hill in space [citation needed], so I figured some human-made structures would do.

Even better, when terrain doubles down as resource rich salvage, things are even better.

Containers

I love shipping containers. I have sculpted a whole set of them, with a gantry, for Full Spectrum Dominance, five years ago... and still now, they're one of the most versatile and readable elements to add in any terrain piece.

A recent rework of the containers of the Opulence made me like the potential of them for my fleet even more... and even more I felt like they needed a central place on the table.

Doodling

I could never overstate how valuable is doodling. Admittedly, in the recent years I've become more and more reliant on artists (amazing ones, too) for concepts and ideas to work from. It's only natural, the more I squeezed out of my own imagination the more I felt like exchanging ideas was the best way to go. Often I even did concept art commissions for others, while commissioning art myself.

Now I find myself struggling to find the time (and the space!) to properly draw, but I still keep a pen and some paper next to my pc - you never know.

In the few minutes that preceded a call, I drafted these. It might now seem like much, but it's already quite enough to get a few interesting concepts out of.

Floating Gantries

The idea I wanted to explore was a structure meant to tend to containers, which is however not connected to them at all - and to anything else.

For printability, of course, the arms rotating on the two outer rings would be in contact with the surface of the shipping containers, but the actual three-rings-structure is floating around.

A bit blurry, but it gives the idea! A big thank you to Benoit for suggesting the outer muzzles!

The rest followed fairly naturally. Build the structure, make sure there's no gaps between the containers, add enough supports (the arms) to make sure everything is fixed in place.

I intentionally did not leave a hole for the beam every single one will end up with a different angle, as it should be for floating cargo.

And... that's about it. It's the first version only, and I might do more in the future. If anything, a second one with the gantry moved towards one of the two ends would complement this well.

More to Come (?)

And what about some longer ones? or a very wide one, where all the containers are in a single slab, with a much wider ring? And...

Well, there's plenty of ideas, and really very little stopping me from doing a bunch of them. For now I tried working on the antenna, one of the two front pieces in the doodle, and... well, after ending up with a space-banana, and adding enough details around, I got this.

Which is pretty cool - and very WIP.

Stay tuned!
Jack

Weapon Platforms - Iterations

Sun, 17 May 2026 09:56:48 +0000

Adding to yesterday's post about the design of the second platform for Overdrive, I now have some prints in-hand to showcase, and the steps between the initial concept and the final design are clearer.

And, hopefully, useful to someone.

The initial design had a blocky slabby look, which has a LOT of space in several styles (would be quite perfect for a Helldivers aesthetics!), but adding rounded-yet-sharp sandwitch panels, and some elements closer to the Opulence voids, went in the right direction.

The first printed test, however, didn't feel quite right. The density of elements suggested a smaller scale, made it look bigger than it was. So, while keeping the same size for every component (you wouldn't want to have the same muzzle being smaller on a ship than on another!) I rebalanced most of the parts.

The final platform uses more negative spaces and obviously more of the details set that are part of the rest of the fleet... and the result blends well with the rest of the collection.

A pretty short post, but I hope it will be appreciated. :)

Jack

Weapon Platform - Concept and Design

Sat, 16 May 2026 16:27:23 +0000

While still relatively new, the Overdrive project has been around for a year and three months at this point. Things changed several times, and I had help from many friends/colleagues in various stages.

The initial concepts of Rattapoom K (Lewis K) were instrumental to understand what worked and what didn't for the look and the language, and it was there that I hit the first creative wall, trying to nail a language I haven't even identified yet.

Further steps with Brennan Massicotte helped in that a lot, but so many good ideas were still in Rattappoom's designs that I wanted to use.

This vertical platform was certainly one. It had a very "evil scifi building" vibe, which worked well while remaining fairly neutral in terms of functions, but the initial prints in hand didn't read the way I wanted.

Now, granted, I could have kept the design for a future faction, with a stronger tie with the blocky shapes of the Enlisted, but ...I really wanted a platform, and I though that I could apply the new shapes developed for the Opulence into this. And so I did.

The sculpting got in part streamed live on our Discord (I do that sometimes, keep an eye there!), and unfortunately I didn't take the usual amount of screenshots this time.

Not only that, once completed, I printed one copy (as I often do) to assess the readability in hand - and I decided to chance a whole lot of stuff. Wider body, thinner beams between the turrets, all very reasonable stuff that however I did not document.

The final piece, cleaned and decimated, reads a lot smaller (as it should: considering the scale, there is room for probably a crew of 2!) and more in line with the fleet.

I'm also investing some thoughts into rationalizing my post-sculpting workflow: I now group all different kinds of components in different collections, so that assigning materials (no matter which kind) becomes really fast.

This allowed me to render both the standard matte shots (which are excellent to undersand what is what) and the Ligne Claire renders that I have been working on and developing for illustrations.

What I'm loving of this is that, having a layered output as a result, I get to edit and clean up the render (for instance, that ugly shadow on the bottom right of the main ship) in a drawing program, and the result is quite solid.

Some hand-drawn shapes, border strokes at 3 PX, and the composition is already better.

Note to self: start preparing TONS of asteroids and wrecks to combined!

Jack

Opulence Class

Mon, 11 May 2026 12:53:42 +0000

It's been a long, long time since I started working on the Opulence Class freighter, from the concept of Brennan Massicotte. I spoke about it here and here, and since the last update the overall look didn't change that much.

New Containers

Considering how the game is becoming more and more about freighters and cargo, I commissioned tugodoomer a whole bunch of containers and crates, to set a tone for a vital element of the game.

Among the many, many, designs, i picked a simple yet effective one for the Opulence containers.

More to come, as explained below.

Magnets and Glue

While sculpting was happening, the game of Overdrive was also taking its final shape. We're not there yet, there is nothing written in stone, but it's more and more clear that modular components to fit your ships are important, and at the same time that ships don't die too quickly, and that means that customizing and painting is something worth a bit of extra time.

The big divide is between purely ornamental components, which set the look of each unique ship (and, in the case of the light turrets, tie together the look of a particular fleet), and components with relevance in-game. For those, I really wanted to have magnetized options: not being able to use your newly acquired ion beam because you already glued the previous component on the ship is an absolute feel-bad.

So - Containers, for example, are gonna have variants that players can pick and glue on. An auxiliary generator, however, can always be swapped in for barracks and the parts fit in the modular slots with a very satisfactory click!

What Next?

I still need to churn out a few cosmetic components to make the kit as widely customizable as possible, but they will come up as I continue developing the rest of the ships. Right now the design is solid, parts have been tested multiple times, and ...it's been quite an effort.

I've got a mobile refinery to finish, now.

As always, make sure to check out the Facebook Group for the game (where I talk about slots for the Alpha Testing, and more), and join the Full Spectrum Discord, where I keep sharing development updates about this!

Happy gaming,
Jack

1.7 is a Big Deal

Tue, 05 May 2026 15:12:14 +0000

You can find the core rulebook, including cards for all six factions and some custom printable bases, on my MyMiniFactory page!

I usually dont' post about "minor" upgrades to my games (with "my games" being FSD, since the others are either not published or not in development), but this recent release of FSD really had a huge amount of small changes, and some not-so-small ones.

It's the Same Game

Just to make things clear: none of the core rules of the game changed. In fact, almost no rule properly changed, but over the last 6 months in particular there's been a huge influx of new players to the community, and with them tons of questions, recurring misunderstandings and so forth.

All great opportunities to clarify stuff, or to write down something that wasn't spelled out loud before. So - for someone this might seem like the rules changed, but in reality they just crystallized what was before kind-of-implied.

New Format

It's no secret that I've got plans to publish the game in a hardback format with Modiphius. It's been in the works for two years, but several priorities made it shift forward quite a bit. That's a good thing: the book is getting more improvements, more content, and new images too!

Moreover, the book has been re-organized for a digest format (13.97 cm x 21.59 cm , or 5.5 x 8.5 inches), which makes it easier to handle, and increases the pages number.

This is... not optimal for printing it at home (it's simply more pages), but working on multiple formats wile the living rulebook is still actively worked on was absolutely unsustainable.

So: for now this is the new size (which is the same of Swarm Mode), and we'll see what happens after the Modiphius release!

Changelog

Finally, here's the full changelog. Note that many single-lines in there took an enormous amount of effort. Entire paragraphs have been rewritten multiple times.

1.6->1.7

--> NEW COVER!!!

--> Changed the book format to a digest-sized book. This is due to publishing requirements, and also because it's cute.

- Reworded the "movement" paragraph to clarify that units can move through friendly units.

- Tiled Terrain reworded, added several paragraph to cover relevant cases.

- added better stories for the scenarios (when needed).

- Added "Reactions" to the "Core Concepts" introductory chapter. Making clear that you need to spend one AD to react.

- Clarified Controlling and Contesting objectives, behaving like a prepared action (in the Controlling and Contesting paragraph of the Scenarios chapter).

- Tighter formal structure for scenarios, more coherent between them. Scenarios with 12x8 DU tables don't need the size of the table specified. Also removed the "Objective:" wording from the paragraphs.

- Scenario Goliath is now 80 points per side

- Scenario Clash of Titans has now clearer army composition, and modifiers (like the other symmetric scenarios) and a new scenario objective

- Behemoths chapter moved BEFORE the Terrain chapter

- Changed the infamous Area of Control paragraph. Now units have more freedom of movement when in area of control.

- Reorganized "The Game Round" chapter. Paragraphs are now in a (hopefully) more readable order

- Reworded the "Unpin" paragraph, added "Interacting with Objectives" and "Performing special actions" paragraphs in the "The Game Round" chapter.

- Clarified in "Triggering Reactions" that reactions cost one AD on top of any cost on the card

- Added "Tokens" paragraph in the introduction

- Indirect Fire now properly increasing target defense.

- Reworded Behemoth Introduction, added "A Different Gameplay" paragraph.

- Behemoth Split "Core, Systems and Attachments" into three paragraphs.

- Minor rewords on all the paragraphs of the Behemoths chapter.

- Land Battleship example image fixed to align with the "no reaction for attachments" rule clarification.

- Clarified Area X weapon attacks have cover effects from the center of the blast.

- Added the "Occupable buildings" terrain chapter, splitting the "Strongpoints"

- Added a Preparing your Table section for terrain, composed of three new paragraphs and a Nota Bene.

- Corsairs lore extended

- Expanded the Reclaimed lore in the "eccentric cores" paragraph.

- Conglomerate lore extended

- Renamed "Tiled Terrain" to "Tiled Battlefields"

- Extended "Co-op decision making" and "player conflict" paragraphs.

- Added "Table Size" in the scenarios chapter.

- Reworded the "Valuable Technology" and the "Towers Deploy" paragraph in the Until the Last Bit scenario to use the correct term "extract".

- Specified the speed of the Scientist in the evacuation scenario

- Added a "Destroy the Fortress" condition in the Sleeping Fortress scenario

- Mainframe defense changed from 2D10 to D10(2) in the Into Enemy Territory scenario

- Removed mentions to Damage Profile (it's only Damage Chart)

- Clarified "Movement across Terrain", in particular the behaviour of Broken terrain.

- "Terrain Areas" now better handles what happens with affected units.

- Fixed a few mentions to Def instead of Save

- Added the "Lost when Firing" paragraph in the Behemoths section.

- Cleaned up references to "unspent ADs" since they are simply called "Ready"

- Clarified that triggering reactions are mandatory.

- Added a "Nota Bene: Line of Sight and Cover" in the terrain chapter.

- Changed "Initiative": The player who wins the roll decides who has the initiative. The player who has the initiative acts first and deploys first.

- Reworded "Area X" rule, with both cover and LoS calculated from the origin of the explosion.

- Extended the Arc of Fire paragraph.

- Added a faction rule to the Detached Railguns

- Updated manual images with cards with the new 1.7 cards (see below)

- CARDS CHANGES:

- Changed FONT and S1-S4 looks on all the cards. Nothing that requires a reprint.

- (RECLAIMED) Cyclops/Cyclopes instead of Cyclop/Cyclops. I liked the previos term but it was too close to not sound like a typo.

- (HIVE) Hive collective added the + symbols on collective cards 3,4,5, when there were two AD slots present. the action requires BOTH.

- (TECH) Add TRACKED to Solon and Gorgias

- Removed weapons with range 0-X (unified all with range X if there is no minimum range)

- (RECLAIMED) Removed movement from Reclaimed warden, since unnecessary.

- (RECLAIMED) Clarified that IMPs can save a hit only once per hit.

- (RECLAIMED) Clarified that IFRIT shoot only once per action.

- (CORSAIRS) Clarified Netcaster Rocket 3 targets rule (and added the x3 keyword). Individual rocket now deals 4D8 AP1

- (CORSAIRS) Corsairs Walrus sidestep clarified

- (RECLAIMED) Centaurs (both Gunslinger and Flamer) damage profile weakened a bit, and weapon cost increased.

- (UNION) Improvised Barrier reworded: two segments barrier, and counts as traversable and Obscuring.

- (UNION) Mobile Fortress now with D8(5) Save, and a slightly weaker damage profile.

- renamed load-unload as load or unload for transport units

- (ENLISTED) Gunner walker gun is now 3d6 1-2 DU AP1

- (ENLISTED) Self-Propelled Artillery now require 2 dice to shoot, and cannot react -> ability Inert.

- (CORSAIRS) Narwhal Scout Damage now affecting S1

So... Have a good read. :3
Jack

Building a Style

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 10:26:02 +0000

So, I've been working with 3D models for a while, and rendering has never been my priority. That doesn't mean that I don't know stuff: I've written shaders (in code, not with silly blocks), and even put up a pixel art render engine at a point. It's just that rendering my models in fancy ways has never been something I've really, REALLY been into.

Use Cases

Rendering has always been a necessity for my 3D files store. I like to show my models in-hand, printed and cleaned up as a proof that "they do just fine" once in flesh... but I also want to share WIP renders, sometimes marking parts in different colors, to better portray the way different parts are meant to be looked at.

Other times, It's more about conveying a message: assembly instructions, size comparisons... there's plenty of uses for renders.

Illustrations

What I really never tried to do were illustrations. I don't pretend to be a serious visual artist, but I've dabbled with it by drawing stuff by hand in the past.

...and I'm a decent photographer. Not just for miniatures, but for travel photography as well.

So... it was time to up my game!

Realistic Renders

I've been using Fluent Materializer for my renders for a while. For what I do, it's definitely an overkill - but it works, brings a nice subsurface effect with the right amount of procedural textures.
Of course, as a plugin it has a lot more potential, and I did try to use it in the past, for the Bastion cards, the never-released battlemats (it's killing me a bit, FYI!) and some other projects.

I've shared some experiences here. The "2005 videogame loading screen effect" was good, but hardly something I would invest countless hours on to create a whole range of illustrations in the style.

And the amount of work for this to get somewhere was ...immense. Materials, lights, volumentric, fixes to make the volumetric work as expected... and at the end it still was in dire need for photoshop touch ups.

Even a second version of the image - better composition and all - didn't go much further.

The final piece? Pretty cool. But it didn't click.

Even trying with the recently finished Salvager model, the results were a bit underwhelming.

Ligne Claire

From the sketches above, it's pretty clear that within my limitations I tend to be a black-line person. Colors are cool, but I am always scared of blending them, doing paintovers and such.

The Moebius style of Ligne Clairs, moreover, is a staple for the scifi imaginary, to the point that it nearly single-handedly defined entire subgenres of it.

Modern artists, such as Calder Moore, Marcel Deneuve, and Darius BakaArts, have embraced the style and brought it into a digital domain, mostly playing around with shaders and effects in various programs (Arnold seems to be a popular one) and applying their art taste and style to that.

Now, Blender does everything. So, I figured, I could find a decent workflow to make it work for me.

A thousand blocks later...

Here's my takeaways

Visual Coding Sucks

I might be biased, but using blocks to code is nice when you have to combine two layers or so. As soon as things get more complicated, it becomes a huge tangle, and the advantages of text-based coding are so so evident.

"why don't you just write code, then" -> I wish Blended didn't have the immensely bloated boilerplate around scripts. I wish there was a simple way to just write the necessary lines, with everything else accounted for.

The Compositor is Powerful

Nothing new here - but I'm appreciating spending less time in the shader editors (just get the basic stuff done) and more combining stuff afterwards. Rather than adding chipping to the color material, I'd rather create a second material, apply it to the scene, and then combine it - with total control on what goes where

Outlines are Hard

The "Freestyle" tool of blender is pretty powerful but extremely constrained. It run who-knows-what algorithms, and finds whatever it thinks are the right outlines. Sure, there's parameters to fiddle with, but not much can be done.

Using Sobel filters (they're fairly simple convolutions) I got futher lines to combine, mask, resize, but the general control of what makes an outline is not great. And it's all pixel-based, outside of the Freestyle ones.

The Results

Things didn't work perfectly at the first try, as expected.

Materials are easy. A gentle gradient on objects (using Z as a control) does a lot.

As said above, finding the right control over the lines, deciding what goes where - not so easy. Adding shadows, combining them in the compositor and drawing contours - also tricky.

After a LOT of trying - I think I got my balance. The neat thing is that I get to combine hand-drawn little elements in a way that integrates seamlessly... and that's something that has a big value when the visuals of a whole game still need to be shaped out!

The little astronaut on cleaning duty really helps to set the sense of scale here!

That's all for today. Quite a ride.

Jack

A Salvager for Overdrive

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 14:01:33 +0000

The design work is moving ahead for the spaceships for Overdrive. There is much to say about the development of the lore (Sure, it's the same star system of Full Spectrum Dominance, but the setting got a lot quirkier!), the game mechanics, and the graphic design.

But, for now, let's just look at a new ship.

Law of Salvage

The design - and the role - of this new vessel really hints to the changes the game is going through: it's a smaller Capital Ship compared to the Opulence Class Freighter, and has virtually no heavy weaponry on board.

On the front, a set of mechanical arms are there for ...things. I can see them repairing a patch in the hull of an Interstellar Ship (the kind of vehicle that is at least one order of magnitude larger than the ships in Overdrive, and that would hopefully be the backdrop the game is set in), or chopping an asteroid in smaller chunks for processing.

Behind, protected by the space debris and dust, a small industrial quarter where workers can finely process scrap cutouts, repair ships, or fit extra cargo for transport.

Clearly this is not a warship. Neither was the Opulence, of course, but this one really shows how the game will focus more and more on objectives, resources and terrain manipulation. We're in space, afterall: if we can't move a rock around the table here, where?

Design

The concept for the ship is from Brennan, which keeps helping me developing the game while building his own cool range of spaceships.

It started as a literal doodle

...followed by a quick volume mock-up from me, and a more detailed paintover from Brennan.

This kind of design is precious. I really benefit from having a guideline, even though, after many iterations I end up with a design that is fundamentally different in many ways.

And the initial concept was so novel that it really made all the difference.

Principles of Modularity

Another aspect of the game that really affected the workflow designing the ship is modularity.

This is actually an old breakdown. The front is now split between bridge and arms!

To be clear: I have NO intention to make ships that can swap modules between them - but each individual ship class should have enough options to make it into ...a ship class, rather than one individual model. Even if each player in the group decides to use the same ship (which is odd) in ther fleet, they should all look different enough.

So:

First - Cosmetic Choices

Ships are designed to be multi-part, mostly for ease of printing and, if people want to, painting. The added advantage of that is that I can create 2-3 variations for a part, and 2-3 variations for another, and you already get 4-9 unique combinations for your ships. Depending on the complexity of the vessel design, this can be easily expanded, to the point that every ship gains its own identity, even if by minor differences in their looks.

If you look at the two ships in the cover photo, they have variants of the right and left part of the hull (it's already 2x2 combinations), and both the light turrets and the engine muzzles will get variants later on!

Then - In-Game Effects

As a hard rule, parts of the ship that reflect a System during the game and that have multiple options, need to have corresponding printable piece to reflect that.

Since you can change the loadout of the ships between battles, every optional system (at least the ones that affect the look of the ship) is magnetized. This means that while the look of your ship will be unique because of your choices of unique tiny bits that you picked when assembling it, you will also be able to select the role of the systems by placing magnetized parts in slots.

This means a lot, and I mean a LOT, of mecanical design choices while sculpting. There needs to be space for the magnets (my usual 2x2 cylinders), the parts need tolerance but also must fit in tightly... it's a fun challenge, and so far it worked well.

Assembly

Lastly, I decided I needed an assembly guide for this kind of ships. It's fairly easy to combine, but that's coming from someone who poured dozens (hundreds?) of hours in designing the various parts.

Here we go.

As pointed out by others - this has a very ...Swedish vibe. I think it's clear enough, but i HAD to lean a bit more on that, even as a simple jest.

Bonus points to whoever got till this point, and can recognize the eight language on the image!

I leave you all with this, for now, while working on FSD and several other side-things. Everthing is progressing. Slowly but surely.

Jack

Bastion gets a Physical Board

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 12:00:21 +0000

Developing and testing a game is an endless task. Quite literally, if you don't know when to draw a line, and when to set hard boundaries that move the process to the next phase.

It's a very abstract and arbitrary decision to make, of course, but I was realizing more and more that Bastion was getting a solid gameplay loop, while being built around constraints that weren't challenged enough.

Constraints

The main tenets that I wanted to keep were:

No ruler, no measuring stick, and (the trickiest) no physical line of sight. This is nothing entirely new, but I want it to work and integrate with a cool looking map, with 3D terrain on.
A whole table that people can print in resin. I would provide FDM options, and even 2D board options, but the high-quality resin board would be something unprecedented. Of course, this means that the whole gaming area cannot be really big: as much as I can thin out the printed parts, I wanted to keep the board weight within the 1 KG of resin mark.
Cards only. This constraint already fell, because it proved to be more trouble than benefit. Oh well.
Very Fast game loop: being campaign-oriented, I needed the "level" to last 10-15 minutes, to allow for a set of 5 to be played in a session (completing a "mission"), after which the characters upgrade and the campaign can proceed.

This is... clearly challenging.

One of the latest iterations on Tabletop Simulator. Models aren't mine, everything else is!

Ergonomics

It looks like this month's word within my circle of game designer friends is "ergonomics".
In truth, it should be every months'! Very few other things can make a game truly shine as the simple fact of having non-awkward actions that player can handle without pieces hitting each other, forgetting steps, or any kind of bothersome movement that simply takes a bit of fun out of the game. Even players that dismiss this most likely simply don't realize that those little things build up.

Do the models have enough spaces? Should I make the walls taller, or shorter? Can players clearly understand which area each model is in?

Note that ergonomics go far beyond these issues: I ended up removing the card-driven combat system for some unexpected trouble: revealing cards for each attack was not too bad, but reshuffling the deck frequently was really bothersome. There are so many different ways things can hit players the wrong way... and as much as blind playtesting can help in figuring out what is fine and what is bad, being able to guess yourself is really helpful.

Time to test

Once again, it's time to run some games and see what works and what doesnt. Only this time I'll be playing on a phisical board. With walls, and parts that can topple and fall. Let's stress the components before the sunken costs kick in!

Will keep you all updated, this is a very exciting side-project!

Jack

SALUTE is a no-go. :(

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 15:22:53 +0000

I woke up with the backpack ready and fully charged in social energy only to find out that WIZZ AIR cancelled my flight. They called me at 3 AM (surprisingly I missed the call), and sent me an SMS. That's it.

It's up to me to find a replacement flight, and --- the only available flights either arrived by mid-convention, or costed ways too much to hope for a full refund.

I was really hoping to meet many colleagues, and the part community that got there. Looks like I'll have to wait a year, ...or to organize for another event.

So - now I'm unpacking my bag, putting away the crappy toothbrush, and getting back to work.

We'll see. Right now I'm just bummed.
Jack

Ready for SALUTE!

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 16:42:43 +0000

With an empty backpack, a handful of printed samples to throw at the raving crowd, and some freshly printed business cards, I'll be soon getting a flight to London, in time to get at the entrance of the EXCEL building, where SALUTE 53 will be opening its doors on Saturday morning.

I have printed a few plates of random small objects to showcase my ranges and ...well, as an icebreaker? Either way, they're all cured and degassed, and they're now well packed at the bottom of my empty backpack.

There's gonna be a lot of "pick one" moments.

I will be roaming around, with no fixed place, and a long, long list of people I want to meet and chat with. And a budget for absolutely random models to buy, of course.

It's not even that accurate - i COULD be in one of the four corner areas!

See you there! Come and say hi, if you see a guy with a FSD t-shirt walking around. Worst case, it's gonna be someone else with good taste in wargames. :3

Jack

Overdrive - Loading Screen

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 21:17:49 +0000

...if it was a 2004 videogame.

Seriously, I've been playing around with materials and renders. I've got plenty to learn, and hopefully Brennan Massicotte will help me on that... meanwhile, I've done a second iteration of this shot.

Yeah, this was a bit flat.

There might be a third... and a fourth, who knows.

A small Enclosure

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 15:20:40 +0000

I completed yesterday this little project, which I started a few years ago and was hanging there for quite some time.

I have no plan for this, other than finishing it and having it in my cabinet, but it has been an excellent testing ground for a whole bunch of techniques I wanted to experiment with.

If and when the local gaming group decides we should start with some fun modelling project, I now have a whole new range of options to use.

Now, back to small scale sculpting!
Jack

Lineguard Conor

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:07:30 +0000

Another 28mm sculpted and painted up! I still have no exact idea of what this all is gonna be, but for now it's a great learning experience and it's bringing plenty of satisfaction.

The Plan

Frankly, I am really not sure. I am NOT a 28mm sculptor, and I really don't want to compete with the bulimic culture of Patreons out there: I will never release enough for a monthly subscription, nor I would ever try to do that.

For now, it's just a learning experience. I'm figuring out what works and what doesn't, printing and painting my own sculpts, with the goal of producing models that I personally DO ENJOY PAINTING. That's already a lot, and no doubt the side effect of improving in organic sculptures will turn out useful in the long run.

Weapon Design

Something I knew I needed were equipment designs and, most importantly, weapons.

I already had an excellent concept sheet from patso_catso that I used to make components for Jasbinder, the Cleaner model I made last June. Using them as reference, I contacted Curcan another artist available on Twitter and on Bluesky, and soon received some very interesting concepts from them as well.

Collaborating with new artists always brings in some new ideas and language elements in the projects, which I find exhilarating, end extremely motivating. Working from patso's initial concepts, and integrating the designs of these weapons, I was now ready to work on some more models.

Posing and Equip

Jumping on Plasticity, I started working on the gun.

the various concepts really translated well in models. The shorter MMG was selected for this batch of models, but I have now a few more designs in the works for future figures.

Using the Cleaner as reference, the new gun got finished really fast. I then realized I sculpted it a bit too large, but the final size really proved to be very convincing.

And with variations too!

Sculpting the body, the equip and the cloths proved to be challenging. Some parts got reused as-is from the previous model, other required more work.

Fast forward a few iterations and headaches, the model was done.

Printed

The print came out surprisingly crisp. Supports did their job and ...I am now realizing how easier it is to support 28mm models compared to my usual 6-8mm!

In hindsight, the jacket ended up a bit too soft in details, and didn't match the industrial feel of the bottom half of the model well. The gun turned out great in hand, and the face... well, it feels human enough.

Painted

Painting the model was also very educative. I did it right away, and I still had fresh memory of what I struggled with during the sculpting process.

The face worked ok, some of the features were too delicate but eyes and nose worked just right. I'd call the trousers a full success as well, while the torso felt a bit undecided in terms of folds and details, confirming the feeling I had while sculpting.

What's Next?

Now, aside from the fact that I have a TON of stuff to do, for the recently concluded SWARM campaign (which is still running in late pledges!) and several other projects, things are going to progress REALLY SLOWLY with this range.

But I still managed to draw some sketch myself, and who knows what will happen next!

Cheers,
Jack

Back in the Studio, one week to go!

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 18:16:15 +0000

Before we begin: the SWARM campaign is nearing its end. Check it out here, and join the fight against the Hive and the Detached!

After a couple of months of remote work from Asia, I'm back in the studio where all my little friends were eagerly waiting for some more photos to be taken!

That's right: I sculpted, painted, photographed and formatted everything for the SWARM mode campaign before taking off to China, prepared the marketing and community launch from Taiwan, and spent a sleepless night while sharing the launch news from a room in Hong Kong.

It's been a blast, and the result of the campaign so far has been quite a bit higher than expected, but I am VERY happy to be back, with so many new plans for 2026!

Photoshoot

Before all of that, there's a campaign to close, and I needed more photos.

I switched to the canyon table that had been used for the photos back in 2022, and tried to set up a new "scene", using mostly new terrain but filling in with the rest of my ranges.

I'm keeping the closing banner image to myself for another few days, but I took some hand-held shots just to enrich my library (and the manual) while at it.

That's it for today - Keep in mind that the campaign will run till next sunday (the 22nd!) and that's the best chance to help unlock more stretchgoals!

After the closing day, the tiers will remain available to purchase, but won't contribute to unlock anything else (for my own mental sanity) anymore.

Cheers

Jack

Nine Days of the New Campaign

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 15:35:07 +0000

This is a transcript of the SWARM Campaign update. You can join the campaign at any moment on MMF. There is more and more stuff to unlock!
https://www.myminifactory.com/frontier/full-spectrum-dominance-swarm-mode-5042

I haven't written any update so far for the campaign, mostly because after the incredible start I wanted to let the campaign to flow ahead under its own momentum.

Very interestly, the first 48 hours have been the best of any campaign so far: 800 people joined, and many got to make good use of the early bird special. It's a success, for me: it means that the reach of our newsletters and other channels really worked the way it was supposed to.

By then, we unlocked all the planned stretchgoals, and I had to add more - and if there will be more still, I will have to re-do the graphics of the milestones map.

The Plateau

Every campaign has the infamous mid-campaign plateau. Sales slow down after the initial boom, and it's very much expected.

Due to the massive initial reach, the plateau this time has been particularly flat. Which, again, it's the sign that the messages and newsletter really worked well! It's also thet sign that it's time to start sharing around! I have resumed my Instagram Posts, and people have already started to print and paint some of the Swarms!

Sharing photos, spreading the word of FSD is a great way to help the campaign, and ...well, to unlock more stretchgoals!

Next Steps

Ok, so, What's next?

I've spread the stretchgoals a bit more wisely than last campaign, and I hope to have them all done in time. I'm already working with Al Voss for the new Hive Units, and several of the other pieces are in some intermediate stage of sculpting.

I am also resuming the development of Full Spectrum Overdrive, which will see the light hopefully between Q4 2026 and early 2027. It's a lot of work, which is made possible by the support of all of you.

So - lots of cool projects for 2026, and hopefully a whole bunch of new unlocked milestones for the SWARM campaign!

Happy printing,

Jack

The new campaign is LIVE!

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 15:08:16 +0000

After so many teaser posts, here we are!

https://www.myminifactory.com/frontier/full-spectrum-dominance-swarm-mode-5042

The campaign turned out a tad bigger than initially planned, but I can't complain.

The Campaign

I think that one image can say it all pretty well.

What's more - there's TONS of stretchgoals to unlock!

What's really big is that at the 400 and 500 supporters marks the Hive will become a fully playable faction, and the Tech (yes, the Tech, the one released in 2020) will get a lot of resculpts, available to everyone who purchased it! <3

Discounts

On top of the early bird 10$ discount, I've put out a SWARM10 code to get a further 10% off any purchase in the campaign - including the 4-in-1 mega bundle option, for people who REALLY cannot control their impulse-buy moments! :3

So - spread the word, share the link with your friends, and let's all start playing the new SOLO MODE for Full Spectrum Dominance!

https://www.myminifactory.com/frontier/full-spectrum-dominance-swarm-mode-5042

A Holiday Gift

Thu, 25 Dec 2025 14:16:45 +0000

About a month ago the sign-up page for the upcoming Swarm campaign, starting on January 12th for FSD went live, and now we reached over 2000 subs - it's an achievement!

The kind of goal that deserves a free file.

The Broken Fan

Nothing too complicated, but it is a nice showcase of various parts of what's to come with the new terrain range: the Wastelands Bundle.

This is for me a good way to revisit many of the visual elements of the old Shanty sets - which might get new expansions after the campaign, using many of the new details and the most recent workflows!

You can this pretty big piece of terrain right now at the campaign link: https://www.myminifactory.com/frontier/full-spectrum-dominance-swarm-mode-5042

Spread the word, share the link, and --- who knows what's gonna happen on January 12th!

Happy gaming,
Jack

A Big Fan

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 11:04:44 +0000

People have been suggesting / requesting this for a long time, and the upcoming SWARM campaign was the perfect excuse to make one - a wind turbine.

Before that - the SWARM campaign is in pre-launch. I would GREATLY appreciate if you all came and subscribed. I'm giving away a free file, so... sounds like a good deal for everyone!

https://www.myminifactory.com/frontier/full-spectrum-dominance-swarm-mode-5042

About Wind Turbines

They're big. Big big. Like 100-150 meters tall, more if you count the blades. The kind of big that even in scale would get half a meter above the table, or more.

So I went for the smallest size possible, which is still by far the tallest piece I've sculpted for the store.

Comparing in scale with a Detached Socrates, it's... well, big.

A Feat of Engineering

While the model itself was relatively easy to sculpt in Plasticity, it required a bit of modularity to be printed within recent time frames. Blades are individual parts, the front peg is separated from the dynamo/engine, and the tower is a three-parts as well. Lots of moving parts, and two magnetized pegs to allow rotation of the blades and of the top head. Yay, engineering!

Printing

Being relatively low in details (although I added a very much non-realistic elevator on the back to make it more interesting visually), the print went smoothly. All the parts are supported and easy to clean up.

Assembling required a bit of fixes, which are now applied to the file, and ...it works. The blades rotate (not by blowing air, unfortunately!) and the head can be directed in all directions.

And, surprisingly, the base is wide enough to prevent toppling. And it has space underneath for some lead or extra weight, just in case!

The Wastelands

This is gonna be one of the centerpieces for the Wasteland, together with the Broken Peak Ship, and surrounded by a range of rocky parts and scatter, still in the works.

As a last reminder - consider signing up for the upcoming SWARM campaign premarketing, get a free file, and help pushing the campaign on top of the charts - or at least near there!

That's all for today!
Jack

I broke ANOTHER Ship.

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 18:17:16 +0000

Remember the half-sunk boat? Well, it was a first test piece that led to this one. The initial design of the hull is over a year old, but I finally have a solid range to fit this in: the upcoming Swarm Mode campaign (which is now finally open for pre-subscription)!

Designed as a centerpiece, although a bit acquarium-decoration-looking, the broken ship is the first piece in which I'm using the new rock techniques extensively.

I've been experiment with those for a while, and even though the final result is a bit too homogeneous, I think they'd do great as base rocks to build a wasteland set around.

Printing new large pieces always carries a bit of sense of wonder, and the final print really worked well in that sense.

It's now on the painting bench, part of the final rush to get fancy photos for the campaign, together with a whole range of terrain to follow.

The Swarm campaign is going to be live from January 12th, but the presubscription is already up and running - getting you free files, and a chance to grab the early bird starters when the time comes!

https://www.myminifactory.com/frontier/full-spectrum-dominance-swarm-mode-5042

Happy printing,
Jack

The Opulence Class Freighter

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 12:07:33 +0000

After much testing, several iterations and countless WIP stages of development, the first Capital Ship for Full Spectrum Overdrive is ready to leave the docks!

The Final Form

Learning the shape language of a new kind of spaceships took me a long long time. The concept art of Brennan Massicotte was a great start, and he helped me through the process with overpaints and hints to get to a final shape that made sense.

The detail language too was very challenging. It's easy to do random greeble, or very generic panel lines, but finding a density of elements that still make sense when looked at is really, really hard. Of course I can't claim that the details will make sense for everyone, but them making sense to me is a pretty good starting point, I'd say.

The engines, in particulare, were challenging, because they HAD to convey a whole lot of meaning.

What are the two cylinders, above and below? Aside from the print issue on the top (it was an autosupported test print), they can easily be read as fuel cells, symmetrical to the engine layout.

The big muzzles, too, are easy to read and remind of modern time spacecrafts, while surrounded by shapes that remind of the smaller ships.

All in all, it's a good case study for the design of the ship as a whole, I think.

Multi-part

As I mentioned in previous posts, the game of Overdrive works with Capital Ship consoles, each describing a ship systems, each with unique actions requiring a cost in crew and energy.

I wanted to be able to portray that in the final models, to the individual system. This means that most of the components of the ship that have optional choices of systems need to have a modular slot where the different systems can be 3D printed and glued on. Players build their ships, and play with them, with each looking unique in their loadouts.

This, of course, was a whole lot of extra technical challenges, but I think i got the modular parts right at this point. It's quite some, and I will definitely need a small instruction manual on how to assemble the pieces. it's fairly easy, but still.

...and here we are. A finished piece, highly customizable, and fairly good looking.

Trust me, I went through a lot of different experiments and variations before landing on this one.

...and I mean a lot.

Jack

The Shambling Zeno

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 16:25:40 +0000

The Detached army is close to completion - and their most recognizable large model - the Zeno - is ready! The three poses all showcase signs of heavy damages and decay. It has been a real challenge to find three poses that both convey the new "feral" look and the wounded/limping stance.

Public Service Announcement

The campaign for the Swarm Mode is happening in January - stay tuned and keep an eye on my socials, I will put out the pre-subscribe before the end of the month.

The pre-sub link will - of course - include some free sample files!

The OG

Zenos was one of those concepts I truly loved back then, and that I even had a painting tutorial about

They were both cute and menacing, and in scale worked just fine.

Now, five years later, I'm trying to do a bit more than "just fine", so I ended up re-sculpting them entirely.

I've written more in this previous post, but the main point now for me is to sculpt the models for the Detached - a horde of abandoned Tech warriors that now roam aimlessly, or sort of.

Posing

After a lot of Blender work, I got the three poses I wanted. To add some story to the surfaces people from the Discord community suggested to add under-armor patterns, and I went with a honeycomb layer that gets exposed after enemy shells crack the ceramic plating.

And here we are, with three characterful and relatively unique models to act as the Detached bosses.

The Jumping pose (note that the eye aperture is wider - getting ready to leap!):

The limping one:

And the one that might really need a hand.

Enough for this post - expect more to come! Got quite a bit more to do, and painting will follow!

Jack

The Detached are joining the Swarm!

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 17:22:19 +0000

After the very positive responses to the Hive faction, the second faction for Swarm Mode is getting its shape!

Wait - what is Swarm Mode?

Imagine Full Spectrum Dominance, where in order to play solo/Co-Op there is a new device in place, the Collective cards, that describe the opponent's behaviour. You Roll the ADs for the opponent as well, and pick whatever dice to place on the cards, always trying to go for the lesser evil for you.

No "play-pretend", the game remains competitive and you play to win: the enemy actions are chosen by you among different options, but if you mismanage their ADs you will end up swarmed by enemies, and most likely out of action.

The Detached

Remember the Tech?

After the war with the Tech, most of the hostile forces retreated, and some were left to patrol the planets. Some pockets of robots, however, got completely cut off from the Hive Intelligence link, and their Sentient Cores started to deteriorate.

Within the decades that follow, the bands of now Detached robots started to become a hazard on its own, moving in... swarms (see what I did here?) across the various planets, attacking everyone and everything.

In terms of models, the Detached only use a subset of what the Tech had:

As a core set of Units, therefore, I had to sculpt one Socrates, three Zenos, and some poses for Light and Heavy Battle Robots, and Light and Heavy Spider Drones.
All in all, a good half of the Tech models were to be used, and I did not want to use the old sculpts, which at this point are outdated to say the least.

New Sculpts

So - I needed new base meshes to apply the damage and weathering needed to represent the Detached. It felt like a good excuse to revamp the old models. My priority is to get the models for the Detached done, but an obvious stretchgoal for the campaign will be to upgrade the models with enough poses for the Tech players too!

That's right - everyone who purchased the Tech will receive the updated robots!

Starting with my beloved Zeno (to this day possibly my favourite sculpt ever!), I started working my magic with Plasticity to recreate the shapes of the old mesh.

Next step is to actually... improve the model. No more random blocks intersecting each other to represent mechanisms - and neat separations before objects of different materials such as the lenses and the front hull.

And what was before a cute but quite underdetailed model, is now on-par with my recent releases:

...in colors too.

Spiders!

The spider droids were next. Again, a clear improvement in details for these sub-centimeter size robots.

They are still not posed, but the render shows what they can offer.

The Socrates Rig

Now, this used to be a multi-part kit with several options, and for now I only sculpted the one pose version I will need for the Detached (after damages and weathering).

Like the models above, the details have been upped on all sides.

And here we are: a new happy Tech family, ready to be wrecked into Detached wanderers!

The Upcoming Campaign

After planning together with the MMF team, we've decided to set the approximate date for the campaign in early January. I will put a pre-subscription page out soon enough, and i'm quite excited - and scared - for this new little project: it's smaller than the Third Wave, and it's a game expansion rather than new playable factions so.... let's see how it will go!

Keep an eye on this space - I will post a lot more about the campaign to come!

Jack

Heroic Corsairs

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 14:25:58 +0000

The last figures for last year's https://www.myminifactory.com/frontier/full-spectrum-dominance-the-third-wave-3062 are finally completed and uploaded!

First things First

I'd like for you all to admire the Sea of Green.

Well, sure there's still one orange mark - but the spaceship debris will wait until the design of the Freighter is complete - and that comes after another couple of things in the priority queue.

Other than that - Everything else is done, and uploaded (unless I forgot to do so, like in the case of the Whaleship Supplies - my bad!). Anyone who pledged the campaign, or who pledges it from now own, or who buys the individual armies and terrain bundles will receive all the corresponding extra goodies, which pretty much doubled the amount of stuff of the campaign!

What's "Heroic"?

It's just a fancy way to have your Corsairs' Rigs look different on the table. Some will be equipped with unique captains or such, and you want to recognize who's who.

All in all: one new body variant for the Beluga and the Porpoise, and a new variant of the legs, in multiple poses!

In that context, I didn't want to add any extra weapon or element that would make then feel different, while still adding enough visual clues to recognize the design over the vanilla version.

Heroic Beluga

Here's the super-detailed concept I drew with my mouse:

The main idea was "some antenna and packing bags", because who doesn't like those. I ended up adding a few details here and there, while deciding against a larger central eye, since I like the smooth front part of the chassis.

Porpoise

Here I had some obvious development directions, both on the bull bars and on the top hatch, that could now have some different element on.

The design here went pretty much in line with that, toghether with a few different elements on the roof surface and some lights next to the camera that are begging for an OSL.

(ALMOST) The End

And with these, the figures for the Third Wave campaign are all sculpted and uploaded! Only one reward left, which will come ...well, whenever the spaceship is ready, and I can take of that whole weight off my chest!

Again a reminder that the tiers can still be purchade, and will continue to be available as long as MMF allows.

Foreshadowing

Speaking of campaigns, there miiiight be another small campaign for the SOLO mode of FSD (Swarm Mode!) in the months that follow, very likely in January: Two solo factions (enemies), terrain and rules, and quite lighter on your wallet than my usual campaign bundles!

So... Stay tuned? <3

Jack

Two new Models for the Reclaimed

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 14:58:33 +0000

At last, the two remaining units are out, available as part of the Reclaimed Army Bundle and of course as part of the late pledges for the Full Spectrum Dominance Third Wave campaign.

The Eccentric Cores are here!

When reclaiming and reprogramming destroyed Tech cores from the battlefields, the factory-city engineers sometimes end up with some unusual results. Most of them are classified as failures and wiped clean (or destroyed), but if one shows promise... they build a unique rig for it, and that's how they got the Shepherd and the Vanguard.

A quote from the Book ( https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-262512 )

PSA for what follows - Let's not forget that these are 15 meters tall giant robots made out of concrete slabs!

Adding Complexity vs Breaking the Balance

Modelling creativity aside, Full Spectrum Dominance is a game that tries to be balanced. Balance doesn't just mean having all the factions equally strong, in fact iterating adding and shaving away anything that causes inbalance in this spirit inevitably ends up equalizing everything and removing character for the asymmetric playstyle.

Instead, having factions displaying strong weaknesses and higly situational strenghts is how the balance is obtained in FSD: with different enough scenarios and with plenty of decision-making at every step of the game rounds, players need to exploit the opponent weaknesses to get the most Victory Points at the end of a game.

Needless to say, adding new units to a faction can be a very dangerous thing, that can unwillingly "patch" one of the intended weaknesses of their lists and break the balance.

Unique Characters

A way to add character to a faction of lookalikes such as the Reclaimed, is to add highly situational and unique (as in: you can only field one in your list) models. The Eccentric Cores are a perfect in-lore explaination for the scarcity of such models.

The Reclaimed are especially notable for their Cyclopes (or Cyclops? I know the naming was wrong, I wonder if I should rename them with the next update of the cards!), and for the unusual Wardens mechanism, so it seemed natural to have the two units being particular effective to slightly change the game dynamics on both.

The concept work with Rattappoom_K has been a blast!

One of the easiest ways to make unique characters it to give them a different kind of head. Luckly, Rattappoom K did sketch several ideas when we were in the concept phase for the faction!

The Shepherd

First is the Shepherd. The walking cane replaced with a 15 meters tall wrench, and shown at its best surrounded by wardens of all kinds. I am going to base mine on a 40 mm round base, larger than the other Cyclopes, and field some wardens on there.

Can tend to flocks. Also useful for leaking pipes.

The head light is stronger (thank you butterfingers 49 for the idea!), to attract the flocks at night (whatever that means), and there is a healthy amount of pointless chains scattered around the back. The bulgy shoulderpads fit well with the cloak on the back.

The Vanguard

I already had the Cyclops Guardian, with big shields and guns, but no unit had an equivalent of an assault rifle! Starting with the Sniper's gun as a reference, I built a more dynamic and (rightfully) cartoonish assault rifle:

It's silly, I know.

With that done, and taking inspiration from the head variants above, I made a more dynamic variant, riddled with bullet holes.

I had to re-do the concrete damage because I got carried away the first time.

A handy backpack with some ominous pipes poking out was a nice final touch for the design.
Giant concrete robots running? Well, why not!

And that's about it for today!

The profiles are still in the works, and need some testing from the community before being properly released, but... it's quite an update!

Happy printing, everyone,
Jack

Urban Objectives

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 15:01:41 +0000

One of the most dreaded releases linked to the Third Wave campaign of Full Spectrum Dominance - the objective markers! Finding objects small enough but also iconic to portray the spirit of a set is always tricky... Luckly, this time I got some help!

Good Concept Art

Now, you might remember the Bus Stop that I released nearly a year ago at this point, and that was probably the first stretchgoal for the campaign:

That concept came from the legendary hands of tugodoomer. With his pencil line (which is almost "naive"), he's capable of packing a ton of content in every of his pieces.

Dumpsters

From the vulcanic stream of consciousness of the artist, I selected three pieces to populate the six vignettes for the objective markers.

The first object was a trash bin. A proper dumpster, in fact, which had a solid mix of scifi and modern elements.

City Truck

The sketch of the city truck was hidden in a corner of one of the sheets, meant as a "spilled something" kind of objective, but I got captivated by the truck design itself.

As a stress test for Plasticity, I sat and modelled it in less than 90 minutes. Yay!

Capacitors

Not exactly sure what these are, but they're certainly important to capture, considering the big bolt symbol on the front!

Playing around with while modelling them I churned out two variants, recognizable from the different elements on the roof - and that makes for six objectives!

Nothing more on this little set, but plenty to come in the next few days.
Stay tuned!

Jack

City Decor and Accesories

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 11:39:28 +0000

I have been slacking a bit blog-wise, and I confess I now have a few different kind of things to show in the backlog.

In that sense, let's dive right in with the last terrain piece for the Third Wave campaign for Full Spectrum Dominance - while in late pledge and still selling a lot, I'm getting closer and close to finishing all the stretchgoals, which is a pretty important landing point for me!

A Sense of Scale

Now, a whole range of huge buildings looks good, it's hard to debate that. However, sometimes it can lack any reference to indicate how big certain stuff can be. That's one of the main reasons while I sneak oil barrels here and there in my work, but even then, if you have buildings and nothing else you will be missing out on a proper sense of scale

Sure you can count the floors, but it's easy to forget that's a multi-story building!

That's where the little details come into play: benches, curbs, trashbins.

Adding a bit of battle damage and interesting weathering took a while, but they are now a pretty universal set of small additions to any terrain where... well, where people want to sit?

Billboards

Small billboards, the kind you get at a road crossing rather than on the highway, is something I wanted to do for quite a while, and this proved to be the perfect set for that. They can work as objective markers, or simply to put a splash of colour on the table!

As a bonus, one of the most active members of the FSD Discord community painted some up with fun FSD-related memes, and they are hilarious! I'll write a proper post about that too.

Statues!

A bit of artsy stuff to add in the mix!

The first statue is from a concept from Tugodoomer that I commissioned together with a batch of others.

The resulting piece is very monumental (although fairly small, as intended) and could represent a bit of everything, really.

Damaged and undamaged versions were fun to do - adding the rebar inside and all.

The second statue was from a simple idea of mine, and a good use of Plasticity3D. A spiral, three spheres, and a good opportunity for some battle damage with something different than cubes.

That is all for the set!
It's going to be available as part of the Ruined City Bundle of the Third Wave campaign (they're still available to buy!) and if you have the bundle or got the all-in pledge you should be available to download it right away!

Happy printing,

Jack

Progress on Bastion (the Dungeon Crawler!)

Sat, 27 Sep 2025 16:26:20 +0000

I might be stretched too thin. Waaaays too thin. But when the hype hits, it's really bad not to follow it. On top of that: partner's abroad, and some days can have unexpected interactions that bring you down several notches, to the point that creativity ...just vanishes. On the bright side--- that's the perfect day for a blog post!

While working through the Third Wave campaign stretchgoals for Full Spectrum Dominance, and trying to figure out the design of the spaceships for Overdrive (thanks to the immense help from Brennan Massicotte), I'm testing and testing again for the scifi dungeon crawler project that has now taken the name of Full Spectrum Bastion (or just Bastion).

Also a big thank you to Taha Yeasi for doing three quick illustrations for me - really helps to set a tone for the game!

The Game Concept

Most of the basic blocks for the game are in last month's post - not much changed, the core spirit is pretty much the same. However, after several test iterations (both on Tabletop Simulator with Pawl Boracchi and in person with Feo, that's his hand) many little things got fleshed out. There's plenty to improve, but the current rules are already fun and fast!

The current setup is still made out of two A5 rooms (about 15x20 cm each), a few doors and side alcoves, and then cards. Just cards.

Decks, Decks, Decks!

Right now the game is definitely card heavy. Since it has no dice, no ruler, no grid, few models, I don't think that's a problem per se, but it still offers a direction for improvement and weight-shedding.

Players have each a deck of 17 cards: 9 default cards (there are three decks for those), and 8 cards that are unique to the chosen character. This way each character can be printed as a standard sheet of paper (8 cards + character recap), and more characters can be added in the future!

Combat is also resolved with a deck - draw a certain amount of cards (more is better for the player, always) and pick the one you want to effect. Hitting a stronger enemy means fewer cards, and being HIT from a stronger enemy means fewer cards as well - but there's often a choice between effects and damages!

The rest of the cards are split between equip and upgrades - because the game is a roguelike at heart! Every level of a mission your deck will change a bit, adding or removing cards from it, and the gameplay follows accordingly.

Miniatures?

Remember this one?

I'm making no secret that the design of this game is partially dictated by my desire to offer a fully 3D printable experience. Table, Miniatures, terrain.

No 3D printable cards, although it would be fun.

In this context, being able to have characters with unique looks and specific cards really helps with my creative bursts: a new model - a new set of cards, a new character for the game! All of this without having to commit to a whole range of models for a large-scale wargame.

Graphic Design, my Nemesys!

I'm aware that my graphic design skills are "just enough", but for this one I'd really like to nail down the layout for the many kinds of cards. I'm still torn on the actual style for the components (will it be hand drawn? rendered? flat?) but in any case nailing down a good positioning of the card text really helps moving things forward.

I've been talking both to friends and with fellow designers in the Rules of Carnage Discord, and things are moving forward.

Something cool I'm experimenting with are 3D layouts - using Plasticity really speeds up the process a LOT, and from a quick model...

...to a Blender setup...

...to an editable card, the steps are fast and i can iterate on layouts within tens of minutes, with a "final" look, although maybe not the one I want for this game.

Is it done? Not even remotely so.

But things are moving foward, and it's exciting. Even in gloomy days where the industry seems to stink and I have no drive to create, the potential directions of this little project really help me to keep going. :3

Jack

Printing the Stranded Tugboat

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 12:14:06 +0000

Note to all: This piece will be part of the terrain pack to go with the factions for the upcoming Swarm Mode for Full Spectrum Dominance!

This is one of those moments in which a two-years-long project finally saw a conclusion.

Or better - a first conclusion, since I'm planning to make another few variants of the destroyed boat.

Lessons Learned

The challenges of sculpting a hard surface model with soft curved parts which is relatable to the viewer is bigger than one would think: ways too many miniature boats out there have the hull of a Playmobil toy, with thick railings and ...well, basically undersized hull spaces.

Ships are BIG, and even the tiniest of tugboats such as this one end up being considerably bigger than most of the stuff you'd see on a battlefield.

I relied on Plasticity to sculpt almost the entirety of this piece, with Blender used for some details and the cutting and weathering. It's a powerful tool, but the use of parametric surfaces can be easily abused. Working with flat surfaces and bevel can often be much, much easier.

More Variants

Once the whole hull is done, I'll certainly release it together with one or two extra variants of the relic.

Too many, and it becomes a redundant piece of terrain (with a lot of work to be sculpted); too few, and I've invested countless hours to sculpt the original model with no return. Ah, the choices!

That said, enough for this post.

More to follow on the Third Wave stretchgoals!

Cheers,
Jack

I Broke a Boat

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 14:48:13 +0000

First of all - Istanbul is an incredibly beautiful city. Aside from the touristy famous spots - it is interweaved with the Bosforus waters, and from almost ANY point of the central areas you get to see multiple skylines, each different.

Now, if you like boats, it gets even better.

Since the last time I went there it's been 3 years, and while I did take tons of photos for reference, it took me over a year before I started working on a first ship design.

With the power of Plasticity I actually got to have a model in hand after only a couple of days of work, and... it felt right!

How do I use this for my games, however?

The answer is only one: I gotta break it.

Ruining Everything

Moving quickly from Plasticity to Blender, I started experimenting on different "poses" for the relics. The neat thing of a boat relic is that it works equally as well on the surface of water or on a sandy battlemat. Thanks to Mad Max et al. we got a very clear idea of what the post-apocalyptic wastelands are supposed to look like, and somehow there's always a boat in there.

Starting with one pose, I begun weathering and corroding the hull.

The Waterline Problem

An interesting aspect I didn't consider is that when abrubtly cutting a complex object along a plane you end up with some very sharp edges. Some can be blunt, but if the object is complex enough there is gonna be some areas where the edges are as sharp as a blade. Printing that is going to be a pain, so I covered most of it with scatter.

As above - either floating scatter or simply half-buried in sand or soil.

Fast forward a year or so while I got distracted by more serious projects and I finally decided to get back to this, to release the set together with the Hive!

One done - three-four more to go.

Jack

PS: Bonus points to who recognizes this beautiful creature, which I found docked in Istanbul.

Its funny how comically small it felt when moving next to it. Hollywood movies did a trick on my brain.

A Handful of (painted) Space Crabs!

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 12:18:59 +0000

After last week's post of the base-coated swarm models, here we are, with the final pieces!

Mixing them up on the base, the sense of chaos becomes prominent, and frankly, they look even better!

Since I was with my camera - here's a few closeup of the various models!

The Brutes

Larger than life, heavy, the name says everything.

The Breeders

Surrounded by Pupae, they can attract and command hordes of warriors and workers!

The Warriors

The size of a light tank, more teeth than brain.

The Workers

Theyre... a lot.

What's Next

I'm working on some terrain ideas for the Hive, while keeping in mind that it would be great to sculpt some Detached too: Tech, sure, but broken down and rusty. We'll see what the future brings - for now I'm left with.... a handful of crabs!

Jack

The Last Ruins

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 13:19:21 +0000

Just a quick PSA for today, to happily announce that the last three ruined pieces for the Modular Ruined City Bundle have been completed and the supports are being test-printed as we speak.

These were some of the last milestones for the Terrain Tier of the latest campaign, for which I keep releasing free updates (even tho slower than I should). The tiers are still available to purchase, and they're slightly cheaper than the 30% off sale I currently have on the store.

Is this over? Not quite. But the ruined elements, which are by far the most time consuming and energy draining, are all here.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

While objectively late from the planned roadmap, things are moving forward. The first serious goal is to close all the terrain-related upgrades, and even before that to sculpt all the modular components, so people can finally start building their modular cities, while the non-modular elements (city decor, for once) are being finalized.

And for that, I'm really close.

In fact, I'm looking forward to focus again on the units - plenty of cool new designs to do! - and the few remaining objective markers and such.

Bonus Question: The Third Rolling Pin

Suggestions on what to do for the third and last rolling pin? Write your ideas in the comments (gosh, I've become one of those people), as I'm always happy to do more concrete but other ideas would be fun as well.

Nothing else to share for today. Stay tuned for more, tho!

A Scifi Crawler Idea

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 13:12:29 +0000

Started with a few long chats with Pawl Boracchi (I would really recommend his Patreon as well - plenty of cool ideas and indie gems!) as a standard dungeon crawler, this idea ...crawled into my mind for a while, and then kind of crystallized into a proper vision - one of those moments were you get to see a project becoming real in your mind eye, even tho most of it is still a complete blur.

As soon as I started adding furnitures to the room, I knew it was something worth pursuing!

It became fairly clear while I was using some proxy scifi models to represent the fantasy ones. They just looked right, all the terrain felt getting in place, and I really realized that this could be a pretty great excuse to make some more cool 28mm.

Driving Points

I clearly wanted to make a crawler, but with a few hard (or hard-ish) constraints to give it a sense rather than being a Zombicide or Descent clone:

Semi-Coop: Enemies should follow simple rules, and each room is a puzzle to solve. Nothing unheard of, but with the healthy layer of competition between players given by some personal victory conditions that are not aligned among the group.
Modular Tiles: A set of components that shape the room you're clearing. The whole tiles set should be printable on two A4 sheets (or four A5), in a true print-and-play spirit. This also mean that the whole table could be resin-printed, since it's smaller than some buildings I've done!

The initial idea. It did require more tiles, but the idea was areas that are well defined by the doors and the terrain in the room.

In that regards, Pawl really made a great point in pointing out that building up whole dungeons on a table is kind of pointless - most of it remains empty, and it takes space and materials!
Limiting the amount of tiles and adding more "endings" to increase the variety of shapes, the result was even more compact:

Sometimes It's just easier to 3D model something!
No Ruler: The cool looks of the space should be priority. one-inch tiles are unnecessary in this kind of game. A simple (but well defined) system to recognize different areas in the room.

Ignore the fantasy theme - areas are well defined.And who doesn't like a pile of gold?

What's more, adding objects in the room creates more regions - so the elements themselves are gonna have a use, all without a ruler.
No Dice: I do like random in games, but solo-coop games should be wary of too much randomness, which could basically take away agency from the player(s). My current combat system is something inspired by GKR by Weta Workshop, and by the more-than-famous Slay the Spire: deckbuilding, roguelike elements, and an exceedingly simple combat resolution (since the focus is simply not there).

And example of a Character. 12 "common" cards + 9 Class cards.

So: a vanilla core deck with a few cards to specialize each class, and a bunch of upgrades to be drawn as the game (and the campaign) progress!

General Direction

While the global direction of the game is still very vague, local testing is promising. I'm still far from a proper open testing phase, and I'm well aware that more often than not these games need marinading.

I still thought that sharing the progresses here would have been a pretty nice update, and a change from the usual 3D sculpting posts.

Jack

Painting the Hive

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 19:54:31 +0000

PSA: our store is currently part of MMF Summer Sales! Everyting is 30% off with the SUMMER2025 discount code, if you're in the mood for some FOMO-Shopping!

A quick post with a progress of my painting of the Hive faction for Full Spectrum Dominance.

For anyone tuning in right now, the solo mode for FSD is going to be released later this year, and one of the important milestones for me before that is... well, to paint some stuff for photos, understandably.

If are curious about the solo mode and want to try it out right now, the 0.4 beta rules are available on the discord, so I would recommend to join and help out with further testing before release! <3

The current aim is to have the full Hive faction ready for the release, and possibly the Detached too - which is going to be a broken-down version of four-five Tech units

Not much else to say - just a bunch of phots, this time. Stay tuned for the finished shots, which are going to follow soon enough!

Jack

Opulence Class Freighter - WIP

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 13:26:03 +0000

While giving precedence to the over-due stretch-goals of last year campaign (which is still open for late pledges!) I'm moving forward with Full Spectrum Overdrive, the spaceship game that I've been developing, with the help of the FSD Discord and the FSD Facebook Group members.

New Creative Juice

After receiving some extra sketches from Bennan Massicotte, I felt I had all the information needed to finish the Opulence Class Freighter, but it's a fairly long work.

The process is extremely pleasant, though: you might remember the initial sketch, done on top of a preliminary volume study:

...And from that, I worked out the shapes that I showed off in this post. From a render, another pass of sketches for further details followed:

Needless to say, that's stellar work from Brennan!

Aligning the Style

Now, the tricky part is to get this great drawings and make them into a model that is aligned with the other designs in the faction. A good "golden standard" would be the Railgun Corvette:

Curved elements, some sharp edges, and several recurring details. Translating this on a larger ship is all but obvious.

Curved Surfaces

With a healthy dose of changes, this is the current iteration of the ship. The back half is clearly really WIP, but I'm liking the few trussed areas, and the panel-y nature of the dense parts. I want to make the hab cabins readable, which means adding windows and other elements, without ending up in a messy greeble.

On top of that, of course, most of the parts are meant to be attached depending on the ship configuration and Systems, so there's a fair share of engineering to do once the design is established.

Wish me luck, and stay tuned for a trademarked in-hand photo soon!

Jack

Crates in the making - and more

Thu, 07 Aug 2025 17:52:36 +0000

Not a long post here, but I decided that I wanted some more crates and fillers for my 28mm games. Which, arguables, are very few, since I am work full-time on Full Spectrum Dominance and lately on a new spaceship game, which I'll write about more on this channel in the future.

I'm indeed in the process of finishing up the latest pieces for the Modular Ruined City set, which is becoming BY FAR the largest set I've ever done, both in gigabytes and in amount of work. Oh well, live and learn.

Speaking of - MMF is running a summer sale and I joined, as I always do, with a reasonable 30% off. Come and say hi!

But now, back to my escapism:

A Tiny Crate

I first cobbled together a first small crate over last weekend, which is less-than-knee-high, and definitely will work great as scatter or as a detailing elements in the nooks and corners of the platforms.

I really like adding some pass-through holes in the crates. It makes no practical sense, but the depht it provides really makes it stand out, helping with the general readability of the piece.

Side Consoles

I also made some fun sets of control panels - they snap on the railings (resin is elastic enough for that) but I would recommend gluing them in position before painting.

...and they certainly do the part, especially in a well set-up photo with some good depht of field.

More Concepts

It's been quite some time since I sat down and did some concept sketches. But it's still real fun, and I should be doing it more. Just like working out.

A Big Crate

Starting with the crate concept on the center-right, I decided to give it a go. What's more, I recorded the process and put it in a timelapse - which I might end up uploading, if I find out how to do that.

After a test print, some modifications to the file and a second set of prints, I could finally take this fancy shot:

And... that's it. Small crates, big crates, and control panels. Fun stuff.

Stay tuned for more, and don't forget to take a look at the store while the sale is up!

Jack

The Breeder is Hungry

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 13:42:25 +0000

PSA: This blog is growing steadily, but I suspect most people are still unaware of it, or somehow think it's something of a paid Patreon. it's not, and would love more and more to subscribe - spread the word!

At last, the latest model for the Hive faction of the Swarm for Full Spectrum Dominance is complete, with the Breeder, the second Boss.

If you don't know what Swarm Mode is, you can check out this post - the TL;DR is that the solo mode for Full Spectrum Dominance is almost a game on its own: the player takes control to the enemy swarm, and makes decisions to try to win against it - basically picking the lesser evil at every turn, while managing the Activation Dice of both sides.

It sounds complicated - it's not, but it's quite challenging. And the sense of agency is entirely on the player's side - there is no "bad luck card" that makes you lose.

Concept

Anyways, back to the Breeder. The original concept art is from Al Voss (it's A-L, not A-I. It's an unfortunate series of letter to read with sans-serif fonts in this age! :D ), after a few drafting experiments we came up with this kind of slender design - compared to the larger Brute design of a while ago.

Being skilled with Blender as well, Al and I went back and fro with the general volumes before I got to work on the finer details.

Sculpt

The sculpt has been done entirely in Blender. I must say I'm happy that Blender 4.5 came out a couple of weeks ago: the new Vulkan implementation made working with high-poly sculpts a lot smoother.

Nothing too fancy in this step - sculpting monsters is so much easier than sculpting humans, or hard surface. No hard-science limits, no uncanny valley.

Renders

And here we are, with a couple of renders.

Two poses - just like for the Brutes, because 2 models are needed for the faction while playing.

The Breeder is slightly smaller than a Brute, but both are meant to fit a 40mm base.

In Hand

So, here we are. The last piece of the puzzle is completed, and I can now (in fact I must) start painting this little army.

Stay tuned for more news in the future!

Jack

Modular Platforms

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 13:00:15 +0000

First of all: I'm working quite a lot for the Third Wave campaign of Full Spectrum Dominance, and I'm putting hours and hours in preparing the book for the Modiphius print run, and even more in the Swarm Mode book and the upcoming Overdrive game. So yeah - My 6mm game and terrain are still my main thing, there's PLENTY of cool new stuff coming up, and my MMF store is my main source of income, there's no way I will stop caring for it.

Still, sometimes a bug hits (pun intended) and I really, really have to do something about it.

Walkways

Games like The Ascent have some amazing art direction, and even better technical artists that made the whole terrain self-build in a quasi-procedural way, allowing game designers to create levels with ease while keeping the environments vibes and details in line with the style.

I would recommend checking out this project, and a few others from their technical artist, because it's just sweet.

Granted it's nothing unique nor unheard of, but the craftmanship that went into these parts was truly inspiring, and made me want to try and do something similar.

Scale Choices

The first option (and one that I will probably pursue one day) was to make something like this for 6mm. Walkways broad enough to allow one infantry unit to go through, connecting elevated areas a bit like Starcraft does with its two-levels maps.

But since I just finished sculpting my first 28mm model, which perfectly matched the style... why not going 28 as well?

Modularity

The main tenet for the project was modularity, and ease of variation between components. Resin isn't that cheap, so I decided that the walkways, while being used for large areas as well, would only cover the outside parts of such areas, with the inside left to the players to fill - I used expanded PVC, but really anything works fine.

The first experiment was just a small walkway - it helped me defining the design language for the components. I did clearly get inspiration from the Ascent, but I really stopped there, and made my own shapes. Besides, most of the original concepts would snap in no time if printed.

The other main idea was to have "openings" in the walkways that could be magnetized and swapped between closed balconies and bridges. This means that once you've created your shapes you can still mix and match the platforms into a fully playable table. Two different kinds of sockets, one for gluing and one for magnet snap? sure.

At that point things started trickling down, and I got to a whole first prototype.

A few iterations and trials and errors later (tolerances and joints can be tricky!) I ended up with a ...handful of parts.

Assembly

Thanks to the iterations and the hours spent to make every part join well, the final assembly went really smoothly (to a point. The central area is a FOREX panel (foamed PVC) with metal panelling scribed on it. I even 3D modelled a couple of grates to fit into holes in the panel, and I then started gluing everything around it.

Admittedly, it might be wiser to pre-paint the parts before assembly, but I wanted to have a finished piece to assess.

As mentioned above, the open endings of the platform have magnet sockets, and can ideally be all closed into protruding balconies.

...or they can instead be joined with bridges! All modular, all easy to swap.

All internal shapes have a (2.5 + 5 * N+1) cm side length, where N is the amount of straight sections between two corners. The smallest platform would be have a central area of only 2.5x2.5 cm (why would you want that?), but you can go pretty much as wide as you please.

All Done!

And here we are, another project in the works with no roadmap or hard timeline, but nonetheless oh-so-fun.

This is gonna be a slow burner, but I see the potential and I can't wait to build a table around this (quite literally), really.

Stay tuned, keep playing in small scales,

Meet the Cleaner

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 11:12:52 +0000

I couldn't resist painting the model I just sculpted, and even if the painting itself turned out a bit rough, I really wanted to test the detail density of the various parts, and the readability of the whole model.

The printed model popped well, and I must admit i realy messed up some parts myself. I was mostly worried about the dabbawala on the back, and the mechanical components - I must say I've been impressed by those.

The face details will probably change in my future pieces (whenever I'll have time to sculpt those), since the current eye sockets are too hidden for a normal brush to do anything significative.

Jaswinder "Jaz" Singh

Following the style of The Union, one of the current six factions of Full Spectrum Dominance, Jaz is one of the cleaners, equipped with a powerful high-pressure lance filled with toxic chemicals, which occasionally can be repurposed to ...clean megacorporation scum away from the Factory-City.

The in-hand photos gave it justice - even with some obvious mistakes on the left eye and several parts that got a bit hidden behind too many attempts to paint them.

Since I had the image, I HAD to write the stats for the model for FSD28:

I'll leave you all with this ray of hope into a future skirmish in the Full Spectrum Dominance universe!

Jack

Exploring Larger Scales

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 13:41:07 +0000

I've always loved miniatures in all scales, from the minuscule 2mm up to heroic 28-32 mm and more. But in my 3D journey I (almost) always chose to stick to small scales: it's my comfort zone, and it's where my public thrives.

This doesn't mean I didn't keep building up my 28mm collection - a hobby is a hobby, even when it becomes a work!

A 28mm Game

I've been working on a 28mm adaptation of Full Spectrum Dominance for the last year or two - a backburner project with no specific plans, but definitely something I put some love into. The concept is pretty much the same: Activation Dice to do special Actions, damage profiles to track wounds, Support cards, and Trait cards to replace the Character cards, since... well, they're all characters.

(The models on the cards are from Hasslefree Miniatures. possibly the best models on the market for me. I've got ...quite a few of those.)

You can find more about the game and a temporary document for it on our Discord, on the #fsd-28 channel.

A faction with more to say

undoubtedly, of all the factions of FSD, the Union is the one with a more unique Infantry. Not having troops entirely covered in armor helps, but the whole idea of "workers, united" sparks a lot of creativity. From the Belters of the Expanse, to the crew of Mechanicals in the lower levels of the Silo, the examples of how this trope can lead to very unique characters are many.

Besides, having to sculpt bodies and faces is an extra challenge, which I'd rather face sooner than later: I can always go back in my comfort zone with a Tech opponent soon enough!

What's more - patso_catso seemed to have developed a certain love for the Union as well, and back then published some great concept art for more Union troops, as shown in this post.

Mannequins

It was time to revamp the mannequin I used for all my 6mm infantry. I added more joints, a few more muscles (that are easier to deform when stretched this way), and following the general direction of the MW Sculpts tutorials (highly recommended, if you want a no-frills approach to sculpting models!) I ended up with this new one.

For the Sci-Fi models I'm going to do (if and when I'll do more, at least) this is more than enough.

The Cleaner

A few days ago I had a nice idea for a backpack, which I promptly sculpted in Plasticity. Around that, I built a crouched pose for a model armed with a spray-weapon of some kind.

Curious to try the new features and performances boost of Blender 4.5, I spent a good part of the weekend working on the clothes, while adding further details sculpted in Plasticity.

The final model took a couple of full days of work to refine, but I must say I'm damn happy with the result, especially being the first fully-equipped model I ever sculpted in large scale (and the third model ever).

I don't know when I'll find the time to do more pieces. I 'm certainly going to paint this one, and it will likely see action on a battlefield, but before I can do more... there's QUITE a few things in the backlog to clear first.

That said, I'm gonna go back in the cave sculpting ruined buildings.

Cheers

Jack