Data Sphere

Greetings everybody!

I have done a little review on Laughing Jacks Living Unit small to be found here.

Please be advised: Their homepage is still in progress and sofar it has been only in german. But I guess that is going to change soon.

Enjoy

You attended Spiel too?
I met Laughing Jack there! Great guys, and I love their products!

Hydra wrote:I have done a little review on Laughing Jacks Living Unit small to be found here.

I don't think I'm going to get any of their containers, but I really like those details on the living units!

@Scorch: When? Where? I was there on friday Really fun guys, aren't they?

@Section9: If you like the details in the living unit.... you will love the details in the other buildings.IE a coffemachine!

I updated the review with a few more thoughts.

Hey there I was one of guys standing around at laughing Jacks boot, pretending to belong there

@Section 9, maybe a small heads up, if you don´t like the containers but the rest of the stuff, well good news, in a not tooo far future you´ll be able to buys all the interior seperatly

@Hydra, nice review, very fair and some good points made. Sometimes I really wish everybody had a Nametag-Holo above their head for easier identification (as all 4 days feel like a blur and I can´t quite figure out who excatly you where [shame on me])

Separate available interior is good news! Excellent.

Hydra wrote:@Scorch: When? Where? I was there on friday Really fun guys, aren't they?

We went Saturday. R-r-r-roadtrip to Germany! Haha! I had a blast, and the moment I saw the booth, I stopped and looked at there products and had a small chat (not everybody in the group I went with is invested in Infinity, so staying there to talk about the awesome game for hours might have bored them to death!) Their products are really cool, and I like the whole 'prefab style' they do. Their Magic Markers (have you seen those?) look awesome as well, although I still have to try them out!

The guys were really cool, and I really hope to see them on the forum soon, posting up their lines and products!

@ Ursun, were you there Saturday, when I dropped by? I hope I haven't missed out on meeting you in person!

They sell temp sprays to paint miniatures.

@scorch: next year we should do a meet'n'greet!

@ursun: if you tell me, which face there would have carried your name tag, I could tell you if we met, and I could give you a hint.

@MOB: well... When I remember that correctly their relation to spray cans Is the following: as I do myself, the paintslaves at laughing jacks use Montana spray cans. And they promoted these on the faire. Normally (at least here in good old Germany) you can only buy these at special art supply stores, not accessible for everybody, but apparently they will be available over laughing jacks website at some point.

Hi Guys,

this is Till from the Laughing Jack Team. First thank you Hyrda for the nice Review, it gives us a good impression where we have to improve (but to be honest, a lot of points where clear to us as the points you mentioned where be owed to the lack of time). But with the german ancillary wage costs and as we're so small we don't think that we can reduce the price anymore.

BUT we're working at a product that will save you money to fill a table not only with our containers ;-) (You'll we see more in December)

A more detailed and colored assemblyguide will be placed soon (as we have the photos) on our website. Also soon our order catalogue will be available on the website, as we have no influence on how fast the webshop will be finished, so you can order via email until that moment.

As Ursun already mentioned we'll release the interiorsets during november.

After the great resonance at the games fair we're searching new facilities for us and will get some additional machines, so we can provide enough of the upcoming products.

One of the coming thinks will be a building-line which is magnetized so you can change the accessories and you can use the same building for more than one game (it will fit to 28-35mm).

And we're developing a new production process so you can get pre-painted sets. (It is not so easy as we thought because german environment protection laws are more strictly as an example in the u.k. [4Grounds has some amazing things in stock])

So stay tuned

Your Laughing Jacks & Jackies

If you're doing major painting like painting the entire sheet of MDF before cutting, I would suggest getting not an airbrush, but a dedicated High Volume Low Pressure (HVLP) compressor/spray gun combo like the kind used at car-repainting shops. That would let you choose the paints you use specifically to avoid problem chemicals under German laws.

@Section9: We'll use an industry spray gun, so we're free in the choose of material, with any other material and machine we couldn't create the necessary output . The problem is not the paint itself, more what is the result when the laser cuts the painted mdf/hdf, because the result can be dangerous. As an example: If you try to cut pvc the result is chlorinegas and hydrochloric acid, not good for the guy that handles the machine and not good for the machine. The next thing is, if it is not directly dangerous, the federal environmental inspectors are doing a lot of inspections and taking probes and if there is something in the probe that shouldn't be there it can become very expensive, and as a small company we try to avoid such charges. But we're on the right way.

I know it is only in german, but the guys fromBrueckenkopfhad a small article about our booth at the SPIEL'14 games fair, so maybe you just enjoy the pictures.

I have to add, that I highly like your thoughts about the pricing (on FB)

And if you want to see paint on the containers, see my thread in the terrain section

@Hydra, well since I´m the big guy on foto 2, I would guess we met
(even though I just can´t remember when you took that foto, I would have thrown a better pose then! ^^)

@Scorch Yeah I was there all 4 days, I´m the big guy with the short hair who gave out the pen on your last visit of our booth.

Was nice meeting the Data Sphere guys in person and had I nice chat with you. Can´t wait for someone not affiliated do a reveiw of our pens (as you might guess, I just love them so my voice doesn´t count^^)

All in all, why is it sooo long to Spiel 2015 xD

Ursun wrote:@Scorch Yeah I was there all 4 days, I´m the big guy with the short hair who gave you the pen on your last visit of our booth.

Was nice meeting the Data Sphere guys in person and had I nice chat with you. Can´t wait for someone not affiliated do a reveiw of our pens (as you might guess, I just love them so my voice doesn´t count^^)

All in all, why is it sooo lang to Spiel 2015 xD

Ha, okay! yes, it was nice meeting you! Hadn't connected the forum-name with the person behind it.

The pen will be tested next week! I'm almost finished painting one of the imbiss models for the review. I've finished building the other two. I will test the pen on the painted one!
I'm planning on using it to try some free-hand graffiti on the building.

By any chance, can I mail Laughing Jack for a catalogue of some sort? I'm trying to find out what other shapes and sizes the pen comes in. Might be a good thing for a review!

Yepp that´s the way to go right now till the shop goes online, just mail them (or facebook) and you´ll get the pdf.
Oh and good news, the 0.5 mm tip will be available

Pen? I see a picture with a pot of something like that in the Brueckenkopf article. What about it?

What´s shown on the Brückenkopf was just a jar of Eddings but not the real Magic Pens (as we started to calle them as , well, they work like magic )

It´s basically a re-usable, plastic tipped Pen, you fill with an airbrush colour of your choice, and draw nice small lines with it like with an Edding.
Laughing Jacks House Painter used it to paint some of the edge highlights on the buildings and we showed it live to everybody visiting us at the Spiel... as you can imagine, we had to re-stock halfway through the 4 days as they sold like candy bars

You can also buy different tips so from 0.5 mm over 0.7 (the standard the pen comes with) up to 2mm or more so you can get the tip for the job you need, may it edge highlighting or graffitti paintings on your buildings. The good thing is, they don´t dry out (we used the same pen with one filling for 4 days and it never dried out) as only the fine lines in the plastic tip close with dry paint and you can re-open and clean them with your fingertip to get the paint flowing again.


Here is a video of how the pens look and work (yeah its for the very big tip, but as I said, they go down to 0.5 mm reusable plastic tip) but you get the idea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW_K1EcpQzY

Interesting concept. But it will have to wait, I doubt they will be for sale around here, meaning mail order only.

How much paint do you need to put in one of those for it to function? I like the idea but it looks like it would take a lot of paint for whats normally going to be a detail colour.

Ursun wrote:@Scorch Yeah I was there all 4 days, I´m the big guy with the short hair who gave out the pen on your last visit of our booth.

Was nice meeting the Data Sphere guys in person and had I nice chat with you. Can´t wait for someone not affiliated do a reveiw of our pens (as you might guess, I just love them so my voice doesn´t count^^)

All in all, why is it sooo long to Spiel 2015 xD

I was there too, over from the UK. Didn't realise there would be so many Data Sphere peeps in attendance.

Was really impressed with the Laughing Jack stuff

Maxvon_d wrote:

Ursun wrote:@Scorch Yeah I was there all 4 days, I´m the big guy with the short hair who gave out the pen on your last visit of our booth.

Was nice meeting the Data Sphere guys in person and had I nice chat with you. Can´t wait for someone not affiliated do a reveiw of our pens (as you might guess, I just love them so my voice doesn´t count^^)

All in all, why is it sooo long to Spiel 2015 xD

I was there too, over from the UK. Didn't realise there would be so many Data Sphere peeps in attendance.

There was only one, me! The rest of my group I was with are friends, but have nothing to do with Data Sphere.

@Spears, the smaller ones take in like 1/3 of a vallejo bottle (depending if you use model or air, thin down or not etc.) but you could always go with less (just store them upside down so they don´t dry up completely) but as they work best for buildings and vehicles you can paint a big amount of stuff before they run out.

Just remember they where designed for street artist and grafitti guys, we just discovered them for tabletop use, so the filling amount naturally is bigger than most people would ever use up (if you´r not painting up a tank company or a full table worth of buildings) but since you can change/clean/replace the tip easily and the rest of the pen you can always go with smaller amounts, just enough to cover the pump mechanism inside that fuels the tip.

Is the "tank" fully accessible? There is that ball at the bottom, but maybe the hole is closed to a minimum once they put the ball in.

Yeah just like in the Video (starting at 0:37) you unscrew the tip, take of the sealing lid with the pump mechanism and thats all, you can easily get the excess paint back out, clean it and refill it. The ball is just there to mix the colour better while shaking that pen.

Ursun wrote:What´s shown on the Brückenkopf was just a jar of Eddings but not the real Magic Pens (as we started to calle them as , well, they work like magic )

It´s basically a re-usable, plastic tipped Pen, you fill with an airbrush colour of your choice, and draw nice small lines with it like with an Edding.
Laughing Jacks House Painter used it to paint some of the edge highlights on the buildings and we showed it live to everybody visiting us at the Spiel... as you can imagine, we had to re-stock halfway through the 4 days as they sold like candy bars

You can also buy different tips so from 0.5 mm over 0.7 (the standard the pen comes with) up to 2mm or more so you can get the tip for the job you need, may it edge highlighting or graffitti paintings on your buildings. The good thing is, they don´t dry out (we used the same pen with one filling for 4 days and it never dried out) as only the fine lines in the plastic tip close with dry paint and you can re-open and clean them with your fingertip to get the paint flowing again.
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Oooooh, Shiny! I will have to look for those in the US (shipping from the EU is usually pretty prohibitive, sadly)

Some more Laughing Jack, now on the blog!