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Told ya it'd be like Busses!
If you follow our Facebook Page, a few weeks ago I made a lil announcement that the Blacks and the Whites were all very busy on things that wouldn't come to fruition for a lil while but undoubtedly we'd all pop back up at the same exact time. Turns out I'm like a mini Nostradamus! :)
On top of the above we had a backlog at one of our metal casters, a lost mould at the other, our resin casters rubber company ran out of rubber (I know, it's like Nandos running out of chicken, which actually happened to me once but I should probably tell that story when I'm not in the middle of a newsletter) and our laser printer decided to not work properly for a while. Fun times!
Despite all of that we perservered and, as mentioned, have all popped back out of our holes at the same time :) Jenn has sorted the sculpting competition from last year and you'll find the results below (As I lose 25% of the audience who just skipped down), Sal has finished the first of her, personally designed, new etched brass frets, Kev has become, at least a bit, used to working in Battersea Dogs home and I've... hmm, technically I suppose I haven't popped out of my hole yet as everything I've been working on will only happen during the rest of the year unless you count reaching out to some 'awesome' painters to help us showcase Kev's talent. More on that later, for now...
Results!
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Sculpting Competition Results
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The proper announcement is on Facebook HERE and Forum of Doom HERE but for those of you who get your HF news from this lovely newsletter the quick results are *drum roll please despite it being totally spoiled by the image above!*...
Fantasy Category.
Winner - Griselda the Stern by Tom Emmett
Runner Up - Bridget by Alessio Cisbani
Modern Category.
Winner - Majest by Steve Shaw
Runner Up - Whisper by Cindy Dukino
Sci-Fi Category.
Winner - Steampunk Gina by Jack Sutter
Runner Up - Cyberbelle Suzi by Rebecca Eley
A huge congratulations to all the winners, we will be contacting you shortly about your prizes :)
A big thanks to everyone who enetered and don't forget there will be a second announcement where we reveal the 'HF Choice' winners who will see their mini immortalised in the HF Store for sale to the public :)
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The Spider, Ekaterina
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Ekaterina aka The Spider (and about 37 other aliases) is an ultra-modern assassin for hire. Eqipped with twin pistols, kevlar-layered jumpsuit and utility backpack which has been known to house everything from miniature high explosives to a full parachute!
She also has an unintentional bit of the Gaga about her :)
(Gallery Images from Albert Pin & Łukasz Grzyb)
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Big Brother, Mordakai
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Meet Nomad's older brother, Mordakai. The surivalist family with a love of LMGs, both brothers favour the M249 but Mordakai uses his massive bulk to lug around two of the bad boys 'and' huge custom made suppressors. Better start pumping some more iron Nomad!
Despite rumours to the contrary his name is a pun, based on the phrase 'More Dakka!' *grin*
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Experiment 4P3S12a, Roddy
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' Roddy' is, depending which scientist you ask, either a total failure or an amazingly successful experiment of a particular virus in our post-apocalyptic world. Using an extraction of ape DNA the result was supposed to be a super-soldier of sorts with enhanced strength etc. however, while it did actually do that, it also mutated their physical form to such extremes that the project was immediately sidelined.
Nicknamed after an actor in a relevant movie and tv series, 'Roddy' has struck out on his own to find any of the other test subjects who were either allowed out or escaped the labs.
(For those of you who think he may be a good new Sci-Fi race, we'll see how he sells and what the interest is before deciding if he has any descendants in the future ;) )
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Dynamic Kalee Revisited
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After Libby, Kalee is our mini with the most variants - two 40mm variants, a 28mm Football variant and two 28mm Fantasy variants. This is the more dynamic of the two fantasy variants and has been out of stock a little while.
The reason being that we found that Kev had upgraded her a while ago and it had been all but forgotten about. We had a master mould of a version with a sword and had forgotten to put it into production :) So, seeing as she was about to need remoulding anyway we decided to put her new variant in a shiny new mould and here she is!
(A small handful of you out there may already have a sword variant, this is because in one order from the caster we had a handful of the Masters come in without realising and they were packed and put into stock as normal. Congratulations whoever you are! *grin*)
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Restocks
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With our delayed New Releases also came some much needed restocks or remoulds of popular items.
Finn, our dynamically-coiffured, vertically-challenged adventurer.
Veda-Ann, our scale-mailed, eagle-shielded fantasy warrioress.
Katie finally rejoins Peter for more pint-sized adventures.
Elegeant Hanako comes back into stock.
The axe-wielding Taxxis (d) returns (Sword-wielding Taxxis (c) shown above, we really should find a well painted Taxxis (d)!)
And finally poor Billie returns after some slight confusion at the metal caster with her gun carrying, non-terrified variant :)
(A few more minis are still in the remoulding queue, never fear, thy will return shortly and should hopefuly be good for a few more years!)
(Gallery Images by Patrick Chambers, Matheo, Lonewolf, Alison Mcvey, Crackpot & Orctrader)
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New Resin Masters!
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Lazarus - The last of Deano's Spec Ops squad, who just happened to be ordered around by....
General Sinclair - The gruff no-nonsense General in charge of both Special and Black Ops and thus Deano and Hassle et al's boss!
Clint - A new veteran survivor of the Zombocalypse who has recently found himself mentor to...
Beth - Teenage survivor currently learning how to handle a hunting rifle.
Jade - Mysterious Female with Katana and risque taste in clothing.
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Even Newer Resin Masters!
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The earlier 5 new sculpts were soft-launched on our Facebook Page (We do that every now and again so make sure you've 'liked' us there to get all the newest updates and offers) so technically aren't 'quite' as new as these 3. The newest Resin Masters are familiar to HF fans, new to resin and brand new to this newsletter...
Harby - Our big man with a big gun and...
Alyx - Our, very, versatile teen with an attitude.
All of these needed remoulding recently so we now have a sparkling new master mould from Kev's original greens!
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Big Resin Base/Scenery Restock
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As well as restocking the eagle-eyed amongst you will notice we've been able to adjust the prices of our resin bases and scenery 'downwards', you're welcome! ;)
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New Resin Scenery
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With the above restock came some New Goodies that we thought we'd share with you (We've only just go them in so please excuse the photos, we'll bring you some better shots once we get a chance, we promise :) ).
New items include a pack of 6 Wooden Barrels, a Study Set of 2 Desks and a Grandfather Clock, Large Bookcases, Dustbins, Fire Hydrants, Filing Cabinets & new Tech Crates. So Something for everyone :)
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New Etched Brass - Coming Soon
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As I've mentioned in past, just because Sal has taken a step back from the day to day doesn't mean she has disappeared entirely and will be flexing her artistic side every now and again to bring us something new and pretty.
Coming soon will be our first foray into Sal-designed, etched brass sheets. The first 4 will include tools, butterflies and celtic design work. We haven't had them back from the tool worker yet so for now you can just ogle the pretty photos :)
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New Accessories
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Sal has also sourced some new 'bitz' for you modellers out there, especially anyone with a Steampunkish trend.
We also have a variety of sheet films, cut to size and with different metallic patterns.
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Any Sculptors in the House?
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We're planning on completely revamping our commercially licensed products, which will done closer to Christmas, but we're starting with something Kev has decided to offer up himself. Kev's making an Ogre and as a lot of you know he makes miniatures by literally building from a skeleton upwards.
When he reached the stage above he was asked privately whether he'd thought about just selling the armature so decided to get it cast up in resin. This allows him to work on it himself 'and' offer it for sale. This is a resin master casting of the armature.
If there's any interest we may also offer it without a commercial license at a considerably lower cost (around £15), just email us if you would be interested in that.
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Hasslefree are off Stateside!
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A quick warning that from the 23rd October the entire Hasslefree team, Blacks and Whites, are off to the US on a business trip.
The Whites come back around November 2nd and the Blacks a week later (We're taking the opportunity to visit Jenn's family while we're out there). This means there'll be no orders shipping between those dates. We'll put up a warning on the website and final warning in the next newsletter but please bear this in mind.
This means if you need an order delivered before the second week of November then you'll need to get it in to us by the 20th October to give us any chance of getting it to you!
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And FInally...
*whew* Ok I need a rest now.
There will be one more newsletter before the above mentioned trip where we'll announce the HF choice winners for the sculpting comp, we're hoping that some of the above resin masters will be back to purchase in metal, we 'may' have managed to add an entire new retail line to the store and we'll hopefully have squeezed in some new resin masters of Kev's latest miniature masterpieces.
We'll be sending off a bunch of moulds while we're gone so once we get back to the UK we'll hit the ground running. Amongst those will be the aforementioned masterpieces plus a bunch of new items for the Moder Troopers and hopefully some of our missing codes will find a new home in a remould :)
Because of our trip everyone getting orders for this entire month and well into November get a Halloween special comp slip with either a 'tick' or a 'treat' candy, or sometimes both. I can only apologise to those who get the tricks, they are truly horrible, give them to the kids!
Next newsletter I'll also be including a round up of some amazing paintjobs we've been seeing from artist friends of Hasslefree lately in a new 'Gallery' section. We'll also be splicing some painted examples into our website ads for those minis (by very popular demand!)
Right that's it, I'm going to bed for a day ;)
Arty
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