Booklet n°1: Troopers
Version 1.1 - July the 4th 2023 - obsolete, new version expected before 2026.

This started as a " Proof-of-concept" that miniatures could be made at no expense with common materials and tooling. This first booklet took over five months to make, first because the workflow had yet to be discovered, but also because the subject in itself was more rich and complex than expected.

The strange choice of a triangular miniature base is explained by the fact that you can trim one side of an equilateral triangle and still keep its shape. It was intended as a simplification and turned out not only to be difficult to scale up but too complex.

I also spent a lot of time making an "assembly overview" with a precise measurement of how long it would take to make each step. It had to be made in order to provide the reader with an idea of how complex and time-intensive the process would be.

For the next booklets I deemed it unnecessary to provide this kind of information: it was better to make more models instead.

First video: June 2023 Teaser - June 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5E_S-CxbYc

From the beginning of the project, I wanted to make videos to promote the concept. In parallel to discovering the concept of these miniatures, I burdened myself with an additional learning curve, in the hope that one aspect would help the other.

It seemed logical to make video tutorials. It took me half a year to finally acknowledge that the amount of work it required was beyond my very limited personal energy.

Test Video 01 - The Hover Moped Protoype - August 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYMnaLZ0_l0

The last phases of making Booklet n°1 involved more elaborate objects such as Light Machine Guns, and the discovery of the impressive possibilities of Double-Wire Clips (DWC).

It seemed logical at the time to go gradually from the smaller miniatures to the larger ones. I spent a lot of time in the summer and autumn to make bicycles and motorcycles, until it was evident that it was too difficult for the time being: "smaller" is not always "easier".

This video is what remains from this time period. At that time I imagined I could make "simplified" models by setting them in a fantasy-SciFi "Early Corld War" universe with hover technology, it turned out to be even more complicated than sticking to historical models.

Booklet n°2: Version 0.5 was released, incomplete, on December the 3rd 2023. Useful contents: how to make a rectangular base.

The impracticality of some early choices culminated with the GAZ-64 booklet. On the technical side, as we can see on the picture, rectangular bases proved easier to make than multiples of equilateral triangles. Similarly, hover projectors were complicated and looked not as good as wheels.

Progress was very slow in spite of tremendous expenditure of effort. This was a time when many ideas and components were tried out and many were discarded. The creation and development process became more efficient because of this, but results were slow to materialise. The accumulated stress was compromising the health benefit I expected from the whole project, so I decided to tie up some loose ends and release an incomplete booklet.

Video: From picture to miniature - November 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dWFTSrBLLo

Booklet n°2 was an attempt to make a video in parallel with a booklet, a precursor of sorts to a video tutorial. This turned out to be not only impractical but also very demanding in energy, on top of the issues I had with the booklet itself.

When it became necessary to leave Booklet n°2 in an incomplete state, I focused on finishing the video because it was a "how-to" video that could be useful for those who wanted to create their own projects.