Batman : Arkham Asylum Paper Props

For the last few days I’ve been playing Batman: Arkham Asylum on the PC.  I’ve had it for ages but wanted to wait until I got the new PC so I could crank up the graphics and play it properly.  It’s a brilliant game.  I’m not going to review it right now, but maybe I will later.  There’s really very little to pick and ‘perfect’ doesn’t take up much space.

Anyway, as I was wandering through the asylum and beating up the scum of Gotham, I was paying attention to anything I might be able to reproduce as a paper prop, because that’s my current passion.  I found quite a few things but a couple seemed like they’d be a good start.

Name tags struck me early on, and there are three types I spotted while I was wandering around.  The most obvious one is pinned to the boob of the Joker’s main squeeze, Harley Quinn.  She’s stolen the Warden’s ID card, and that’s the first I recreated.  Second belongs to Commissioner Gordon, who is escorting the Joker on his way back to the Asylum.  It’s a Visitor card.   Finally there is the Doctor ID which is most common and found on all of the medical staff who work at the facility.   Oddly I didn’t see any cards for security, which is a bit disappointing.

I also re-created a mug label as well.  I took a bit of creative license with this one because the 3d model they’ve stuck it to is very low resolution and blocky, which distorts the label a bit.  If you want your own Arkham mug you can use the PNG file at online printing places like http://www.print-mugs.com and http://www.yourdesign.co.uk/ to name just two.

Finally I printed a picture of the Penguin, who isn’t featured much in the game.  Hopefully he’s going to be in the sequel which was recently announced.

There’s more things I could take from the game and turn into paper props, which I might look at doing.  Stay tuned.

Harley Quinn	Warden ID
Gordon	Visitor ID
Doctor	Doctor ID
Cup	Cup Label
Penguin Poster In-Game	Penguin Poster

Computer, Idol Map & Tolkien Hobbit Map

Finally, I’ve got the new computer and can get on with finishing some of my projects.  The computer arrived in two huge boxes, and actually didn’t take  very long to set up.  Windows was already installed so I simply had to register it and begin the tedious process of installing all of my own programs, games and so forth.  It took a while because I like things set up in a particular way, and I tend to save a lot of things both on the desktop and in the Documents folder.  Both of those live on the C: drive, but because I bought an SSD (Solid State Drive) for the main disk, I was worrried I’d fill it up pretty quickly.

To that end, I moved my Documents and Desktop locations to one of the three 1TB drives I have inside.  Only the core OS will stay on the SSD to keep it as tidy as possible.  After that I installed a few games and my essential programs and began to tinker with everything else.

A great choice I made when I bought the PC was to pick up a Vantec SATA/IDE to USB adapter.  This little gizmo plugs into a hard disk and allows you to plug it into a USB port.  I used it to copy all my old hard disk files to the new 1TB disks so I’d have some access to my old files.  It’s only USB2.0 so the transfer takes a while, but it’s so handy to be able to do that without having to install them inside the case.

Vantec USB Adapter

I’m also really impressed with the case.  The amount of airflow is ridiculous.  It’s got all the cable tied up against the back wall and if you look in the front vent you can see right through the computer out the back vents.  It stays so cool too. I’m really happy with it.  The one annoying thing is the amount of lights.  They don’t need all those damned lights.

Epson is my printer manufacturer of choice, and I bought an x710W photo printer.  It was pretty cheap considering all the different stuff it can do. It’s also getting really hard to find a printer than prints on CD/DVD. I’m really happy with it.

Having the printer set up allowed me to finally frame up the maps I’ve talked about in earlier entries.  The frames only cost me $19 each but they’re really big and decent quality.  I picked up some coloured and black card from the newsagent for a backing and printed out labels to describe each map.  I still need to work out what I’m going to do with the huge Middle Earth map but I’m happy with the results of the other two.

Finally there’s the pepakura or papercraft models.  I’ve only done a K-9 model from Dr Who and it turned out ok. I’m not 100% happy with it though so I’m not posting it here.  I’m not really happy with my folding ability yet.  That sounds kind of stupid, but getting crisp lines and neat edges so you can’t tell it’s paper is really hard.  More practice I suppose.  Cutting out the shapes is tedious so I tend to work slowly.  Impatience is usually how I mess things up so I must force myself to go slowly.

See you next time.

Raiders Temple Map

Thror's Map

I Did It

Cooler Master HAF 932

I spoke about it in a recent post, and I ordered the new computer.  I was pretty much geared up to go on the 22nd, when Windows 7 came out, but got cold feet for a while.  It’s probably just as well I did, because I saved a hundred bucks on the final price.  Damn, hardware prices fluctuate so much that you can wait a week and some whole new product is out.  Do you wait?  Do you buy now and be disappointed?  It’s a bit of a toss-up.

 

So it’s done anyway. I sent away the order early this afternoon and it’s sitting at Scorptec waiting for review.  It’ll cost me a little over budget, but not much. Over all I’m pretty happy.  I also bought a gadget which will let me plug-in my old hard disks externally into the new PC so backing up all my crap from the current computer shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve got a couple of external disks anyway, so it should all be good.  I guarantee I’ll forget to back up SOMETHING, I always do, even if I make a checklist.  The ability to plug-in the old drives should make anything I’ve forgotten easily recoverable.

The only thing that bothers me is that I’m at a bit of a loss with what to do with the old computer.  It’s a giant silver Lian-Li case, so not many people would want it, even though it’s pretty kick arse. It has a window panel etc.  If I had room (and the power) I could run it as a networked storage computer or something, but I don’t really need to.  It’ll probably go out with the rubbish.  Sad.

Anyway, the new one should be here in a week or so, and the whole process of loading up my software will begin.   The pic I’ve put up is the actual case.  I’m not really into blinky lights and so on, but it’s apparently a really cool (as in temperature) case, which is critical to the longevity of any good fast computer.

The Computer

It’s time for a new PC.  This one, Jennifer, is getting past her use-by date and she’s getting a few problems that would be expensive to fix.  Something hard to track down is wrong with either the RAM or the Video card, and by the time I spent all the money finding out what it is and replacing it, I’d be out more than a $1000 anyway.   I’ve been looking to update for a while now and I’ve decided to go with Scorptec Computers in Melbourne.  They’re a little more expensive than most places, but they apparently have top-notch service.  Waiting for Windows 7 was also a part of the delay in purchasing a new system.  Upgrading is dirty and a pain in the arse, so I wanted to install clean.  I have all the parts picked out.  I just have to press ‘Add to Cart’.  Naturally, on the day I finally decided on the components, the postman delivered my car insurance.

CPU Intel – BX80601950

Motherboard Gigabyte – GA-EX58-EXTREME

Memory Corsair Micro – HX3X12G1600C9

Video Card XFX – HD-587A-ZNF9

Hard Disk Corsair Micro – CMFSSD-128GBG2D

Optical Drive LG – CH08LS10

Sound Card Creative – SB0820-XFI-XAUD

Case Cooler Master – RC-932-KKN1

3x Hard Disks Western Digital – WD10EADS

Power Supply Thermaltake – W0171

Memory Card Reader Apacer – APAE100B

Cooler #1 Thermalright – ULTRA-120EX-RevC

$4,978.00

Expensive, but top-notch.  My budget was $5000 and so with shipping I’ll be a touch over.  I don’t care though, she’s going to fly.  I haven’t decided on a name for her yet.  I’ll have to meet her face-to-face first, but I’m already in love.