gears are used in much more than just clockworks. Most vehicles on the road will have some gearing. Same with most avionics. TBH any place where you want to change rotational speed in a system. Are you suggesting no gears are used in cooling, air filtration or engine systems of a Star Wars vehicle?

OK the TIE engine does have no moving parts, but the piping system in the wings would almost certainly have gearing involved in the pump.

The definition of clockwork is uses a spring for energy storage. If the definition was contained gears, I'll go for a nice drive in my clockwork car, after grabbing a drink from my clockwork fridge. Maybe I'll put a 'choon on my clockwork CD player.

saying that doesn't bother me much. You see Clockwork, I see Industrial.. It's all subjective. And why I designed my own templates.

how easy are these to paint?

From previous experience acrylic comes with a film or protective paper on them and when you laser etch on the acrylic it 'burns' the paper off leaving the detail without protective paper, and the unetched portion of the piece covered.

So if it comes with the protective paper on them, it would be really easy since you just paint before removing the protective film.

As you said, it depends if it comes covered or not. I know Applied Perspectives leaves the paper on all of the templates, which makes them easy to paint. Tokens I generally more or less just cover the entire surface and then scrape the excess off once it dries, with something hard enough to chip the paint off but soft enough to not scratch up the surface of the token. Other tokens or the edge of small templates work well for this if you don't use too much pressure. Fingernails can work.

It comes with the paper on, so it's very easy to paint. Just make sure you leave it to dry before you remove the protection so it doesn't bleed.

I got Rodents templates and am quite happy with them.. i think an imperial emblem would be cool in place of the gears, but I did buy them as is.. i think you both have points, I see both aspects but only thought of the steam Punk idea after reading this thread..

I ended up buying some movement templates and other stuff from Litko last month that arrived last week. I have to say I'm quite impressed with them. The color is called 'Transparent Bronze'. Though they look opaque, they are indeed transparent. On a light background it's sort of hard to see the design and movement arrows. I had the Imperial logo added special so they took a while to complete. Otherwise, couldn't be happier with them.

Litko makes nice stuff, but yeah - speedy they are not. I am heartened to see they've finally abandoned slapping their logo in huge print on one end of the templates, I've bugged them about that a number of times.

I've gotten most of my stuff recently from Adam with Applied Perspectives, because he's fast, local, and incredibly exacting, and his philosophy is basically that if you put out nice templates, people will ask you where you got them (and I've had a number of people come up and do just that). If you have good prices, good customer service, exceptional quality, your customers will be more than happy to TELL people where they came from, so why not let the product speak for itself?

Not to mention, even when they were slapping their logo on one end of every template, you can still only see it if you're sitting there AT the table, so it only does so much good.

Those turned out pretty sharp, Quinn. You could try painting the etchings in white (or any color, really) to make them pop a bit more. As mentioned above, it's EASIEST to do if you get them with the protective paper still covering the non-etched surfaces, and Litko I think pulls that before shipping, unfortunately, But it's still very doable - you can either carefully paint them in with a small brush, or slather paint on and then very gently scrape the excess off after it dries, using the edge of a template or token. If you use gentle pressure it should shave off without scratching everything up. I paint most of my templates in white to make the etching really jump out.

I've gotten most of my stuff recently from Adam with Applied Perspectives, because he's fast, local, and incredibly exacting...

I ordered two sets from Adam last week, one for me and one for a friend. Got them the same week, but I kinda expected the shipping to be quick. I'm like 50 miles or less from Applied Perspectives.

I love them, got the dark blue and red translucent sets and they really look good. Debating if I want to paint the etching or not, was thinking of using metallic sliver paint for the blue, and metallic gold for the red. But to be honest the etching is pretty easy to read as is.

Only issue I have is a bit of OCD... If I pick up one and notice the etching is on the other side, I have to turn it around, even though its pointing the right way.

Ooh - metallics. I didn't even think about trying metallics. With the right colors, doing the etching in silver or gold or something could be SHARP.

Ooh - metallics.

Well I have them from other mini's I've painted. Perhaps I'll try it anyway and see how it turns out.

Thanks for the responses guys! We're purchasing a few sets for our local group here in ontario and most of us like the cogotwo designs and token sets.