After a week dominated by having builders in and around the house, it was nice to be able to put the dining room in order on Saturday and sit down to some painting.
As ever, the photos aren't terribly good, but I hope you get the idea...
The barbarian is from a Kickstarter that Oathsworn Miniatures did back in 2013.
A particularly poor photo, I'm afraid, but she's 'Olivia' a Reaper Bones' Apothecary/Cleric.
Ral Partha giant stag beetles. Not much more to add to that.
And these are from Lucid Eye's Toon Realms range. Quite nice range if you like whimsey.
Before I start, last Sunday was the first bonus round ('Reconnaissance') for the Challenge. I didn't submit anything, but plenty of people did - and it's splendid work. Go over there, have a look and vote for your favorites.
My submission took the form of some dungeon delvers and critters, earning me 40 points.
I've been asked some questions about this, so a little context. As regular readers will know, I started attending a game when a new FLGS opened last summer. It is decidedly Old School (we use Necrotic Gnomes' B/X Essentials and are delving into a mega-dungeon called the Barrowmaze). It's a bit of a meat-grinder - six months in and I'm on my fourth character!
Odds and sods from various sprues
There are no fancy classes or multi-classes; a trap is more likely to be a pit with spikes in the bottom than a portal to another plane; and you're much more likely to meet rats that flying eyeball monsters. That being so, the guy with the ten-foot pole is probably the most usefully kitted-out!
We normally meet once a fortnight as an open table. As a consequence, we don't know who or how many will turn up, but it's been a roaring success. This week, for the first time we had too many (16) people and had to split off into two tables. Fortunately, we're lucky enough to have a second DM who always brings his kit and a module just in case.
All the figures are 28mm, The humans are plastics (a mix of manufactures and bits from odd sprues, including Mantic, Northstar's Oathmark and a Frostgrave Cultist); the dwarf is a metal Oathmark champion; and the giant rats some second-hand lead I picked up last year.
As I didn't post the finished results of the minis I was painting just before the Challenge began, here they all are together.
I'm glad to say that I can present another Paint Table Saturday. I'm actually picking up brushes again! I'm even reconsidering my decision not to take up a slot in the AHPC this year.
The immediate purpose for these minis is our fortnightly RPG. As it's an open table, we never know who's going to turn up or what characters are going to form the party. Although the GM likes the aesthetic of using his 1980s cardboard figures (which I think are older than he is!), I feel it's nice for players to have a choice of something a little more three dimensional. Last time we found that we had no haflings in either form.
As you can see, I've tried some different methods for basing. The lentils have come out better that I thought (though I'll be tidier with them next time).
Admin first. I've changed the name of this series of posts from 'Frostgrave Fursday' to 'Fantasy Thursday' as I think it will cause less confusion.*
* Not that that's a given though - did anyone else see the title of the post on Wargames News and Terrain last week 'X Stocking Fantasy Figures' and momentarily think the figures were 'Stocking Fantasies'?
Earlier in the month I mentioned a couple of figures I'd bought in a sale, thinking that they were from the same manufacturer as the various other wizards I'd painted up for Frostgrave. I was mistaken - the first figures were from Midlam Miniatures and the new ones from Otherworld Miniatures. Well I've now painted them up. In truth, I much prefer them to the Midlams - they have more character and are more dynamic. Of course you makes your choice and pays your money: Midlam's figures are £2.00 each, whereas Otherworld's are £5.00. I have to think long and hard before spending a fiver on a figure.
I'm quite taken with the dwarf and how he turned out. He's made me think that I might dig out the fabulous Oathsworn dwarves and haflings from last year's Kickstarter. Why shouldn't they get some of the Frostgrave booty?
Ave Salute!
I hope everyone who is going to Salute has fun and managed not to spend too much money.
Me, I'm saving myself for Diceni and hoping I have some spare cash when it comes around.
Sid the Beast
After writing about snap dragons and 'obby 'osses yesterday, I remember that you can buy such a beastie of your own. He's Sid from Fenris Games, and fits in with their Faceless Cultists range. It's a range that's often tempted me. He might also do well with the armed Morris Dancers if you put flowers in his hair.
Hey Goomba!
This morning in writing about BigT from Pigeon Guard Games I suggested that what we needed was a Paulie Walnuts. Well, word on the streets is that a 'Wally Peanuts' might be joining the gang.
Order Received, Processed and Completed
Does anyone understand Black Tree Designs methodology?
I placed an order with them on 29 Mar and received an acknowledgement that day; on 1 Apr I had an e-mail saying that the order had now been 'Processed' and on 23 Apr one saying it had been 'Completed' and dispatched. Does anyone know what BTD means by all this? I know the money was taken off me at point of sale and that as 'found stock' the figures didn't need to be cast or (a favorite one of there's) shipped from the US? Personally, when I receive an order at Diplomatist Books I try to 'process' and 'complete' it that day...
Oathsworn
It wasn't my cup of tea, but here's a cry-out to Michael and Jo at Oathsworn for their successful Burrows and Badgers Kickstarter (£15,520 pledged on a £4,000 target). Oathsworn are old hands at Kickstarters and mange them in an exemplary manner - there will be some happy customers once the figures are sent out.
Free Stuff!
We all love free stuff. don't we?
Sally 4th had produced a couple of pdf's to dress their Terra-Block system. Those lucky enough to go to one of their workshops at Salute will get the whole room (blocks and all) free. The rest of us can download the pdfs here.
Nice as the system seems to be, I'm afraid it doesn't fit in within my budget limitations. However, I thought to myself, why not download the pdf and use it anyway? (olde-time readers will remember I had a some success with a cardstock Egyptian tomb). I'll keep you apprised.
No Paint Table Saturday for me, as I haven't picked up a brush in weeks. Instead, here's a bit of a round-up post.
Shiny, shiny!
As regular readers will know, I have developed something of a lead-crush for Oathsworn Miniatures. Back in May therefore it didn't take long for me to decide to sign up for their latest Kickstarter, the first in a projected series of Gods from various mythologies. As you'd expect, they've started with the Asgard.
Well this morning a jiffy bag arrived containing Great Odin himself, mounted on his eight-legged horse Sleipnir.
A nice friendly box
with lots of pieces in it
but they look as if they'll fit together
Next up in Project Pantheon will be Freyja astride the battle-swine Hildisvini, which is already sculpted, but they're releasing some more dwarfs first.
Shed Shelf Monday, what's that about?
Last week I picked up some cheap shelves in the charity shop for the Shed of Delights, and I even managed to put them up. Not super-organised like some, but it's something of an improvement.
Before...
Now
But they soon fill up...
Pulp-tastic!
Just a pointer to those who might be interested that there's a new(ish) Facebook group for those into Pulp - Pulp Miniatures Gaming. Quite a bit of stuff to inspire and enjoy there.
For domestic reasons I didn't blog about it at the time, but last week Oathsworn Miniatures had a short Kickstarter to test the waters for Project Pantheon - figures of gods from various traditions (starting with the Norse).
The initial aim of this Kickstarter was to see if there was a demand for Odin riding his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir. It soon became clear that there was, and sculpting is now underway on the next figure in the project - Freyja astride the battle-swine Hildisvini.
Now, as some of you may remember, I signed up for one of Oathsworn's earlier projects and was very impressed, not only with the finished product, but with their whole ethos and communications. The picture of Hildisvini is from one of their almost daily updates, giving blow-by-blow WIP reports,
The Odin Kickstarter has ended, but it's still possible to make a 'late-bird' (??) pledge.
Several of you have made favorable comments on the Oathsworn Miniatures I received the other week and expressed interest in the various reports I gave of the progress of the Kickstarter.
The latest (and last) update from Oathsworn is of sufficient interest to reproduce it here - partly as an example of something done well and also because there are interesting things promised for the future. If you're not interested in the Kickstarter, start reading at the pictures.
Kickstarting Oathsworn...
First of all, I'd like to say a big 'Thank you!' to all of our backers. We've run two kickstarter projects, and they have both been successful - and a lot of that is down to you; so thanks everyone!
So looking back at the project we have just completed, what went well, and what would we do differently?
Well, right at the beginning, we had to decide what models to sculpt for the project. We'd asked backers of our first Kickstarter what they would like to see... by far the most common answer was 'More dwarfs!' After that, there were a fairly large number of people who wanted Halflings. But we also felt that it would be good to try and expand into other types of fantasy figures. So we did a mixed set - mostly Halflings, but with a few Dwarfs, Monsters and other odds and ends.
This was probably a mistake. We ended up with fewer backers than for our first Kickstarter, and a slightly lower funding total. But we had a lot more figures which needed moulding... With hindsight, I think keeping the project more focussed would have been better. I think we should have stuck to a single race.
Also, because there were so many different things in the project, it got quite expensive. A Completionist pledge, with a dragon and overseas shipping came to £125; that's quite a big chunk of money from anyone's hobby budget...
One other thing that was a mistake was the blacked-out images at the start of the project. The idea seemed good - you could see some of the figures, but would need to keep checking back to see the others as they were revealed. It also meant that we had regular updates to post, and pictures to send to the various forums and blogs. At least, that was the idea; instead it seems that many people had a look at the project page on day one, couldn't see a lot, and never came back...
Also, I think the project went on too long - four weeks is a long time to keep people's interest going, and we had a few drop out in the third week.
Postage was also a bit of an issue - international postage has gone up a lot... for example, the last batch of 23 parcels cost £468 to post; more than £20 each, plus packaging. And when our highest P+P level was £10, that hurt a bit! But we'll keep trying to absorb the cost as much as possible, because I think P+P costs can really put backers off; very few people realise how much it actually costs.
And the final mistake - resin bases! Now, don't get me wrong, I like resin bases - I don't even mind the effort involved in drilling and pinning figures to use them. The mistake was offering them as a free upgrade. If they had worked the way we planned (as a thin insert to plug into a plastic base) it would have been OK; but the thin inserts kept warping, or just snapping. So we had to make the full resin bases. They took a lot of time and money to do... we've worked out that for the same amount of time and money we could have sculpted two more figures, and given them away free to every backer! And we are pretty sure most of you would rather have had a couple of free figures instead...
So those are the things we did wrong... what did we do right? First of all, I think our projected delivery date was right - we'd originally hoped to have the figures delivered before Christmas, but decided we ought to set the delivery date for February, simply because a lot of the production process is out of our hands. And this was a good thing; getting the master casts cleaned up and ready for production moulding took a lot longer than anticipated. Then of course the casters had other commitments to fulfil as well, and pretty soon Christmas was upon us. On top of that, we had several thousand resin bases to cast (thanks Jo!). So as it worked out, our February delivery goal was about right.
Secondly, I think we did pretty well with the communication - we kept on top of the updates, and tried to respond to as many comments as possible. I need to start using the Facebook page as well though... I never remember to use Facebook!
I also like to think that I did the sculpting pretty well - there were a few things in this project that I'd never tried sculpting before, but I was reasonably happy with the way it all turned out; there are a few bits that I would do differently, but nothing major.
So what lessons have we learned from it all? I think we need to do shorter projects, with fewer figures, and more focus. And try to run one every 2 to 3 months. That way, if a project doesn't appeal to you, you can ignore it, and there'll be another along in a couple of months.
We also need to make resin bases a paid add-on... ;
I also think it would be useful to have more control over the casting process; Jo's working on that at the moment...
What have we got planned next? Well, the first thing is to get our webshop up and running... thanks to our two Kickstarter projects, we've got the beginnings of a fantasy miniatures range. So we need to have the figures available for sale on our website. That's our priority.
After that, Jo is going to be having a go at casting... we've bought an old spin casting machine, and a little melting pot, and we'll see whether or not it is something we can do for ourselves. If it is, then that should speed things up for us a lot in terms of delivery. Fingers crossed!
Next, we will be launching a new project - some more dwarfs (after all, my plan is to eventually have 1000 different dwarf sculpts - and we've only got 22 so far!). We seem to have a mix of backers; some want miniatures just to paint, some to use in role- playing games, and others as part of armies for tabletop wargaming. So the next dwarf project will feature 2 sets of figures; 8 to 10 dwarfs who run a brewery, and 8 to 10 dwarfs who form a unit of heavily armoured tunnel fighters. The first set is aimed more at RPG / skirmish game fans (like Jo); the second set is more for the army builder types (like me!).
This will be a short project, probably 10 days to a fortnight long. I expect we'll launch it in late March.
Around the same time, (maybe even at the same time!) we'll be launching another small project - just for one model. It's not really anything that fits in with our usual models, and is more just something I really want to try out. For a long time, I've been fascinated by Norse mythology - I've sculpted various Norse gods over the years... and now I finally want to try doing it properly, and making a range of gods. So, I'm going to have a go at launching Project Pantheon - starting with a sculpt of Odin riding on Sleipnir, his eight-legged horse. Size-wise, it's a bit bigger than other Oathsworn stuff (which is all 1/56th scale, if you were wondering). The Odin figure will be about 40mm tall, but I think as a god he should be an imposing model. He'll also need to be a multi-part kit, because it's a complicated model. I have no idea whether this project will be successful or not - that'll depend on whether or not there are enough Norse god fans in the Tabletop Gaming community... but then that's the beauty of Kickstarter, we can see whether people are interested before we spend too much money! If it is successful, I'd like to have a go at Thor, Loki, Heimdall, Hel and all the rest...There's a very early WIP pic below.
In the longer term, we are aiming to launch our first game. This will be a tabletop miniatures skirmish game, a similar concept to Games Workshop's old game, Mordheim. So about a dozen models per player, and a campaign system with experience points and skills, extra equipment, stuff like that. That way, we'll cater to the role-players and the wargamers in our gaming group! ;)
Originally, we were thinking of a generic fantasy skirmish game, but that idea has a few problems; firstly, we'd need a much bigger range of figures to make it work, and secondly, we'd need to do a massive amount of playtesting and balancing work to make sure all the races worked together properly. So we've settled on a game set in 14th century England, so all the characters will be human, but with fantasy elements. Basically, all the superstitions, religious beliefs, devils and witchcraft are real in the game. The game takes place in the lost medieval town of Ravensrodd; which gives a very cool, real-world setting. The town was devastated by storms, and became a haunt of vagabond bands of looters, thieves, pirates and mercenaries before it was finally destroyed by the Grote Mandrenke, the 'Great drowning of men' in 1362. In terms of miniatures, there'll be lots of human fighter types, plus some of the weird stuff - plague victims, the possessed, religious fanatics, witches etc. There will also be sprues of add-on parts - weapons, pouches, shields etc. As a project, there's a lot to do, and we will just be working on it between other things - so it could be a long time before we get it finished.
Anyway, that's the current state of Oathsworn Miniatures. If you read all that, well done - it was a lot of text!
Once again, thank you all for making our first year as a business successful; we really could not have done it without you!
cheers,
Michael and Jo
Oathsworn Miniatures
...and in that, in bubble-wrap and plastic bags were shiny things.
This is the fruit of the Oathsworn Kickstarter that I signed up for last September. The figures were very attractive as greens, and they come out just as well in the (metal) flesh.
This has been a model Kickstarter. There were many relevant updates, both during and after the fundraising (covering stuff like the design process, casting, choice of boxes and a how-to on the bases) and everything was on time and delivered as promised (in fact, they are ahead of there promise of a February delivery!).
As regular readers will know, I have developed something of a lead-crush for Oathsworn Miniatures. Back in May therefore it didn't take long for me to decide to sign up for their latest Kickstarter, the first in a projected series of Gods from various mythologies. As you'd expect, they've started with the Asgard.
