It's Time To Make Some Miniatures!

Our next instalment is an exciting one, Its time to make some miniatures! From this point on we take all the 2D art and produce phase 1 sculpts. Phase 1 is our first attempt at bringing a character to life. This will then go through several rounds of feedback and adjustments with all of the creative team, until we end up with a miniature that is ready for prototyping! So without further ado, I give you one of twelve characters from the soon to be announced kickstarter - Sister Tsaverite Cavernsfall

Time To Create Some Characters

The next step in the process is to create a high detail sketch that guides the sculptor as they start to create the 3D models. When creating miniatures, things are never quite as simple as "take the art and make it 3D". We have to make a number of decisions at this stage that will save us a lot of wasted time further down the line.

As a sculptor working to produce castable miniatures, you have to always create within the constraints of the casting process. There is no point making something amazing, that is impossible to manufacture. Although from the outside this looks like its a negative, it's really not! The challenge of pushing boundaries, inventing creative workarounds are what make designing miniatures exciting. As artists, the constraints or reproduction will act to challenge us to to improve on every model we design.

Once again we go back and revise the art, question challenging areas and start to consider how we will take the 2D sketches and make them 3D. At each of these 2D art stages, we make extensive notes on how we will work through the next exciting step, that's right, the next step will be all about the 3D design process!!!

Concepts Complete, What's Next?

We are just embarking on a truly epic project to produce season 1 and 2 miniatures for the amazing Dark Dice Podcast.

We thought you might like to see what goes on behind the scenes when creating new miniatures and it a begins with a pencil, some paper and our very talented concept artist, Shane!

We have had plenty of conversations with the amazing team over at Dark Dice and try to create a diverse set of posed designs, that give us options for the composition of the 3d miniatures. This is less about fine details and more about capturing the perfect pose that reflects the characters and their rich in game personalities.

Next we create full concepts and then sculpting the miniatures begins! Stay tuned for more updates.......

Dungeons and Diversity Update!

The last few weeks have been a real pleasure. The overwhelming positive feedback means the world to us and so we only think it's fair to bring you all along for the ride!

Deadline: Our initial deadline for shipping was the week commencing the 21st September. The team have worked around the clock to not just make 4 models go from a digital file to a miniature, but make it as perfect as we possibly can.

Unfortunately we are going to be little late and our aim is to now ship week commencing the 28th September.

There are a number of reasons for the week's delay, the first is the volume of models we needed to produce and the second (and more important delay) has come from a number of mould amendments and tweaks in creating the moulds on these designs. Usually when we create moulds we know exactly what's needed to go from digital to a physical miniature. As these amazing designs are the first in both their complexity and type, we have had to work exceptionally hard to cast these miniatures in as few pieces as possible without compromising quality.

Have a look at some of the work that's been going on whilst you have been patiently been waiting:

We are breaking new grounds in metal moulding, so made the decision to move the shipping deadline. The last thing we wanted to do is compromise the quality of the final product and this little extra time will mean we give you some truly amazing miniatures that reflect the importance that inspired their design!

I personally got to pick these up and inspect them at the end of last week and we are so proud of the miniatures!

Instead of packing and sending next week we are going to prep and prepare to speed up the packing process. This means by the end of the week we will be building shipping boxes, labeling and preparing packing slips. This way the second the models land, we can pack and ship in a much shorter amount of time!

Thank you for taking the time to read this and we appreciate your support and patience.

Trust us when we say they will be worth the wait!