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Post by madmanmike on Aug 11, 2012 9:00:18 GMT -9
EDIT: Now that this is finally coming to fruition I figure some people will be doing a google search and stumble into this thread, so I thought I'd point out that quite a bit has changed since it started. Likewise I'd once again like to thank all those who participated in this thread giving me feedback that allowed me to improve on my original designs to get these to market. Cheers! </edit> As I've mentioned in the tour of DeviantArt thread, I'm working on a couple of sets of fantasy paper miniatures for my publisher Palladium Books®. There's a free sample set coming out in a few days, but I thought I'd toss this up here for you guys ahead of time. This is a collage of some of the art from the second set.. Clockwise from left in first circle: Peasant Woman, Peasant Man, Noble Woman, Noble Man, City Guard, Captain of the Guard, Collector, and Bandit. General NPC encounter type folk on this page, 27 minis in all. Second circle: Skeleton Warrior, Ogre Skeleton Warrior, Skeleton Warrior, Necromancer, Skeleton Warrior, Zombie. Yeah, the second page is all skeletons (15 human sized, 2 Ogre sized) and Zombies(5) with the Necromancer. 23 in all, plus seven piles of bones. There's also a third page in that set of horses(10), dogs(4) and lions(3), all with riding tack.
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Post by madmanmike on Aug 11, 2012 9:57:47 GMT -9
I'm working on NPC stat cards for each of the miniatures before they go up for sale, so it's a time consuming task. I get bored with that pretty quick and I've found myself developing the next set of minis, for Palladium's Phase World® setting. This is a space opera setting. From left to right, a Runner (smuggler), CAF Trooper, an Alien Tracer (bounty hunter), CAF Fleet Officer, and TVIA Inspector (essentially an intergalactic Interpol officer.
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Post by Rhannon on Aug 11, 2012 13:56:28 GMT -9
I know some palladium's rpgs from time. When in wthe late eighties, early nineties, I took, here in Italy, beyond supernatural and recon.
But Palladium is known for its excellent RPGs, and so its producs are "for rpg"
I like very much your minis, Mike. Very much. Colors, light, shadow ... but we have already spoken about it.
The Captian ( or Captain ) Sands' image ( and hobgoblin too ) on your deviant personal page show all fine details (probably some of them will be lost when the figures are in scale 32 mm.) of your work.
The sash, the red leather inserts in jacket ... Good job.
But they are an rpg product. So many iconic characters from fantasy and hard sci-fi lore but ( just my personal preference ) maybe a few multiple figures of the same subject ( example: just one city guard ... one CAF trooper ... )
Imho it would be wonderful if for some subjects, especially soldiers, there were more than one figure.
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Post by madmanmike on Aug 11, 2012 16:35:54 GMT -9
Please clarify, did you mean there should be multiple copies of the same mini, or multiple minis to represent each class? The Fantasy city guard pictured for example, is one of six, all in the same basic outfit, but varying faces, body shapes, poses and weapons. In fact, there are no two minis that are the same in either of the packages I'm putting together. Even the horses are all different (although some share the same pose and tack, all are different colors and styles).
The Heroes Unlimited set I did was a first time experiment I did to run a game at Palladium Books Open House this past May. The alien invaders were all the same because they were essentially cannon-fodder. In fact, in one of the times I ran the game, one of the players concluded from the way they splattered when he killed them that they must be pancake-batter aliens. "Yeah, they probably have a spigot that pours the batter into a mold and cook them, then zap'em with some sorta life ray. Viola, instant soldier."
I'm expecting to sell the packages for $6 a piece; from what I've seen of the products available, this should be seen as a steal. The few packages I've seen that have as many minis in a package either charge $10+ or have multiple copies of the same minis to make up the numbers.
And likewise, there isn't any preview art for most of the "40+ minis in a package" deals, and that doesn't exactly instill confidence. I'm pretty up front about what my mini's will look like. Granted, I try to only present it in a way that makes it difficult to hack them into freebies, but I do show them off and am offering some free samples (as soon as Palladium gets around to approving them).
There are 29 classes available in the Palladium Fantasy® RPG main book, that's why there is only one mini for each on the first page, one for each of 27 classes (the other two classes are in the second package). The second page in the first package is a variety of orcs, goblins, ogres and a troll, since I felt it was necessary to have somebody for the players to fight. Many of the minis can be used for more than one class, and I do intend to do variety packs with more minis for each class; maybe a package of just fighter classes, another of just magic classes, etc.
It all depends on how it all sells. Palladium will get the lions share of the profits, and I'm taking a percentage of each one sold rather than a flat fee that is common for freelance artists. So if hundreds sell, I'll be able to do some more, if thousands sell, I'll be able to upgrade my computer to do more. If only a few sell, well, I'll have done them and it will be a learning experience. And I'll probably do more even if they don't sell, assuming I have the time and ability, as I really enjoy doing them.
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Post by Rhannon on Aug 12, 2012 0:09:42 GMT -9
Please clarify, did you mean there should be multiple copies of the same mini, or multiple minis to represent each class? The Fantasy city guard pictured for example, is one of six, all in the same basic outfit, but varying faces, body shapes, poses and weapons. In fact, there are no two minis that are the same in either of the packages I'm putting together. Even the horses are all different (although some share the same pose and tack, all are different colors and styles) ... Sorry Mike, often my English is very terrible. What I meant is "multiple minis to represent each class". Just like in your example about the city guards ( ... the same basic outfit, but varying faces, body shapes, poses and weapons ... ) Palladium is a classic rpg producer, so there is a class and there is a mini that represents it. And this is correct. But some supporting characters (NPCs), as guards for example ( or sci-fi soldiers ), if there are a few more is better imho. Obviously in order to use these figures in small skirmish wargames (or other boardgames) would be needed more thematic sets. I meant exactly this. I hope that sales will be a lot. Palladium is a well known producer, it has its loyal followers and its brands are played by many. Draw his official miniatures will surely be a big help for sales. But I fear that the numbers of sales in this field (paper minis) will not be thousands of units. I think not even Paizo (with its Pathfinder Paper Minis) can do it. Eventually you could think to sell a few sets directly.
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Post by madmanmike on Aug 12, 2012 4:42:50 GMT -9
Yeah, I'm not actually holding my breath for thousands of sales, but as you said, it should help the business overall. Of course, thousands aren't out of the realm of possibility, as there should be crossover from the people who don't usually buy minis but do buy Palladium Books, since each mini has an NPC card that's useable by GM's without the miniatures. There's always a demand for NPCs, as making them is time-consuming and often the greatest drudgery of being a GM (as I'm finding out doing them now).
One of Palladium's Forum member suggested I sell just the NPC cards separate for just that reason. But I want people to have both more than I think it would be worth making them buy separate sets.. I don't want to discount them by separating them, so they'll stay together.
On top of the City Guards, Collector and Bandits, the second set has 8 different peasants (four male and four female, one dwarf of each), as well as 6 different nobles (three male and three female, one elf each). I'm calling that set "Background Folk", as it's got plenty to fill a scene.
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Post by Rhannon on Aug 12, 2012 5:13:51 GMT -9
Mike, I will buy your sets even though they had only half figure for type. ;D ;D
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Post by madmanmike on Aug 13, 2012 10:06:21 GMT -9
Thanks! They're on the way!
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Post by madmanmike on Aug 14, 2012 9:42:24 GMT -9
Some Fantasy Zombies.. These are from the second set of minis I'm doing..
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Post by madmanmike on Aug 19, 2012 16:23:27 GMT -9
Oy vey..
This afternoon I was rendering a panther for a miniature for a friend, and the program locked up; I was messing with the date and time settings on my computer trying to figure the time difference between myself and a friend in Europe, and the render engine got confused and suddenly thought it was taking an extra six hours to render, so I really accidentally locked it up myself.
The program does the full render, then writes the image file to the designated location. Said location was on my 1TB LACIE Rugged external hard drive. When the program locked, I rebooted the computer, and noticed the hard drive was very hot. When the computer came back on, the hard drive didn't come back up, so I rebooted, unplugging the drive and letting it cool a while.
Long story short, the drive is dead. I bought it on February 25th, and EVERYTHING I've done since then was on the drive. Since my accident in December I've been recovering on Workers Comp, so I've had all day every day to make art, and have done a substantial amount. Most of it is on DeviantArt, quite a bit of it is still on my computer in raw ready to render files, but none of it is backed up anywhere else, so all the postwork would need to be done after rendering again.
To the point. My miniatures. Thankfully, just two hours before the crash, I finished all of the art for the first two packages, and have the base pdf files on my computer. Likewise as mentioned above, the base ready to render files are on my computer as well. But, the finished ready to edit artwork for each individual mini is actually done at 9x11.5 inches, 300dpi, and all of that is gone. Remaking any of them will mean spending the extra 1-2 hours rendering each image.
I need to focus on the drudgery of making the NPC stat cards for each (all 115 of them) so they can go up for sale, hopefully in the next couple of weeks. Many of them will be similar to each other (like the 17 Skeletons, or the 6 City Guards), but it will be time consuming to say the least..
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Post by Vermin King on Aug 19, 2012 17:24:27 GMT -9
Oh, my ... will anything be recoverable from the drive?
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Post by hackbarth on Aug 20, 2012 5:14:00 GMT -9
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Post by madmanmike on Aug 20, 2012 5:32:34 GMT -9
I'm a Mac user. My tech guy has suggested that it may be the hardware in the case, but cracking the case open to pop the drive into another and check will void the warranty, so if it's indeed unrecoverable, I'll be out the data AND the drive. I'm on worker's comp and living from check to check, I can't afford to throw away $250 on the chance that I can get the data back.
I'm inclined to let sleeping dogs lie, use the warranty to replace the drive and learn this lesson that I'm sure most PC users learn fairly early in their computer experience. 24 years of daily computer use and I've never had a crash like this..
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Post by madmanmike on Oct 16, 2012 9:22:17 GMT -9
Well, the data proved unrecoverable. I have the replacement drive now, as well as another portable 1TB drive a friend has given me, so I'm backing up in duplicate now; when a project is completed I'll probably archive on DVD too.
That said, progress on this project has all but stalled as I've been dealing with the loss.. It's the technical side of the project that's got me bogged down; I still have all of the original 3d files, so I could go back and reconstruct the full page images if needs be, but the final miniature art for both packages (as well as the freebie set) are done, I just have to do all the stat cards to get them to print...
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Post by onemonkeybeau on Oct 16, 2012 10:24:23 GMT -9
Ugh... sorry man... technology is great... until it breaks
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Post by Vermin King on Oct 16, 2012 11:37:07 GMT -9
sorry about that. computers make you life easier or horrible, little middle ground
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Post by madmanmike on Oct 23, 2012 6:35:54 GMT -9
Still slogging along on the stat cards.. It's non-art nature is difficult for me, as I've grown accustomed to making images every day.. To that end I find myself side-tracked quite a bit working on other images for my own edification.. The potential to run a Palladium Fantasy RPG session in the near future has presented itself, so I took a few hours yesterday to turn out these three, a Soldier, Longbowman and Wizard of the Army of Timiro..
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Post by Rhannon on Oct 23, 2012 6:45:37 GMT -9
OK Mike, I like very much these figs.
Do you have an estimated time for the marketing of these?
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Post by glennwilliams on Oct 23, 2012 7:11:49 GMT -9
absolutely gorgeous.
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Post by madmanmike on Oct 23, 2012 7:39:25 GMT -9
Thanks guys, but as I said, the NPC cards are taking forever.. I realize that they probably won't be used by you, but they are the primary feature that will sell these packages to Palladium's core fan base, and thus a necessary part. Overall I'm looking at 48 cards (5 pages) of them for the first package and 67 (7 pages) of them for the second package. Palladium wants them all done before either goes up on DriveThruRPG.com. I've actually completed a freebie sample set with four minis, an arena map and some simplified combat rules so it can be played without any books, but they don't want to put that up until I'm close to finishing the purchase packages.
Palladium has a reputation for being late to print, so by not putting them out until they are already finished, they can avoid the complaints that delays create (and if you've ever been to their forums, you'll see that complaints of this nature are a bad portion of the traffic).
I'm working as fast as I can. I'll keep you guys informed..
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Post by Vermin King on Oct 23, 2012 7:51:22 GMT -9
Looks very promising. Good luck.
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Post by madmanmike on Oct 24, 2012 6:29:44 GMT -9
Those russian army minis are inspiring, I had to try out my resources for a US Army mini.. It needs work, and I'll have to expand my accessories to do a full set, but I think when I can get to it a US Military mini set will be on the way too..
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Post by madmanmike on Oct 24, 2012 6:33:02 GMT -9
Oh, and despite some bad goings on in the real world, I did also get a couple of my stat cards done yesterday, so the progress on the fantasy minis continues...
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Post by madmanmike on Dec 31, 2012 12:02:57 GMT -9
Hey guys, hope everyone's having a happy holiday season. Just a quick update; I've made some significant progress on the NPC cards, so with any luck the first package should be up on DriveThruRPG in the next month or two.
Worker's Comp has continued to drag it's feet; the doctor ordered vocational training on August 3rd as my injuries will prevent me from returning to the type of work I've done for the past 10+ years, and Worker's Comp didn't send me for their second opinion/assessment until October 29th. Late November the rep called and told me she finally had the report from that visit, and that she'd review it and get back to me.
After another month of waiting on Christmas Eve I got a letter notifying me of a scheduled Settlement Hearing in court... on March 9th. The rep has asked me to schedule a followup with the doctor so he can give me an official disability rating.
I have no idea what the future holds, but here's hoping it's bright for everyone. Happy New Year!
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Post by Vermin King on Dec 31, 2012 12:25:23 GMT -9
Best of luck on everything
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Post by madmanmike on Feb 4, 2013 9:00:05 GMT -9
A little update.. Upon perusing the expansive catalog of another paper mini publisher, I noticed the reviews gave quite a bit of credit for including multiple styles of minis, ie flat, three-sided and pyramid.. I've never given much thought to this issue, as including different mini styles in a package means either reducing the number of individual minis or taking the document size to an extreme level. Still, I want to cover all the bases, so I did a few renders of some of my minis in a flat style and decided I just can't bring myself to compromise the art in the ways necessary to make the front and back images line up. I know that a good portion of flat minis don't even have a back image, instead just flipping the front, but that's not what I want, and in the end an artist has to chase their own needs to be productive. Here's a comparision between the flat style and my style. While they do look quite a bit similar, the loss of depth is just too ugly for me. But you guys are the paper mini guys, what do you think?
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Post by gilius on Feb 4, 2013 9:41:27 GMT -9
I think you have answered your question: it is a matter of taste and, as shown by products from other companies, each style is viable although you probably will not find a "one size fits all" solution.
Personally, I never understood why existing 3D-rendered minis do not use parallel projection, like your example, so that they can have matching front and back. Your comment about "uglyness" is probably the answer. I do not find it ugly -- it is the kind of style many hand-drawn miniatures use, after all.
I think it is important to note that a 28mm mini placed on the table and viewed from 2-3 feet away will show very little perspective distortion due to the distance. So maybe even if it looks artistically ugly on the screen it might work well as a miniature. In my opinion, shading becomes more important than foreshortening. I can remember quite a few minis with "flat perspective" and good shading that seem to have real volume on the table. In smaller scales, I would say that color contrast becomes even more important than the rest.
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Post by oldschooldm on Feb 4, 2013 9:45:29 GMT -9
Here's some feedback from a fan of all the work here... Here's a comparision between the flat style and my style. While they do look quite a bit similar, the loss of depth is just too ugly for me. But you guys are the paper mini guys, what do you think? So - I scale these down to 28mm and I must tell you, I can't tell the difference. This isn't me stating a preference, but admitting that I don't see a significant variation without being told to look for one. That's the secret here, the creators *know* there's a difference, but *I* didn't even notice until you said there was. The folks in my games - those picking these up, knocking these over, or moving these around will not notice. Honestly, I think the artists who care how many units they *sell* should compromise issues like this to meet whatever the market tells them. Those who don't care what the market thinks and just want to be happy with their work? More power to you! Just don't be disappointed when people like me (100% consumer) go "Meh! I can't see the difference. I'd pay for more colors/poses/backs/whatever instead." Personally - I like the art style, but the no-backs thing has really limited my purchase of this mini style. But that's just me.
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Post by Rhannon on Feb 4, 2013 10:10:02 GMT -9
Hi Mike, I'm glad to see you here.
Yours is a fair question. And we just talked about it in another recent topic. Where I ( unfortunately ) have exceeded. I know that my opinion doesn't count, because I'm too hard about the back art "affair". ;D
The secret is that this is a highly personal taste. Not all authors make back art, for various reasons, including the ones you mentioned before. In some games' types a back image is not needed, it is only aesthetically beautiful ( in other types it is required, imho )
You talk about paper mins but when you say "flat, three-sided pyramid and ..." you're talking about standies ( rectangular stand-ins ) not about paper minis ( paper minis have front ad back art, they don't have these options ).
It is your artistic choice (and as author and producer), how to do and what to do.
Personally, although I have many standies' sets (all arion games' production , which I like very much ) I'm not very interested in three-dimensional, square, five, ultra-dimensional ... options.
Whenever it is possible I prefer to have good front and back arts. And I am more than happy so.
About your examples. As you say the first image is a generic "flat style" ( a style that everyone uses ). The second figure is the "my style". A personal style, original and unique. I'm not doubt as to which I prefer. Nor you should have doubts.
It is not important whether the front art and back art do not coincide in shape. A white border more or less large solves everything. But not flat, please.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 4, 2013 10:25:52 GMT -9
Here's a comparision between the flat style and my style. While they do look quite a bit similar, the loss of depth is just too ugly for me. But you guys are the paper mini guys, what do you think? Perspective will always look better than an orthographic projection, just because it looks more natural and dynamic. The downside, of course, is that the front and back will not line up, and if you want to include a back, that's a major problem. Best solution is to keep your renders orthographic, but introduce the dynamics in a different way. You could get a lot out of that mage just by rotating the view about 5 degrees on the vertical axis instead of just rendering the front view. You'd also do well to exaggerate the pose a little (or a lot!)... More swagger in the hips so the belt isn't perfectly horizontal would make a big difference. Making his robe blow in the wind would break the symmetry and make things look more interesting too. When you're designing miniatures, you will want to have nice looking details up close, because awesome details are awesome, but it's worth remembering that it's going to be on a table quite far away from the eyes of the user and those details are going to just disappear, so it's very important to give the figure a prominent and noticeable silhouette that makes it stand apart from all the other figures on the table and keeps it recognisable at a distance.
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