angelofvengeance wrote:
I don't think there's been one business that hasn't been in dire straits at some point in its lifetime. It's a credit to Andy that he's chosen not to give up in hard times. I think he'll pull through. Dwarven stubborness indeed!

Creator Mierce Miniatures 1 day ago
@Yx - Sad to say that Tim and the boys could have cast that Heresy dragon in their sleep, and a long time ago...

 angelofvengeance wrote:
He did try a number of other companies actually.

yxalitis wrote:

At £200 per dragon, and over 200 orders (I know that some of the first orders were at a lower cost)

Extra sculpts to be completed, moulded, and cast.

 RiTides wrote:
Yes, I moved this to Dakka Discussions but left a link pointing to it in N&R (which will drop down the page and not be pushed up when people post).

We've kind of settled into putting non-new-game kickstarters into whatever other forum they fit in, with pure miniatures campaigns going into Dakka Discussions. It's not perfect, but otherwise Misc Games gets completely overwhelmed with all the miniatures Kickstarter threads!

Update #39 from Return Of The Monsters!

Oct 2 2015
Mmmm...maggoty
Maggotmen Now Squirming Out Into The World

Minion Dan has now started to cast the resin figures, which is freeing up my time to finally sit down and get things really sorted with the tweaking and moulding. The Maggotmen and Waspquitoes are now in production and we have almost completed the amount of packs we need to fulfill all the pledges that people have put through so far on the Pledge Manager Store. Today, Dan will be packing the 40 or so pledges that have been waiting for Maggotmen and Waspquitoes and these will begin to arrive around the world over the next week or so, depending on your local mail service's efficiency!

Meanwhile, this weekend, I shall be making master moulds for the Hellbeasts and the Netherlord Mk 1 (and hopefully some of Azaroth's arms, weapons and wings as we have a huge pile of his body just waiting for parts) with a view to making production moulds of those bits over the next week or so. the NL1 is one of the primary models holding most pledges back (we've got a LOT of Pantheon pledges to fill!) so once he's in production we will be shipping a great many more pledges at last.



Predictable Money Woes

Unfortunately, at this moment in time, I am going to have to do something I didn't want to and start adding *some* of the figures from the Kickstarter to the regular shop as pre-orders - the ones that we've got in production and whose true costs are now known. We've got piles of Trolls, Minotaurs, Slugs, Hellmites, Spiders and Maggotmen that are surplus to requirements or can't all be sent out because the pledges are waiting for Netherlords, Azaroths Hellbeasts etc. By this point in the original plan the KS was supposed to be fulfilled and everything available in the shop to keep money coming in. Thanks to the Dragon taking longer than expected, that hasn't happened. Between the lack of new stuff and all the other KS projects active right now, diverting miniatures orders away from regular orders, I am out of funds to the point where I just had to pay the workshop rent out of my personal overdraft and have been unable to pay myself or Dan's wages. So I am forced to add some of the stuff to the regular shop. None of it will ship to regular people until we have cast enough of each model to cover the KS pledges that have been made, so it will all be pre-order for eg December, but once we have cast up eg 98 packs of Maggotmen to cover the pledges and then have some to play with, non-KS backers will start receiving theirs in the post alongside KS backers. (Speaking of which , Dan will be packing about 40 pledges today, so there will be a lot of Maggotmen and Waspquitoes arriving around the world over the next week or so). If you want what's available out of your pledge NOW rather than wait for Netherlords and Hellbeasts etc, I am happy to send it out - but you will need to pay another dose of shipping to get the rest later. email me andy@heresyminiatures.com with your KS pledge number from your email receipt eg 100999 and let me know that that's what you want to do. Over the weekend i will be making master moulds for Hellbeasts, Azaroth (He just needs his arms and another wings mould, we have a huge pile of bodies cast) and Netherlord mk 1 with production moulds following over the next week.


Pledge Manager Store Closing!

Also, now that some stuff will be on the regular shop, I will have to close the KS pledge shop because I can't support the lower prices on it - people will always try to buy stuff at the cheaper price on the Pledge Manager if it's more on the regular shop!

I can't stress this enough (literally) - because there are still 90 or so of you who simply have not bothered to put their pledge through, even though all you need to do is decide what you wanted for your pledge amount, and then pay the shipping! You have one week to do it before the pledge manager store closes!

Go here:

http://heresyminiatures.com/kickstarterpledgemanager/index.php

Read the instructions carefully (most of you have emailed me to say the code doesn't work when you haven't added the pence to your pledge eg 00 on the end or haven't taken the spaces out of your username or kept the capital letters) and choose what you wanted for your pledge, enter your unique pledge redemption Code in the Redemption Code box on the Payments page (Don't use Paypal Express button, just use regular Paypal when the option comes up) and choose the shipping option for your country.

The Pledge Manager Store, which has been open since March IIRC, will close next weekend, ie the 11th of October 2015. Get your pledges sorted out! Please!

Where are we now?
Update. #40 Jan 16th 2016


Where does the time go?

There have been a few surprising setbacks from unexpected directions in the last six months, such as Meatpie the Fat Ogre having some different fault go wrong in each of 4 moulding attempts that prevented me from getting a high quality casting each time we've tried (BIG seam line down the legs, for instance, easily cleaned off but not at the high standards to which I hold Heresy) but by and large things are still progressing slowly but surely. At the moment I am trying to spin a lot of plates and do little bits on everything to try and keep everyone content that yes, their pledge is being worked on, but I'm now focusing on the little fiddly details that are holding back several kits: the Centaur (new hands, thicker spear and improved arms that aren't just tubes should be the last tweak needed - just making sure the joins are up to scratch with him this weekend), the Deathball Ogres (all new arms and hands in addition to the tweaks made to the torso and legs - the previous DB Ogre hands are too dated, being massive beyond all measure in my 2005 style, so I've made smaller ones with new punch-weapon options and ones that don't have weapons at all, which I can then use on any brand new DB ogres or regular ogres that I make), Skullsmasher (subtly changed the pose of the right arm so that it looks less Bruce Forsyth and more head-down shoulder-charge as well as tweaking a few muscles and the hooves so that they are more cow and less banana, improved fitting on the head options) and I've finished tweaking the KS-exclusive Original Ogre With Club so that it looks the same but better (again, humongous hands replaced and some tweaks so that the body looks a smidgeon more anatomically plausible compared to the original metal one).

Spoiler:

Hellbeast master-casting painted by Steve Wingate. This head is a bit tricky to mould and I will need to make several moulds of it to meet the pledges.

Spoiler:

Original Ogre With Club: New hands, arms, weapon and some improvements to the head. Promised myself I wouldn't touch this model, which was supposed to be a straight resin copy of the original, but I couldn't not do it.


Still To Come

The next couple of weeks I will be mastering the above models, and also making production moulds for them and Azaroth the Fallen One's arms, weapons, head and tail. Azzie's wings and body have been in the casting queue for some time - all the bodies are done, the wings are about halfway through the required amount but need new moulds. Startlingly, Azaroth needs more moulds than the massive Dragon kit that delayed everything in the first place, although, thankfully, the moulds are a tiny fraction of the size of the dragon's ones!

In Production But You Don't Know It Because Your Pledge Is Actually Waiting For Something Else That Is Holding It Up

Everything on this picture with a green tick is in production. Everything with a Red Dot is about to be finished ready for mastering, or about to be mastered, or about to go be production moulded in the case of Azaroth's bits. Everything with a blue dot is next in line after the red dot items are done, and the black dots are the ones I haven't really started yet. Such is the nature of sculpting, and queues, and being a one-man band and all that.

Spoiler:

Current status as of Jan '16

Madame Ner'Gabba

After Azaroth, the next big challenge to finish is Madame - her numerous tentacles take a lot of time - those suckers (literally) have to be neat and tidy to make them look right, and it takes hours of careful sculpting. I've more or less finished the four main head-tentacles, but there are going to be a lot of little 'fronds' ones to work out. I've been posting Instagram pics for those waiting fore her so you can see how she's doing. She is hilariously improved over the initial green sketch that i did, so I think everyone who's waiting for her will be well chuffed with what they end up with. I think she may be my most 'painterly' model yet by the time she's done.

Spoiler:

Hard to capture her properly. But you'll love her when she turns up.
The Tunnel Dweller

The main body sections are cast up and ready, just fiddling with the arms to make them fit and detailing the new Ant-head alt option. Also trying to work out if I can get his scythe to cast in either one piece or at least some version that is easier to put together as most people did not like the old metal version's assembly method.

Netherlord II and Winged NL2

I'd gotten about halfway through fixing up the NL2 so far before I put it aside to do the things above as so many people were asking about them via email. It'll be first on the list after Madame is done. I haven't started the Wings for it yet, but am fairly optimistic that they won't take too long to sort out once started; I learnt a lot about wings doing the dragon and these ones should be a lot smaller (about 1/3rd the size!). I'm dying to see what the NL2 will look like with wings, even though that kit is another KS-Exclusive one and only a handful of people want it. I will be using the wings on a future Netherlord kit after the dust has settled on the KS stuff.

Deathball Monsters and Boris

The remaining DB monsters (Elfbane and the two Boris models) are on the list once the DB ogres and Skullsmasher are sorted - the DB Cyclops is ready to mould, though, so that'll be master moulded next week alongside them, hopefully. I say hopefully because it's going to get mighty cold in the workshop next week and this will affect the silicon somewhat. The DB Borises and Elfbane are a fairly easy task - just need fitting and filling and then moulding; I shan't need to monkey around with them too much. Only a couple of people wanted these figures which is why they were left almost until last.

Angel and B'Hakoth/ Light VS Dark diorama

The Angel is actually quite far along, I've already fitted his wings to his back properly, but I need to work out how to subtly attach him to a flying stand - he was always a 'Supply Your Own Brass Rod' model before but i feel I should change that for the resin kit. B'Hakoth realyl just needs fitting together, there's not a lot to tweak on him. The diorama version of these two has not been started yet - this will mainly be a new set of legs (Angel) and torso (B'Hakoth) combo part so that they are linked together properly. I did want to make a tower but I don't think I can bring it in under £75.00 with one of those in the kit so It'll be some sort of scenic base, I think.

So, as you can see, we're almost there with the tweaking and fixing, just a few big beasties to get to grips with. As suspected, most of the pledges will start to be ready all at once as the moulds come into production, especially with Azaroth and the Hellbeasts in play.

If you want whatever part of your pledge is ready now, let me know, I will have to charge you a secondary amount for shipping if the pledge is split, but other than that it's no problem!

All the best,

Andy
Heresy Miniatures