Decided this would be a better place to show some greens and WIP shots that the sculptors and artists send, to keep everything contained in 1 place. I'll use the old News & Rumors news post for finished stuff All of these photos will be hosted here in the Dakka gallery!

So from the new campaign, we have some WIP shots of the Dockside Drifters by Bob Naismith



Next up is Private Conners and Corporal Thompson from Wilde's Rangers, by Steve Eserin





More to come

Oh, yes. This last one is very nice, indeed.

Eric

New sculpts for today First up, the final shot of Private Connors .. that rod is just for the sculptor's reference for scale...



I called him Private Ambler before, but he's really connors. This is Ambler's WIP:



Both done by Steven Eserin.

And here's the green for Marshall Stewart by Pedro Ramos



Hopefully I'll get more pics tomorrow


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just got 1 more, updated greens for the Dockside Drifters from Bob Naismith

Thoughts from the top of my head:
Nice. There's some real character coming out in these.

Connors: Another guy with his gun pointed in the air? Isn't there another way to hold it "at the ready?"

Ambler: I like him, but I'd like him more if his knife was lower, in front of his torso. Hold your arm up like you're holding a knife like that. It's unnatural.

Marshall Stewart: I like him, but something's striking me as "off." Look @ the top left pic & the one below that. Does it look like the dimensions of his head might be wrong? Like, too narrow or something?

Drifters:
I like the first guy a lot. Great character.

"Two Axe guy" looks all kinds of wrong. His post looks kind of lopsided and off balance. His head looks too big for his body and his legs are disproportionately long. By that, I mean he doesn't just look "long legged." He looks mis-sculpted. I see the same issue with one of the Blood Wolf natives, as well.
I do like the very determined "I'm gonna whoop your @ss" expression on his face, though.

The kneeling Mexican has a really nice look. Pretty dynamic.
[Edit] After looking at the bottom right pic, though, that star might be a bit thick.

The barrel on "One Axe" guy's pistol seems like it might be off kilter and angled upwards... but it might just be the angle of the pic.

I like the size and sculpt of the axe on "Really Big Axe Guy," but I'm not a fan of his entire head. I don't care for the hair, and the facial features look a little chopped up.

Some of this, I realize, might be because "greens" don't always photograph well. On the other hand, some of it definitely isn't.
Either way, the sculpts are thousands of times better than I could do.

Eric

They look awesome. I think the Rangers will be one of my choices.

 MagickalMemories wrote:
Ambler: I like him, but I'd like him more if his knife was lower, in front of his torso. Hold your arm up like you're holding a knife like that. It's unnatural.

I do agree with this. I can't really tell what he's meant to be doing. The only reason I could think to have your knife like that is if you're pausing to scratch your nose....which is possible, but probably not what you were going for here

 MagickalMemories wrote:
"Two Axe guy" looks all kinds of wrong. His post looks kind of lopsided and off balance. His head looks too big for his body and his legs are disproportionately long. By that, I mean he doesn't just look "long legged." He looks mis-sculpted. I see the same issue with one of the Blood Wolf natives, as well.

I don't think it's totally off but the head does look a little big for the rest, although I wonder if that's because of the beard. His legs do look weirdly long, although I'd say the same applies to "One axe guy", like if he brought his feet together he'd be too tall. Not sure if it's just the angle.

Overall though loving them and some really, really nice facial expressions going on.

I think with the drifters a lot of it is the angles.. some look good from one angle but not as good from others. I'll have him do some tweaks though. Also, he always sends mostly-bad photos.. guess he doesn't have a very good camera. When I have the greens in hand I'll take newer better pics

For ambler... what if we swapped hands.. put the knife in his other hand, and a pistol sticking up? Or he could hold the knife backwards, blade pointed down like Connors?

 Necros wrote:
I think with the drifters a lot of it is the angles.. some look good from one angle but not as good from others. I'll have him do some tweaks though. Also, he always sends mostly-bad photos.. guess he doesn't have a very good camera. When I have the greens in hand I'll take newer better pics

You could point him to the tutorials here on Dakka, bad cameras catered for
http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/categoryhotography

 Necros wrote:
For ambler... what if we swapped hands.. put the knife in his other hand, and a pistol sticking up? Or he could hold the knife backwards, blade pointed down like Connors?

What about just swapping the direction of the knife so it points down instead of up? Might also require an adjustment to the wrist angle, more likes he's subtly pulling the knife up close to him. It's the kind of action movie pose you get when someone is edging themselves along a wall ready to stab round a corner or something. If that makes any sense at all.

Or if you want to keep closer to the art, then I think it probably needs to be a bit further away from his body (still pointing up as now) and potentially the angle of the head a tiny bit further round so he's looking more back over his shoulder, looks a bit sideways atm and only so much you can do with painting the eyes to emphasise angle on something 30mm high

The problem with Ambler, for me, isn't the direction of the knife. It's about the arm. Hold your arm up in the pose he is. You'll see what I mean.
Once you do that, lower it -pivoting at the elbow- until you're in a pose that feels natural. I think the highest natural feeling pose you'll find is with the fist over your abdomen, right below the sternum.

Eric

While we're talking about miniatures, do you have a timeframe for when we can expect the email from Kickstarter asking what set we want?

-Solo Sam

www.cowboyminiatures.blogspot.com

Here's an update for Private Ambler.. bringing his arm out a bit, I think it looks a lot better now.. kinda like he's about to slice someone up

Yes, much better, I like it a lot :-)

For ME... there still something about it that doesn't grab me. In this case, it's just a preference issue. It looks far more natural and much better than the previous pose.

Well done.

Eric

Corporal Thompson and the Gatling Gun were the reason I wanted to get the Rangers, they rest we have seen so far are just icing for the cake.

Here's some new pics First is Nevada Dave



And here's all 5 WIlde's Rangers

The Rangers are great.
Nevada is also good, but I don't like the cigaret.

They are all looking great, any news on the Widow Makers?

The Widowmakers got delayed slightly. The sculptor is in the process of moving across the country. But he should have something to show off in a couple of weeks

Lurrrve the Rangers. And ofc, dying to see the Widowmakers so I hope the house move goes well

The rangers are great. Not sold on Dave though. The bull whip seems extremely short, and as stated above the cigaret is a bit odd. (The idol is a great touch)

is that another BWG mini with Dave? Dave looks to be taller..

His butt also looks odd, very boxy.

and the whip is too short.

That's a mini from Black Scorpion, just to show scale. Sculptor is going to make the whip longer, and position it more above the head so that it can be a 1 piece mini. Still a WIP, but almost done


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's the Nevada Dave update.. longer whip with some texture on it now, and no cigar

MacCall wrote:
The Rangers are great.
Nevada is also good, but I don't like the cigaret.

The cigar isn't too bad to me, but the whip looks a little short, and I don't think a whip would ever be in that position. They tend to move more fluidly.

Eric


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Necros wrote:

Here's the Nevada Dave update.. longer whip with some texture on it now, and no cigar

The whip still seems short.
I'd love to get a better pic of the face. It's difficult to see the details and, unfortunately, my imagination seems to always imagine the worst. LOL

Eric

Here is Captain Nathan Reinhold so far

I'm liking this one a lot.
Looks like the face needs some fine detail work, but the pose is really cool. I like the knives on his thigh and hat in his hand.

Is it just the angle of the pic, or does his left arm look long?

Eric

Yeah, the arm is a bit long looking to me too. Was just about to email the sculptor about that

I feel his pants should be tighter.

Loving the pose.

---Self edited--
..Might've gone too far with the humorous response.
Disregard.

Eric

Quick question: Who will be sculpting the Secret Fist?

Same as Wilde's Rangers, Steve Eserin

Captain Nathan Reinhold looks good can't wait to see the rest.

Very shiny, indeed. Can't wait to get my hands on the full gang.

It's got me wondering about making Tranquility as a special, multi-level game board.

And, here is Reverend Sheppard

Looks great!!

Ol Rev' Shep's got a big nose.
I like that.


Looking good.

Eric

Minor update.. we had to do some tweaks to the gatling gun. Originally it was more historically accurate but there were some undercuts that we had to get rid of and we had to beef up some other parts and make it a little more "heroic" looking, mostly so molds can be done properly. Still looks mostly the same except for some small details. here's the new version

The Bible says plenty about killing... it's a bit fuzzy on the subjects of knees.

The Rev. is going to be a fine addition to the gang!

How much longer until the Widowmakers Sculpts start showing up?

Sorry to be a pest. Just wondering.

Thanks.

Eric

Well it turns out the widowmakers will probably be the last ones done, when I planned for them to be the first. The sculptor who was going to do them ended up getting a full time sculpting job with one of the big boys. He was going to still work on them on the side but is just too busy since he had to move across the country to work there.

So, Steve is just about to start on the Secret Fist now, and then he'll also do the Widowmakers after that. Now that I found a worthwhile 3D printing company we're probably going to be going the 3D route for most new stuff going forward.. just more efficient with all of the different sculptors being all over the world.

Yea, I can't imagine the headache of having a green lost in the mail.

Ah, well. Stuff happens.
Good for him on getting the permanent gig.

I'm looking forward to seeing them. So far, the only crew I'm settled on is the Rangers. I don't think I'll be going with the drifters because... well, they're not bad sculpts, they just don't "grab" me.
I'm hoping the Widowmakers look good. I'll just have to decide on Tranquility or Fist after that.

Thanks for the update..


Eric

Just got the first WIP for the Secret Fist. Here is Chang, Mr. Foo's gunslinging enforcer. You can click the pic for a bigger version

Got some more greens today

Here is Jule from the Tranquility Crew by James Van Schaik



And here is Clinton Wales by Brother Vinni

Those are very nice. Can't wait to get them.

I like Chang and Julie, but I'm not really sold on Clinton. The pose is kind of uninspiring, and I really don't like the position of his right arm. As casually as he's standing there, I'd expect him to be holding his gun more like the Han Solo action figure from the 1970's:


Maybe not exactly but reminiscent.

Either way, his arm should not be so totally straight.

I can't remember which ones, at the moment, but I've been assembling the models I received from the first KS, so my group can get going on playing the game and I noticed that at least one of your sculptors needs some anatomy lessons. It seems that he/they think that an elbow bends outwards when someone holds a gun one handed when, in fact, if bends towards the floor. A could of the models from KS have their elbows pointing outwards (the girl from the Clancy gang and... one or two others... I've assembled the Clancy's, my bonus models and am now working on the Vigilance Committee).
I can't tell from the pics, but this model looks like it might suffer from the same problem.


Not meant to break you down, of course. Just a constructive criticism.

Eric

WIP for Doc Lloyd



You can click it to zoom in and stuff

Is it just me, or does Doc Lloyd look a lot like Ahnold, the Governator?

Eric

It might be a tumor?

He's still not done getting tweaked a bit, but still when we print him his face will still look different.. most of the ranger's faces look different after we had them printed, except for wilde thanks to his big mustache

So, it's not just me, then? LOL
I was a bit worried I was just seeing things.


Eric

More new sculpts! here is Rooster Morrison and Doc Kilmer

Wow. That Rooster Morrison sure does look familiar from somewhere. : )

Eric


Nice.

How do you decide which minis will be "greens" and which are 3D renders?

My guess it it comes down to the individual sculptor. Some mould, some use a computer, and some probably use both.

What artist(s) did the new sculpts? I like that the Rooster sculpt is more evocative of the Duke's portrayal of Rooster Cogburn.

Although Mattie was done far better in the more recent film version of True Grit, the older John Wayne version was overall much more faithful to the book. I love the Choen brothers, but they inevitably must put their stamp on an adaptation, and they went a little too far afield in their adaptation of True Grit that I liked.

"Who is the best marshal they have?'

The sheriff thought on it for a minute. He said, 'I would have to weigh that proposition. There is near about two hundred of them. I reckon William Waters is the best tracker. He is a half-breed Comanche and it is something to see, watching him cut for sign. The meanest one is Rooster Cogburn. He is a pitiless man, double-tough, and fear don't enter into his thinking. He loves to pull a cork. Now L.T. Quinn, he brings his prisoners in alive. He may let one get by now and then but he believes even the worst of men is entitled to a fair shake. Also the court does not pay any fees for dead men. Quinn is a good peace officer and a lay preacher to boot. He will not plant evidence or abuse a prisoner. He is straight as a string. Yes, I will say Quinn is about the best they have.'

I said, 'Where can I find this Rooster?”

They were done by Ian Mountain, and Bob Naismith did Doc Lloyd.

We're going to be moving to almost all 3D sculpts in the future. It's just so much more efficient. No waiting 3 weeks for sculpts to collect dust in customs, easier to change a pose or make an arm a separate piece so it will cast better, stuff like that. So now we can just have a 3D sculptor make the figure anywhere in the world, and then get it printed out here in the US and we're all ready to go.

We'll still do traditional sculpts here and there but overall most new stuff will be done in 3D now.

Those look great. Rooster needs a side arm though. My 2 cents.

It looks to me like he has a pistol tucked into his belt. The Duke would have worn it round the back of his right hip, as always, and on that same belt. but I believe that in the iconic climax of Wayne's True Grit, Rooster has a pistol tucked into his belt much like the sculpt.

I found a sort of acceptable pic of it here

"I aim to kill you in one minute Ned, or else take you back to Fort Smith to hang at Judge Parker's convenience."

"Mighty tough talk for a one-eyed fat man!"

"Fill your hand you sonofa !"

True Grit is the most quotable book ever.

Some day when we get around to doing horses, I plan to do an alt version of him with 2 pistols and the reins in his teeth

First WIP for Shamus McFox


You can click to enlarge and stuff

This was his first draft, already going to be changing a bit. Making the face more Martyish, changing the hands so they're not separate skeleton-finger hands and some other tweaks.

Still trying to think up good stats for him.. might make him a gambler who gets D6 lucky dice each game instead of the usual 1.

That fig is SWEEEET. Reminds me of Don Knots.
Shakiest Gun in the West.

And here's the WIP for Clinton Wales

Quick question: has Jule from the Tranquility crew been cast yet? Because if not... would it be possible to have her chin not be as pointed?

Sorry, I know I'm a month late or something, but just my 2¢.

How "WIP" is Clinton Wales? I noticed that the face doesn't look like Mr. Eastwood, really... or is that on purpose?
Don't get me wrong, it's a nice looking face, and I'd like it as-is... I'm just wondering if the face is ging to be more "Clintish."

Thanks.

Eric

I'll see if he can touch up Julie's face .. for Clint we can work on it a bit, he's still a WIP. But, not trying to go for an exact look .. plus the faces will all look a bit different on the actual mini just because it will be so small.

It's all good. It's still a good looking miniature!

Any updated time frame on the Widowmakers?
Thanks.

Eric

Yep, actually just got an email from the sculptor, he's been sick and doing mostly half days for a while. but he should have them done in the next day or so.

Cool. I'm excited.
I'm waiting on those to decide which gangs I'm getting with the 2nd KS.

Thanks for the update.


Eric

I'm not too worried if the face isn't an exact match. The whole model is shouting Eastwood, so it will have the same effect once it hits the table.

 Necros wrote:
And here's the WIP for Clinton Wales

This one looks much better! Did you scrap the earlier WIP of Clinton Wales (which was a green, not a digital sculpt, posted on 2/2 near the top of the second page)?

I really like this new one

Yeah we had to have Clinton redone, the original sculptor kind of disappeared on us. Plus we're going to be moving over to mostly all digital in the future since it's a lot more efficient. I'm even thinking about getting back into 3D stuff and doing some things myself, been a while but I think I can pick it back up. maybe I'll start with some simple things like obstacles and stuff.

Any chance of adding a cig/cigar to the fig?

He has one if you click and zoom in you can see it better

And here are the Widowmakers finally! Still some tweaks to do, but this is pretty much how they'll be..

Well, they're all good looking models, no doubt. I like the way they look. That said, there are some issues with them that confuse me.
The rest of your line has been very historically accurate looking. They looked like Old West models. These models, especially the top 3 (1,3 & 4) are very "Cheesecake" in appearance. The clothes they're wearing don't look as if they'd be very comfortable on the trail. You know?
I expected them to be done more in the style of the female models that are already in your line. Was this on purpose? If so, could I pick your brain to ask the reasoning behind it?

That said, they will still most likely end up as one of my 3 gangs chosen from the KS, along with the Rangers and I'm not certain who else, because, while they don't seem to fit in the genre you've created, they're still nice models.

Eric

Yeah, they are a little on the cheesecake side, they are supposed to be a little, but I didn't want to go over the top like some other games do. So we're doing some tweaks, like the girl in the middle is going to have a shirt instead of just a bra thingy even though that's how the artwork was. That was another issue, the guy that did the concept art made them more modern looking. So Nightshade also will be getting old fashioned colt 45 revolvers instead of the more modern guns.

Also, one thing I learned is the 3D models when they're still in computer form are always a lot beefier .. when we get the actual print, they will look thiner and more proportional. I don't know why, I guess it's part of the printing process. so the girls won't all have such 'huge tracks of land' in the end. I think they'll match up good once you have em all painted up and put em next to the other models.

Got it. those Widowmakers are SWEET. Can't wait to get mine. All of them. Looking forward to the next Kickstarter.

Just noticed I never posted the pics of the Secret Fist .. thought I did .. but, here they are

 Necros wrote:
Some day when we get around to doing horses, I plan to do an alt version of him with 2 pistols and the reins in his teeth

Hope yours turns out better than Crusader miniatures. Their version is pretty weak.

http://www.crusaderminiatures.com/prod.php?prod=71&cat=3&sub=8

-Solo Sam

Wow. Silent fist, while not my style, look really nice.
Do you have plans to ever offer models from the boxes as individuals? There are two in that box that I could see myself buying individually, one day.

Eric

Not sure actually ... I was thinking about setting up my own online store to sell bits, but full box sets would still go through Game Salute.

Was also thinking about maybe changing things around later on, after we get horses for the gang leaders and the first support pack for each gang.. and doing it as a 2 player/gang starter set with the Clancy Gang and Vigilance Committee & rulebook. and then sell other gangs as 1 Gang Leader on foot and mounted, plus a pack of 3 professionals and a pack of 4 henchmen.. instead of now where it's 1 gang starter set, followed by 1 3-man support pack. Just thinking that would allow people to pick and choose their gangs better if they wanted to mix in characters from all over.

For what it's worth, I can tell you this, If you sold the models individually, at some point in the future I would end up buying 2 of the 5, and possibly a 3rd (if the girl's boots look less chunky when molded). I would not, however, buy the whole box just to get them.

Eric

 MagickalMemories wrote:
Wow. Silent fist, while not my style, look really nice.
Do you have plans to ever offer models from the boxes as individuals? There are two in that box that I could see myself buying individually, one day.

Eric

I picked the Tranquility Crew, but after seeing the Silent Fist renders I will definitely buy a set at retail.

- Solo Sam

Actually she is less chunky, they all are. I'll take pics of the master metal figs when I get them. For some reason the 3D pictures look chunky, but when they get printed out they look normal. I guess it's just the way the technology works.

We're also thinking about a 2 player starter set. I was thinking of doing Clancy Gang vs Vigilance Committee + rulebook. And then we'd do the same for the expansion, you'd get the werewolf starter + monster hunter gang + expansion book. Would all be sold as separate box sets too, but you can get the bundles 2 player set a lot cheaper.

I find renders (not just yours) to be odd. Like you said, they don't always look proportionally the same IRL as they do in the pics.
As they sit, she looks like she's wearing someone else's boots, size wise. LOL I fully expect that may change, however. : )


Eric

Yeah, they were like combat boots at first Redid them a bit to look more like cowgirl boots, they were a little big on her in the final print but not in a bad or silly way, I thought they came out good.

Yeah. I like the engraved/floral design on them a lot. It's a nice addition. I'm hoping that, in the conversion to physical mini, the top of the boot shrinks to be a little more in line with her leg. If that happens, she'd be #3 I'd be willing to buy as an individual.

Eric

Little hiccup .. So, I started painting an extra set of the secret fist masters, and I just noticed that Mr. Foo is really small. It's almost like he's a 25mm figure where the others are 30mm. Wouldn't mind if he looked short and stocky, but he looks shrunk. What do you think? He's in the middle:



So if we just let it slide, he'll just look smaller than others.. I'm worried if we get him redone, it could take a while. I don't think it would screw up kickstarter delivery time though but it may screw up the retail release dates for everything since we have to get all boxes made at the same time, and I can't get the boxes finished till everything is painted and photographed.

I dunno how I missed this earlier, I guess I just didn't compare the sizes good enough. He's actually shrunk in the 3D file, I guess the scale was slightly off.

Anyway, what do you guys think? Does it look bad? Or do you think he'll be ok?

Since you are using 3d prototyping, could you just order up a plastic prototype in the correct size and paint that?

I really want to buy the Secret Fists when they come out at retail, but I am willing to wait to make sure the mini is correct.

Yeah we're gonna get him fixed, he'll be slightly taller than Dr. Hoo in the end

I ran into this same thing while painting my Malifaux models... Most of the miniatures were scaled at 32mm but there was one guy in there that was less than 28mm... And this one made it all the way to production.

Yeah I think it's also an issue with multiple sculptors too. We had the issue with different guys making the same guns look different every time. This is one of the reasons I'm switching to all 3D sculpting. It's easy to fix these things. Mr Foo just got enlarged and emailed and a new print is on the way already. If it were a greenstuff sculpt we'd be waiting 2 weeks for a new version, paying like $400 for an all new sculpt, and then waiting another 2-3 weeks for the green to ship from somewhere in Europe.

we're also using a master gun file to judge scale so that no matter how big the actual character is, the guns will all be the same size. So a winchester will look like a winchester every time and if a skinny girl has one it might look big for her, but if a big tough guy has one it might look small on him, but with both figures next to each other you'll see the exact same gun. So this way any 3D sculptor can use the gun file and just cut and paste the gun he needs into his new sculpt and he's all set.

We'll probably still use traditional sculpts here and there, but for the most part it's gonna be mostly all 3D going forward.

Smart decisions there, boss.

Eric

So, been a few weeks, and we are in the month the Kickstarter is "due"... any updates...?

They're due in July not June But everything is on schedule, we're going to have a huge shipment of miniatures showing up in the next couple of weeks, then the folks at the warehouse are going to sort all of the sets and then start filling the orders. Everything for the KS is going according to plan as far as I know. I'll be chatting with Game Salute in the next couple of days when the boss gets back from vacation.

Only thing that is falling behind is the retail stuff, which doesn't have anything to do with KS orders. Been taking me longer than I thought to get everything painted up, and I need to paint everything before I can take photos to design the boxes, and takes a while to print the boxes too since it's cheapest to print everything all at once.. I was hoping I'd have retail stuff all done in time for GenCon.. I don't know if we'll be able to get to all of the new sets but hopefully at least a few will be available.

Actually June and July...

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/springboard/blackwater-gulch-rebels-and-reinforcements

Pledge $1 or more

5 backers

Thanks

Estimated delivery: Jun 2013

and

Pledge $5 or more

14 backers

City Slicker - A Pair of "Colt 45" Dice. For this pledge level and all higher levels, your name will be listed on our website's Wall of Fame and in a future edition of the rule book. If you would like to add more items as they become available, simply increase your pledge by the listed amount for each additional item.

Estimated delivery: Jul 2013

and the rest are all July...


But it still it has been almost a month since the last official Kickstart update... always good to give those out

i had just looked at the first one, not the rest

Ah .. yep, dice should be almost done now.. chessex is doing them. And I'll have a new update shortly, soon as I get the next gang finished. next day or 2. Gonna do a new update for each gang as we finish painting and get some good pics.

Is everything still on time for delivery in July?

Yep, Iron Wind will have all of the figures done in the next couple of weeks, and the cards are getting printed up now so we're right on schedule. The only thing that fell behind is the retail boxes, but that won't impact any Kickstarter orders.

 Necros wrote:
I was hoping I'd have retail stuff all done in time for GenCon.. I don't know if we'll be able to get to all of the new sets but hopefully at least a few will be available.

TBH, I wouldn't worry about having everything sold in pretty boxes at Gencon. Even Privateer will sell things in blank boxes with a sticker label just to have it at the show... just have a display case with the painted figures in it/demo tables, and you'll be good to go.

That's what I was thinking boxes will probably not be done in time so we can just sell the loose figures

You might want to just get carton or two of these:
http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-5799/Specialty-Boxes/3-1-2-x-4-3-4-x-2-Business-Card-Boxes

print off a basic sticker with the product code/name, affix it to the side, and you've got an easily sorted means of keeping things together. Rather then just dealing with a ton of baggied figs.

Will Shamus McFox be available loose for purchase?
He didn't make the Kickstarter but I have mad/bad plans for him. Don Knotts all the way.

Yep he'll be available separately along with all of the other hired guns We're going to sell the hired guns as solo figs now

Glad to hear things are going smooth. Looking forward to the goodies.

I just put this up in the news & rumors forum, guess it should have gone here..


Concept art I just got from Heath Foley, this is Croatoan, Alpha Werewolf and leader of The Wicked beast pack. He'll be the boss monster in the boxed game It's in the dakka gallery so you can click to enlarge...

The Wicked is a vicious skinwalker pack bent on destroying the civilizations of man and keeping the world as wild as can be, lead by an Alpha Werewolf known as Croatoan. No one knows how old he is, but his handywork dates back at least as far as the early colonies, where some hunters speculate he was associated with a local tribe of the same name. He was thought to be destroyed by the monster hunter John White at Roanoke 300 years ago.

Once a native medicine man, it is believed Croatoan acceped the Skinwalker curse to stop the white man from colonizing the new world, but even his great supernatural powers are not enough to halt progress. He often carries a large totem staff into battle, carved by his own clawed hands. His fur is caked with old blood, and he wears leather straps displaying bones of his prey hanging from his shoulders.

Croatian and his Wicked pack have set their sites upon Blackwater Gulch, and his pack has slowly been growing as they kidnap those who stray too far from town. There is something here that he wants, and he will not stop until he has his prize, or he is destroyed.

Heath does a mighty fine wolfman.

That he does He does some great animal-people stuff for you guys too.. really good at it. probably going to have him do all the skinwalkers

That rocks.

 Necros wrote:
probably going to have him do all the skinwalkers

Good call. Having a consistent look and feel for the range will be a good thing. Especially if they all look as awesome as Croatoan!

I went through my "Werewolf: The Wild West" books looking for examples of Old West Were-creatures. It was very disappointing. Most of the art was dark and smudgy. It was all pictures of generic werewolves fighting cowboys. Every now and then you'd see one with a bone-pipe breastplate or a feather in his ear, but it was all pretty lame.

This picture does a much better job of conveying a creature that is obviously thematically linked to the time period. I especially like his totem-pole / whacking stick. I'm hoping all of the models have this same sense of... um... "place" for lack of a better word.... So that if somebody looked at the miniature without knowing anything else about it, they would recognize it as an "Old West Werewolf."

I've only ever seen one other company that tried to do this. They had an Indian Werebear, and a Man-With-No-Name Werewolf model. The name of the company escapes me, but it's hardly relevant because I've never actually seen them for sale.

Anyway, I recently went through a blue spell where I've been thinking about quitting miniatures altogether, but this picture makes me excited and I am saving up my money again.

Here's another early WIP for the modular building walls Still far from done, like the windows and door openings would be an empty space. You basically stick the pieces together with the connectors that are supposed to look kind of like support beams. Going to see if we can remove the overlapping parts of the connectors, give them a wood pattern and make the corner pieces squared off instead of diagonal.



Wadaya think so far?

Are those going to be plastic?

yes If the Kickstarter gods are good to us...

Maybe it's just me, but that building has more of a "futuristic building with an old west theme" look, to me.

Eric

Will there be interior detail?

Since you've got a bunch of cg units, could you make a quickie scale shot?

I think the smooth connector pieces give it that feel. Those will eventually have a wood pattern as well. And this is just the very first pic I got.. will be lots of updates

The first building will have 6 2x2" wall squares (3 flat, 2 windows, 1 back door) and 1 2x4" more decorative looking storefront hopefully all in 1 sprue. And the next sprue 4 2x2 squares with a tarred roof on one side and floor boards on the other, and some top of the wall trim pieces, and hopefully a couple of different shapes for the storefront top signage area... so there would be 2 of those sprues I think.. one to make the roof and the other to make the floor

After that we'd add to the kit with new buildings that have a front porch & balcony, stairs that are modular and can go inside or outside, extra walls so you can make bigger or taller buildings, and A frame style roofs too. Want to keep it simple for the first kit, but also have a solid foundation to build off of. Eventaully I'd like to have a whole bunch of different wall patterns too, that are all compatible with each other.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Yep, insides will probably be like a paster wall since it will be easier to do.. for the first round anyway.. but there will be little cracks, maybe waynescoating along the bottom, pictures hanging on walls, stuff like that I want to still keep it fairly simple though, so people can have clutter inside too if they want.

I'll get him to add some figs to the full house pic when we get to that, right now we're just figuring out how it will all work. That saloon door will probably be too small. Going to be doing a lot of concept art panels for him to build off of. Sir Bob Naismith is doing these

+1 to Eric. The smooth diagonal pieces look wrong. The corners should be squared rather than angular.

agreed

probably won't have a new pic till next week.. but I asked for one with a mini in it too for scale

The angled corner was because he was using the piece with 1 tab, and then sticking them together to make the corner or the T section .. good idea but won't really work here since we need the wood look. Can save that idea for sci fi buildings some day

 Necros wrote:
Sir Bob Naismith is doing these

Ask him to throw a to-scale Otter Ashigaru next to it then

Don't forget to take figure base thickness into account when figuring out how high windows and doors need to be.

Jake

 Necros wrote:


The angled corner was because he was using the piece with 1 tab, and then sticking them together to make the corner or the T section .. good idea but won't really work here since we need the wood look. Can save that idea for sci fi buildings some day

I've played Old West games with Necromunda terrain before. I just shrugged and called it, "Firefly."

Yep I'm keeping them in mind .. at 2" tall that's about 50mm, our figures are all under 35mm tall so about 40 with the base. Croatoan on the other hand will be a tight squeeze

But we'll test it out for sure.. easy enough to make the walls a little taller if we need to.

The werewolf rocks. So how many gangs in the supernatural expansion are you planning?

Have you got the basic ideas down?Werewolves, Voodoo or what?

I assume these are well into 2014 to release?

There won't really be any gangs for the skinwalkers, it will be pretty much 1 big race and you can use any Alpha to lead your gang of creatures. But for the humans we will have the Unsung as the monster hunter gang, it will be an Infamous gang where every member is as tough as a gang leader or hired gun. Then we'll also do the flying zarconis gang too, they will be a standard skirmish gang.

The overall theme is going to be a lot of native american folklore monsters and other urban legend things like the Jersey Devil & bigfoot. These things just live out in the wilderness, people in the cities don't even know they exist, and the monster hunters are drifters that move from town to town saving the world 1 monster pack at a time.

No idea for release dates at this point.. probably around this time next year for retail. I'm hoping we can do a KS campaign for it this fall and it will be a big boxed game with everything you need to play, and then other monsters all sold separately. going to take a long time to get all the art done and 3D sculpts before we can do a KS campaign for it. It's in the very early stages right now

Ah sounds like a rather fundamental change in the game.

Too bad as is it works nicely and an alpha with some more generic mates, as a gang would have been cool.

Less interested in a mass of super greeblies changing the game so much.

Oh well, likely to save me some money javascript:emoticon('\%3E:(');

Yes that's they way it will be.. an Alpha is the same as a gang leader, a fiend is the same as a professional and a minion is the same as henchmen.. so maybe I wrote it wrong, the monsters all still form a gang, they're just not humans.

In the box boxed game though, the theme will be heroes vs a horde of monsters. But you can still play with a standard gang of men vs men if you want to stick with a straight up western shootout, or you can do men vs monsters or monsters vs monsters. Nothing is really changing, it's just a whole lot of new folklore creatures getting added to the game.

I posted this in news & rumors too.. crossposting just because

I just got the the concept art for the Werebear, by Heath Foley. This one isn't an Alpha Skinwalker like Croatoan, so he will be more man-sized... in height anyway. The theme I was going for was instead of a native look, this would have been like a trapper or mountain man that got on the wrong side of a skinwalker one day. So he's got his powder horn from hunting, and a little raccoon trophy left over from the good ole days before he had claws...

Here's the info from his rules:

Incredibly territorial hunters, werebears are renowned for their strength and ferocity. Their imposing size makes them a formidable foe, and they have been known to crush their victims into a bloody pulp with powerful bear-claw fists.

The bear aspect grants the Skinwalker +1 Strength, already added to their Character Card.

Pummel - in melee combat, every roll of 6 to hit lowers his target's DP by 1 for this attack.

Wadaya think?

Lookin' good!

Next up, the Werecat I'm going to ask Heath to tweak him a bit though, since he won't be carrying any guns, he was just supposed to be a former gunslinger or bounty hunter type of guy...

I think the teeth are too big, too. The length makes me think "Vampire." Combines with those ears and the huge dister that's still mostly in tact, this makes me think "Bat" more than "Cat."

Eric

Hmm.. yeah, I see what ya mean. The concept for him was supposed to be "gunslinger turned were-sabertooth-bobcat" .. maybe the duster should have been more shreded and a slight position change will fix it. He's kind of supposed to be in mid-roar. Maybe it will come across better in the 3D sculpt.

When we do the werebat he will have wings Kinda going for a bram stroker's dracula looking man-bat for that one. He'll be up next in a little while.

Maybe a hunched back and rounded ears would better communicate the idea of a Smilodon. The trench coat / duster also creates the impression of a cape, so maybe some less clothing on this one.

Yeah the coat is a little more capey looking. I'll see if he can fix it, or worst case we'll just tear it up more on the 3D model.

Going to be doing the Werebat next, I'm thinking he might have more of a native american look, and maybe armed with a bow. Or would bat wings get in the way every time he pulls the string back? At first I was thinking wings could be extra and bats and birds would still have normal arms, angel style.. but I don't know if that would feel right.. like, would a werebat or bird suddenly sprout wings out of their backs, when other werethings don't get any completely new appendages?

For the werebat, maybe something like Lexington?

I demand the werebat have a monocle!

I'm leaning in the same direction as Cyporiean.

Check out this guy below: Fully formed hands and arms, with a membrane in the armpit that implies a "wing." Stick a bone pipe breastplate on him and he'd rock.

I've always been a fan of the man-bat that appeared in the season eight of The X-Files...



Perhaps a little too monstrous, but could be a good starting point.

I took a stab at drawing an Indian-style Werebat. I considered giving him clawed feet, but I changed it to leggings and moccasins to emphasize that this was once a man. I exagerrated the face into a caricature, but I think if I had to do it over again I would have made it look even more Satanic. Anyway, for lawyer speak: This is a gift for Necros to use or discard as he pleases and I relinquish creator's rights to it.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
And of course, Were-Bat will require Were-Robin.

Looks cool

When we get around to it I think I might try an aztec or mayan feel for a couple of alphas, like they've been around since then.. Maybe for a jaguar werecat alpha.

How about a Cavalry Trooper turned Werewolf?

Highwaymen as werewolves? 10 piece set. As human in hooded cloaks. Werewolves in shredder/ripped up clothing.

Yep we can try those. I was thinking of having one of them be like a civil war soldier that was turned, still wearing his tattered uniform.

And, here's the Werebat



Those are the 4 skinwalkers I planned on having in the big boxed game, so next up I'm gonna start getting the minions done

Now that's badass.

Ask and ye shall receive.

I'll have to give Heath a chewing out at GenCon for the utter lack of a monocle!

Got some preliminary sketches for the Chupacabra and Jackalope These aren't finished yet, still very WIP

Very cool. How large are they going to be?

Eric

They're minions so they will be around wolf-sized, even the bunny

What I'm shooting for is Croatoan / alpha skinwalkers and other monster level creatures will be around 7 feet tall so they'd be 40-50mm and probably on a larger 40mm base. Regular skinwalkers and Fiend level things will be human sized, and then minions will be mostly wolf sized, and on a 30mm base.

Chupcabra WIP #2 Still some tweaks and finishing to do but I'm really like where he's going

That Jakalope is cool.

Here's a new more finished sketch of the Jackalope. Going to change the position a bit for the final pic and make it look more like he's running

RE: Boardgame:

Depending on how soon, might want to take a look at this --http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/146791/shadows-of-brimstone" target="_new" rel="nofollow"> http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/146791/shadows-of-brimstone

I like the jackalope. I *would* like larger antlers on him, I admit.

I always thought the chupacabra was more of a 4 legged animal, though. The pose he's in kind of throws me off. I really like the head, though.

Eric

Shadows of Brimstone looks kinda cool, but a little too Cthuluy for me.

The finished Jackalope is looking much better. I should be getting a 3rd drawing tonight or tomorrow then I'll show off all of the finished ones

The Chupacabra is a 4-legged critter, but it can also stand on 2 legs too. I'm hoping we'll eventually get to do 2 or 3 poses of each little minion, so the next one probably be with him running on all 4's. I've read some stories about him being on 2 legs, or more like a hairless coyote on 4 legs, so I thought mine would could go both ways