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Greetings Fellow Dakkites,
While at adepticon I had the opportunity to sit down and get to know some of you, as I usually do there, and found their was some amazing ideas for product concepts and general pieces you all would like to see. As the store owner and concept designer for our products I don't get as much time to really do this so I felt it was a great chance to get some really great ideas. While on the 19 hour drive home to Boston I sat back with my friends and we discussed how best to bring some of these amazing ideas to light and futher more how to fund them (big one there). Having one of my friends in the car succesfully launch his business through kick stater I decided that this was a great way to fund our products as well as give the opportunity to give some of our supporters the chance to become a designer and bring their thoughts to light. This is a great chance to support our slowly growing line of 28mm heroic scale bits and if you donate enough you can even get the chance to create a progect of your very own that we will turn into a reality!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1845435972/new-customizable-bits-for-28mm-heroic-models

Here is our link to our kick starter prgect and attached is

This first set is our Pleasure Head set of 9 pewter heads. All of our heads are sculpted by the talented and well known Bugman himself Mr. Pedro Navarro. I have personally come to find that his pictures don't do his heads justice.

Another set already produced is the Rotted heads set.


Both of the initial sets of heads are sculpted to fit on any 28mm heroic scale models. The are sold normally in sets of 9 for $10.50 or we also sell single heads for $1.50 each on phone in orders only. So head on over to kickstarter and check us out shoot us some support and hopefully we can get some great new concepts off the ground and onto your models.

You might want to vary your sculpting medium a bit, they look kinda blobby and uneven

Charax wrote:You might want to vary your sculpting medium a bit, they look kinda blobby and uneven

Thanks for the troll I will tell pedro your concerns. We passed out a number of these sets at adepticon and believe me they were well liked. Once the painted ones are finished by Mathieu Fontaine we will post new pictures.

While this stuff looks alright, what do you bring to the table that other custom bits companies like Scibor, Maxmini, Ramshackle, and so on don't?

Brother SRM wrote:While this stuff looks alright, what do you bring to the table that other custom bits companies like Scibor, Maxmini, Ramshackle, and so on don't?

That's a extremely good question and their are tons of good answers to that. I would say quality, quantity, and variety. Scibor and Maxmini produce great stuff using resin and so forth and I personally am a fan of theirs so much we are looking to add them to our webstore. Battleroad Games is looking to become a 1 stop shop for all of your bits needs and we have been working extremely hard to do so. We use a top notch caster who also does the work for Malifaux and Avatars of war, but to name a few, and even though it may cost a little more we are happy to pay it as we want to insure gamers have top notch bits for their models. Other companies often are known to have gaps and tons of flash but for us if the product is not something we would use in a tourney or painting comp then we don't release it. Some of your fellow dakkites have recieved my products and know that if Emps seal of approval is on it then it is quality.

Quantity: Normally you will pay $6-7 for a set of 5 resin heads, sometimes even more. We sell these heads as a set of 9 at $10.50 or singles (something almost no one does) at $1.50 each. That way if you only like one certain head then you can buy that.

Variety: We have a few new concepts on the table that have yet to really be seen or done in the gaming world but in the end we offer variety to our clients. Yes we are namely a bits store that sells GW on the web and have been working hard to grow our selection to the levels of 700 by the end of 2012, but with this side of the scope we are stepping into our own right as a company. Kickstarter is a way for us to fund future progects yes, but it is also a way to find new ideas from our clients and give them the chance to have them produced. That is something no company has done yet and we feel it helps us provide better service to our customers.

Alright, I get you. That sounds interesting, and it would be great to have a US distributor of some of their stuff with you guys. Looking forward to seeing more custom bits and the site coming together.

I'm down for fiddy bones, good luck!

I saw these in person at Adepticon, they looked great and there are several sculpts I would be interested in.

I have some of the Rotted Out Heads and they're pretty sweet. Once I get some plague marines built (probably when the new Chaos dex hits) I will definitely post pics. Maybe sooner, depending on how my Necron painting progress goes.

Those (rotted out heads) look great to me, high quality and nicely styled. For the top row of pics, I like them better as they go down from row 1 to 3. Row 1 doesn't really float my boat, and looks a bit more amateurish than the others. The others are on an escalating scale of good to awesome, top to bottom

Look forward to seeing what else you have cooking Emp!

Those rotted heads are ace, but i have to agree with Majortom about the first row of pleasure heads not being up to the same standard as the rest.

Do you currently post internationally? there isn't any mention on the kickstarter page.

Im also curious about the heroic scale, are these heads more suited for space marines or will they work with traitor guard armies?

Mr Gutsy wrote:Those rotted heads are ace, but i have to agree with Majortom about the first row of pleasure heads not being up to the same standard as the rest.

Do you currently post internationally? there isn't any mention on the kickstarter page.

Im also curious about the heroic scale, are these heads more suited for space marines or will they work with traitor guard armies?

@Mr Gutsy: These heads are meant to fit any 28mm heroic scale models. Their is a wide range of products for the hobby community and these will fit onto any of them and be very well perportioned. These heads or any of our products are not created to specifically fit for any one company and how you choose to use them once your purchase is of your own accoard. As far as shipping yes we do ship internationally.


Thank you all for your input and kind words, I understand how some of you feel on the heads and part of what we do at Battleroad Games and Hobbies LLC is give a lot of freedom to the sculptors. I for one rather like the top row that pedro did as it has a rather..demonesk feel to it. My personal favorite in that line is the ponytail one as it has a siphon filter feel for me. I like to give artistic freedom to any of our contractors as I feel they will work best with it. When comming up with new concepts etc I just lay the foundation for what I would like to see and the rest is up to the sculptor or painter. I will say this though as atm we are in negotiations with a company for distribution rights and if it goes through we cannot be selling heads individually so if you want certain heads for your hobby progects then you have about a week to decide as once we agree to the contract we actually will not be selling our products direct at all. I am made this judgement call more in a roll to help support our soon to be distributor and not undercut them, and to really help the hobby community as I have a lot of respect for how Privateer Press operates and have taken a page from their book on this one.

I like the looks of these bits. I'd definitely buy some.

elotsip wrote:I like the looks of these bits. I'd definitely buy some.

The bits are for sale at this time but if you look on kickstarter we have a pretty damn good deal for it all. I mean if you spend $50 as the one person did you are getting $105 worth of product etc. I would honestly say go with the kickstarter as it's a great deal all around for the rewards.

P.S should we go above the goal of $3200 btw every person who buys will get a free set of our bases that we are doing right now called "Arnhiem" series.

I've gotten a number of heads from Empchild as freebies when purchasing other bits from him (thank you ), and they look good. I do not personally have a use for them, but they're unique and of good quality, from what I can tell.

Thanks all again for the kind words on the products. We added in a few more possible rewards and remember people shipping is already figured into the price so don't be concerned on that. If we do surpase our goal every person who donated will recieve a set of our first series of resin bases. I am not talking just 1 base here or there I mean 20 28mm rounds, 5 40mm round, 2 60mm rounds, 3 round bikes, 1 large oval base... and thats for EVERYONE if we reach and surpase our goal.

Greetings fellow dakkites. Just popping up a reminder as we have three weeks left on our kickstarter and tons of great product to produce. Our first goal is $3200 but remember if we even go a dollar over we will be giving out all sorts of great addons to our supporters. Also if this succeeds we will be looking into doing one for a 3D printer as this is a realm we want to step into.

Ever want to create a certain set of heads or maybe a weapon to equip on your minis well here's your chance.

Time to start talking about a "KickStarter" forum heading...

one area for all of the Kickstarters.

Not a bad idea!

Call it "Crowdfunding" if it happens, kickstarter isn't the only site that has these things.

scarletsquig wrote:Call it "Crowdfunding" if it happens, kickstarter isn't the only site that has these things.

Ya but any site that has the Woz attached to it is a good site for me.

Just over 8 days left and we are still hoping to try and reach our goal. Great rewards people so take advantage of them.

Not trying to be a troll here, but you might want to answer PMs and emails of potential customers. Like me. It hardly inspires faith in a new business when multiple inquiries are ignored.

That said, I always like to see new businesses with potential conversion material pop up. The more variety, competition, and product out there, the better.

Good luck with this.

-C6

In my humble opinion; I think if you want to be more successful, I think you should try to expand upon why exactly you need 3 grand. I found the most compelling kickstarters are the ones that explain their project from end to end: what they want to make, how they want to make it, what they plan to buy to make it happen (paying a printer, a moldmaker, etc), and that sort of thing. If you look at this successful Kickstarter I think it covers all the bases really well.

There are uncountable heads on the market right now and people who are even passingly familiar with molding know that you can churn out the greens posted by the bucketful in resin for maybe $250 in startup costs - most of them don't even need 2 part molds. So, if you're planning on buying or building, say, a vacuum pump, or hiring X people to cast them, whatever your approximate costs are going to be.

Some concept art wouldn't hurt any either. Just my 2 cents.

From the perspective of an existing designer and manufacturer of resin accessory parts, I really do not understand why on earth this requires $3000 for just a few sets of heads, or even why you are doing this on kickstarter at all.

why not just create the heads, mold them, and sell them.. why waste time with croud funding for such a small project?

Even if you were planning to produce in house and needed to purchase casting equipment, you could do it for $1000 surely..

Best of luck with this anyway, additional competition is very welcome!

Regards,

AH

@Caetharsix: You are actually trying to be a troll as I have no pm's from you nor emails as I check our accounts everyday. So I don't really appriciate you doing that.

@Anvil: Ok this is rather unprofessional of you honestly as I don't go into other companys threads and post about how I run my business with them and how my costs wouldn't cost that much. This to me says a lot about you honestly so please troll somewhere else.

First off that kickstarter didn't post their cost breakdown nor have other companies so I am inclined to see this as blatant trolling and is rather tacky. Why do a kickstarter well we have money tied up in a bunch of things but why do other companies do a kickstarter i.e Brushfire, relics, Bushido because we are working on some great stuff and trying to cover costs. If you guys think it's $250 for whatever then you are sorely mistaken and have no real clue of the costs of what it takes to prodce quality, unlike a certain other company to post in this thread. We don't produce resin we do everything in pewter atm, and we have to pay the sculptor as he is a professional and does like to get paid for his work. We have to pay for the caster as he likes to get paid and he charges us for the master mould then the production mould and then shockingly enough he charges us for the units themselves. We then have to pay the painter as we do have somone working on the painted versions as we speak. Before a unit even gets sold we will spend upwards of $1500 and we do this to produce a quality produce not some cheap resin knock off like others.

Empchild wrote:First off that kickstarter didn't post their cost breakdown nor have other companies so I am inclined to see this as blatant trolling and is rather tacky.

Sorry, I didn't realize my constructive criticism was trolling. By all means, you have things well in hand so I wish you the best of luck with your kickstarter and your heads.

Ouze wrote:

Empchild wrote:First off that kickstarter didn't post their cost breakdown nor have other companies so I am inclined to see this as blatant trolling and is rather tacky.

Sorry, I didn't realize my constructive criticism was trolling. By all means, you have things well in hand so I wish you the best of luck with your kickstarter and your heads.

See here's the problem Ouze in the past all you have done is troll me and so many others so it's hard to take much of what you say into any account as more then just that. I looked at that kickstarter and again nothing all too different. Other companys have done this and they didn't get slammed like I am so I am actually taking it to offense as I have been nothing but supporting to Dakka and the gaming community as a whole.

May I step in here?

I understand that your sculptors and painters need to be paid, but if you look at the similar kickstarter that Ouze linked you to, it's plain to see the time and effort that went into their opening pitch. They made me, as a potential investor, look at their product with a video, now their video is a little long for my tastes (by about 4 minutes), but it shows me a detailed breakdown of what they're trying to do with my money and what is in it for me. Their production quality is a little lacking, but it's the information that counts. Now you don't have to go out and grab a camera, but a quick video can help.

Next, they clearly detail everything about the project in an easy to read format. They tell me what game scenery is, explaining their objective which tells me exactly why they're doing this project. Next they give me a look at the models, and not just the finished product, but they show me a basic, pre-cast picture of the master sculpts. This shows that it there is transparency in their product, it shows me they're not just going to send me Pegasus Games gothic ruins (which look almost eactly like these lol).

So in regards to your format, I'm looking at a wall of text with a single picture at the bottom (and a link to another picture). Break up the text with pictures of the sculpts, provide a link to Navarro's work so people who don't know him (like me, I had to google him) can see his body of work. This way people really can go, "Oh! I've seen those before, yeah he really does good stuff." Even if you don't have painted heads finished, you could always post the concept art, I've seen in another thread that you write out that you own the concept art for your products, so why not use it? There is a reason why video games (like Diablo 3 Collectors Edition) come with art books, people like to look at the art and the see the development from initial idea to final product.


Presentation is key, this means make everything clear to your customer from the get go, we live in a time of instant gratification. If we can't get the information we want quickly, then it doesn't matter to us. Have everything looking professional and crisp from the get go, just looking at the project pitch, I see many spelling/grammar errors, I know you and I have had this discussion before on grammar, and I know not everyone is amazing at grammar, but a simple proofread of your pitch would have helped it out. You switch between present and past tense. While this doesn't matter in verbal communication, reading something that switches tense like that can become very confusing. Like when you say, "As can be seen we offered 3 donation options..." This statement here makes it seem as though you no longer offer those options. You also have errors in the rewards section. I understand grammar is a royal pain in the arse, but it shows that you may not have all of your ducks in a row, and to show I'm not just picking on your kickstarter, the one that Ouze linked has tense issues as well, but his spelling and grammar mistakes are so few that they hardly seem noticeable.


I wish you the best of luck Emp, and hopefully if you do another kickstarter after this one, some of the things said here will be implemented so that the next one is even more successful.

Alfndrate wrote:I understand that your sculptors and painters need to be painted

god forbid if they'd actually have to be paid