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I am hoping to have a lot more to show you in the next fortnight including more concept art.

Really liking the goblin sculpt, its a nice new take on them and I like how the face almost looks like a snapping turtle.

I was going to say, the face is vaguely reptilian.

I like it. It could blend in pretty well with all the reptile I have, and the pile of unpainted greenskins from various companies could complement it well.

Can't wait to see what the plastics look like!

Thanks guys. I was really nervous showing the sculpt as I wanted to get it as close to the concept art as possible. Of course you are always worried about how the community will respond. However, so far everything has been positive!! As I said there is more to come and I need to make sure the 3d sculpts work well with the traditional ones. I am trying to get one sculptor to work on a faction to get continuity but this is impossible when it comes to making the plastics which need a different specialisation. From what I have seen so far, the 3d sculpts are awesome. The other good news is that with the size if the miniatures now confirmed I should be able to cram more than ever on to the sprues!!!

It looks great.

Personally, it looks a little more alien to me than Goblin, but that's okay by me, because I have more use for cool looking aliens than I do goblins at the moment.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I'm just gonna throw this out: sci-fi is big. Sci-fi is popular. All it would take to tap this market is an optional upgrade sprue with some guns and helmeted heads and maybe some space goggles. Everyone loves space goggles.


Really looking forward to the goblins.

Whether or not he releases an alternate "sci fi" sprue, I'll be chopping up his goblins (and hopefully his undead, lizardfolk, etc.) to mod them for a sci fi setting. As others have said, the goblin's non-traditional heads look more than a bit alien and that's a plus for me.

Is that a furry tail on the goblin? Do you have a picture of the back of this model?

Nope, no furry tails. As he is a Goblin Headcleaver he comes with a couple of dwarf heads for decoration. It's the absolute must have accessory for all Goblins this summer...

i wanted to say that i apreciate the search of quality, the non-heroical deformous scale and the inclination of doing something different, it is way more dificult and harder than sticking to the "safe" and not original at all as the shield wolf savage orcs..

What a pitty tooling is so expensive.. and "worse", never going to use the moulds full life time (they can make 500.000 1 million impresion before it "dies").

Good luck!

 Vermonter wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I'm just gonna throw this out: sci-fi is big. Sci-fi is popular. All it would take to tap this market is an optional upgrade sprue with some guns and helmeted heads and maybe some space goggles. Everyone loves space goggles.


Really looking forward to the goblins.

Whether or not he releases an alternate "sci fi" sprue, I'll be chopping up his goblins (and hopefully his undead, lizardfolk, etc.) to mod them for a sci fi setting. As others have said, the goblin's non-traditional heads look more than a bit alien and that's a plus for me.

Yeah, I was joking at Mantic's expense, but Minion's goblins turned out to look like they might work as aliens. Oops.

Now I have to buy extra just to try modding some with guns.

I think I get the design ideas for the goblin now, the large eyes and ears make sense for them as underground cave dwellers... good night vision and hearing/ echolocation to find their way around in the dark.

It's more of a trologdyte/ cave dweller look, but sculpted far better than GW's attempt at that sort of style:

I really don't like talking down other ranges but they really are pants. I'm not sure if it's the sculpts or the generally poor concepts for the Hobbit.

Kaine Larson wrote:
Perry miniatures are smaller in scale, generally in starchy poses that look good en masse... fantasy models tend to be in different poses (generally more dynamic)

The thing is, dynamic poses are a scunner to rank up. Even some of GW's identipose kits intended to rank up are a scunner to rank up, thanks to said pose or generally oversized minis. The first sculpt you showed doesn't look too bad in that regard, and you may primarily intend these to be used for your skirmish game, but if you intend to sell armyloads of 'em in order to hit that £60K, it'd help to be sure that they can rank up without battering eachother with weapons, shields, flappy cloaks etc. In short, to 'look good en masse'.

I'd say beware of falling into GW's trap, but it looks like you're coming from the other side: rather than GW's skirmish games - with super-duper dynamic minis - posing as battle games thanks to loads of said minis, you're aiming for mass battle scale manufacturing for your little skirmish game... Granted, you'll get sales for Warhammer or other fantasy battle gaming, and you've at least hinted that's part of your plan, but it seems like there's confusion over just what market you're trying to woo, and I'm not sure if you'll get sixty thousand pounds worth of confidence out of the uncertainty.

We have Bob Naismith sculpting the 3ups

Oh dear.

The figure shown is not one of the plastic models. It will be a white metal figure and is extremely diminutive like a good goblin should be meaning there will be no rank up issues. But you are right. The metal figures are probably going to be more focused on skirmish gamers and GMs running RPGs. The plastics however will be manufactured with both mass wargamers and skirmish gamers in mind. Most issues GW figures have in regard to ranking up are simply down to owner construction. Ranking up with these little fellas won't be a problem as they are small, appreciable in height to GW night goblins. The parts will mean that the skirmish gamer could make more dynamic minis and the mass battle player could put together a more conservative pose. This will not be an issue. We have a number of sculptors working with us and Bob is certainly one of them. Bobs knowledge of plastic miniatures is immense and there has been a steady improvement in the quality of the plastics he has produced. His knowledge of what works in regard to plastics is most important to me. As I said before these figures will be 3d rendered and I can assure you that Bobs 3d work is extremely good.

I've been waiting for this piece of artwork from our amazing artist Grigor with great anticipation as the sketches for it were just plain awesome. This is the Necromancer, a human expert of the dark arts driven into the Underdeep. There in the ancient catacombs, tutored by the ancient evil of a Liche, some survive to become masters of death. All that they touch succumbs to death and many if their victims walk once more in servitude to their new masters!!

That necro is awesome.

Very, very cool!

Will all this awesome artwork be making its way into a rulebook at some point? If not, do you plan (during the campaign or at retail) to do a 'collected artwork'-type book that features concept art like this alongside coloured/finished pieces like the goblins a few pages back? I for one love the artistic direction here, and collating that into one book (be it a rulebook or separate) would probably make a fair bit of money, even as an E-book.

 scarletsquig wrote:
I think I get the design ideas for the goblin now, the large eyes and ears make sense for them as underground cave dwellers... good night vision and hearing/ echolocation to find their way around in the dark.
It's more of a trologdyte/ cave dweller look, but sculpted far better than GW's attempt at that sort of style:

Spoiler:

I'm really not willing to blame GW for WETA's designs. I didn't like the three trolls, either, but they were accurate to type.

The necromancer certainly looks epic, I love the beasts on the base do you think you will be doing some separate creatures like that during the campaign?

How come nobody posted this?



Bunch of slowpokes around these here parts!

This is a render of the multi part plastic zombie grave walker. I like the mechanical hand myself. I know Barzam will be in 7th heaven having armored zombies finally.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
How come nobody posted this?



Bunch of slowpokes around these here parts!

This is a render of the multi part plastic zombie grave walker. I like the mechanical hand myself. I know Barzam will be in 7th heaven having armored zombies finally.

Looks awesome I have to ask though how much of that detail will we be able to pick out on the plastic figure?

^ Renedra are doing the tooling, so the answer is "lots of it".

Mantic's skeletons and elves have some crazily fine detail on them, including really shallow engraving on armor.

Really liking the look of that!

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
How come nobody posted this?



Bunch of slowpokes around these here parts!

This is a render of the multi part plastic zombie grave walker. I like the mechanical hand myself. I know Barzam will be in 7th heaven having armored zombies finally.

This is around 17 billion different kinds of awesome. Love the mechanical/necromantic/Frankenstein vibes! And multi-part plastic is even better!

I was going to post this dude this evening.... only just got back from work to see that it has been done for me! This is most wonderful... the community posting things for me! I am glad you guys like him, Victor, our sculptor is also 17 billion kinds of awesome. We should have the Flesh Golem tonight.

It is important to point out now that due to demand/advice/tooling costs/psychic readings/the omens we will now be concentrating on the Goblins, Zombie Gravewalkers and Lizardkin in plastics. This means the hobgoblins, kobolds, flesh golems, bugbears etc will be made out of resin and or white metal.

This was done for a number of reasons really. Primarily I needed the boxed sets to be more simple and to reduce tooling costs. Whilst the tooling costs will still be high, I am hoping we can reduce them slightly.

I hope this doesn't cause too much in the way of disappointment!

Concentrating on the 'troop units' in plastic is probably a very sound idea, they will probably be the most profitable, and so long as the casting is good, people don't really have any issue with more 'elite' or 'rare' units in metal/resin. (personally I'd throw in a vote for resin, but I don't know what general opinion is)

I think we will go for resin for the larger units and metal for the finer units. The reason behind this is that smaller units, even with high quality resin, have a tendency to break. I have visited three companies about casting in resin and they always look at the ankles first! I think the bugbears and larger creatures will all be resin with some of the finer minis, like the Goblin Headcleaver, being castle in white metal. Either way we will experiment and I have been told that there is not much difference in cost when you take into effect the length of life of the molds and the wastage there is in using resin.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Personally I do prefer resin.

Love that zombie.

Thanks a lot. I had a WIP shot today of the plastic goblins... Looking great. Should have quite a bit to show you guys soon!!

Zombie Render looks great, but really fine details, which makes me wonder how strong it will be. Too-fine parts such as that hand can be very fragile, and the shallow details on the face probably won't come out at all.

If you are familiar with Renedra and the Perry plastics you will know how much detail these guys can extract. You will always lose some detail but with the plastic quality Renedra use the figures will be very tough indeed.