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Oops missed an update so here are two for you


Update #10 Jun 1 2014

JoeK Minis...just 'why' did I make *that*!!??!! Part One...

Hi folks,

In the last week of the campaign, I thought I'd write a few words telling the story about a few of my models, and try to explain to folks just why it is I released them, and some of the trials and tribulations that a miniature manufacturer can go through in an effort to fuel the passion.

Or something like that.

The Barbarian



The Barbarian came about relatively unannounced. A nice chap named Pontus Bjorlin emailed me over some sketches for me to simply have a look over. The human figure with the axe just clicked for me! A dynamic pose, and something about it made me happy.



Which is always a good thing.

Pontus is a fantastic artist, and he also did the concept for Papa Demon too. I count him as a top man and friend! I asked the very talented (and now Forgeworld sculptor) Edgar Skomorowski (also known as DEGRA) to sculpt it for me, and he did! It was a good learning experience - as a non-sculptor myself (or at least someone who hasn't progressed further than making impressive sausages...) it opened my eyes to the fact that converting 2d into 3d is never quite as easy as you'd like it to be. You can get away with an awful lot on a 2d plane, but the transition to a physical representation is always tricky, and I think Edgar did an amazing job with him. It was fantastic seeing it come to life!

If you ever see me at a show, ask me to tell you the tale of the 'Barbarian's foot'. Modesty prevents me from talking about it here, but I can be persuaded to mumble something about it outside of the internet. It's funny, yet embarrassing for all concerned

Servant Prime



Probably out of all the figures I've done, Servant Prime remains the one I'm closest to, and most proud of.

Servant Prime came about with my fondness for comic books. in the late 90s, an incredibly talented comic book writer/artist called Ricardo Delgado created the 4 issue mini-series called 'Hieroglyph'. It only ever got printed once, and never got re-released as a graphic novel and thus is kind of lost in the mists of time a little. This is a HUGE pity, as it's one of the very best comic books I've ever had the privilege to read. The comic starts with a shot of a huge Earth space ship. A smaller craft is seen to launch from it and heads towards what looks from the outset to be a world devoid of any life at all. At the very least, the sensors and equipment that our hero (Chavez is his name) has cannot detect anything. What he finds upon landing on the world is a place of spectacular ruined (and very old) architecture, but eventually a world not only filled with living creatures but in the middle of some sort of holy war for an amulet (neatly called the Hieroglyph). What follows is a quest to keep the amulet from the evil creatures that vie for control of the planet. The leader of which was called 'Servant Prime'. And that's what you see here.



It took rather a while, but I managed to get contact details for Ricardo, and he subsequently received a very strange email from a very strange bloke asking him if he would let the aforementioned strange bloke make Servant Prime into a figure.

After a little bit of 'Whu'? Wha'? Who?', Ricardo finally believed I wasn't an idiot (well I am, but I was truly a fan too!) and gave me his blessing! I asked the amazingly talented Allan Carrasco to sculpt it for me. I think it appealed to his unique sensibilities, as he did an incredible job.

Servant Prime is mysterious and just looks nasty. The detail on his clawed hand needs to be seen in the flesh - it is so delicately done! Probably of all the figures I've made, this is the one which I most wanted to release and get made. The fact that someone I admired allowed me to give it a go was a huge blessing, and I'm pleased to say he loves it (big relief...). I hope you do too!

The grand plan is to get the original comics back into print somehow! Me and Roberto do talk about this from time to time. I've got all the master images, and he plans to do a nice new cover and everything. However, it's one of those projects that remains a rather slow burner as both of our real life work (admittedly, because he's a concept artist in Hollywood his work always sounds far more interesting than mine ) tend to mess these plans up a little.

But one day it'll happen.

So, that's a few words about two of my figures. You probably know you can pick 'em up don't you? Of course you do!

Buy lots!

Speak to you soon!

Joe



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Update #11 Jun 2 2014

JoeK Minis...just 'why' did I make *that*!!??!! Part Two...

The Summer Knight



I spend quite a bit of time on sites like DeviantArt and ConceptArt. They always provide a constant source of quite incredible art and design for pretty much any genre you can name. On my browsing I came to the work of David Ortega, and more specifically: the Summer Knight.



The artwork stood out a mile for me. I loved the character and emailed David to see if he'd agree to not only allow make a figure out of it, but to do a proper concept design for the figure. He agreed. The fun began when we started to work out moves and forms and all that sort of thing. My initial thoughts were to make her as close to the original artwork. Various people I showed the piece to thought it might work better with more action to it.

Anyway, I decided to think on this, and I basically asked David to do a whole load of stickmen in various poses. Easy, quick to do but you can immediately see what can work...



So, after a while the decision was made, and it was left to the very talented Kul Asryk to do the work of sculpting it. I think he did a fantastic job of the sculpting, and I think it's a pretty cool figure.



You know what though? I do have a lingering regret that I didn't do her in the original pose. Whilst getting feedback and advice is always vital and necessary, there are sometimes you just have to go with your gut feeling and it's something I didn't do on this occasion. Would she have sold more if I had? Most probably not :p . Most people seem to rather like the lady as she is!

I somehow don't think I'm finished with her though. One day I'd like to get her done again...maybe in a bigger scale...and maybe in the original pose .

It's the good thing about running my own miniature company...I can do that sort of thing

Speak again tomorrow I hope! Aside from another thrilling tale of JoeK Mini history, I may have a special little extra for all you pledgers out there

Cheerio!

Joe

New update time . Free stuff abounds in the last few days

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1113411001/paul-bonners-trolls-of-trudvang/posts/864471

Update #13 Jun 4 2014

JoeK Minis...just 'why' did I make *that*!!??!! Part Three...

Mr Good and Mr Bad Axe

I learnt a long time ago that whenever I actually try and plan for anything, it all goes wrong. In terms of how this affects miniature making, it boils down to DELAYS.

You get used to it.

I might elaborate a bit more on this subject in another update, but we'll see

So, in the middle of a delay (as I was), I went shopping. Well, I saw a couple of sculpt WIPs being done and I rather liked the look of them. Actually, only one of them was nearly done, the other one was in really early stages - but I liked the form and the shape, so I emailed the sculptor and we struck a deal, and eventually Mr Bad Axe and Mr Good Axe were born!





These were sculpted by Matt Gubser, who's a rather talented chap really. He's sculpted for a number of companies over the years, including 4A Miniatures and Reaper to name but two. What you might not know is that he's also a stand up comedian. I kid you not. He's pretty darn good at that too! It's a strange world!

I asked golden demon winner and good buddy Peter Bell (he of the Jolly Bodgers) to do the painting honours on these two, and he brought them to life! I don't tend to outsource painting of figures - partly because I paint myself - but I thought I'd be lazy. I'm glad for my sloth in this case, as I'm pretty sure I couldn't do a better job on them than Pete did!

I should add that they were never especially designed to be a 'pair', but they do work very well together I think. As for the names? I struggled for the longest time, attempting to work out some cool sounding names for them. In the end, I gave up and Good and Bad Axe did the job!

I think they work well enough

Until next time!

Joe

Update #14 Jun 5 2014

JoeK Minis...just 'why' did I make *that*!!??!! Part Four...

The Dragon Huntress



This is probably the figure that I most ask myself the question that I've been posing in these updates!

Why. Did. I. Make. That?

Well, the obvious reason is that it is an absolutely exquisite figure and one that I'm happy to show off. But boy did it have a long gestation!

So, rolling back a couple of years, this was a figure that was never mine, nor was it in my area of focus to even make it. It was actually based on a commission that GW sculptor Steve Buddle had had done a long time ago. I've known Steve for a fair old while now, and we were busy speaking about plans for world mini domination and all sorts of fun stuff. At that time, Steve was self-employed and ran Eolith Miniatures. Now, whilst he did all his own stuff, he was starting to branch out a little and get some really big name sculptors to work on some concepts. The first one he was working on was the fair lady Dragon Huntress...



This was drawn by Roberto Cyrillo, who's done amazing stuff over the years - for GW, Studio McVey, Wild West Exodus and I've got the pleasure to be working with him for a fairly long term project (which I'll hopefully expand upon in a future update!). I knew it was going to be a great figure. When Steve then said he'd got MIKH to sculpt it for him, I knew it was going to be even better than that!

Fate suddenly played a real curve ball. Steve got a job at Games Workshop in a sculpting capacity - and thus not able to still run Eolith or to keep on with the Huntress commission. I took it upon myself to ensure that the figure was made...so I asked him nicely, he said yes and the rest is history.

Well, kind of. The Huntress took a real long time to get sculpted. Sometimes it happens. She went through stages of loads of work being done, and then some stumbles along the way. There were plenty of times that I started to regret having the thing done. Ask my close chums and they might tell you the exact words I sometimes used.

However, the end result came about in 2013, and - you know what - it was worth the wait I think. By far the most detailed figure I've ever produced, and I think it's a wonder of a figure!



MIKH wrote a really cool WIP of the sculpt on his blog HERE . You'll see why he's one of the very best sculptors of little figures in the world!

And whilst I think it's a great figure, I wanted it to have a limited shelf life . There will only ever be 500 of these made. It had been so long in the making, I wanted it to have a definite end to it. 500's a lot though - I'm around half-way through 'em though!

I'm more than happy to be nearer to the 500 by the end of the Kickstarter though, so by all means buy one. Or two...maybe three

And this might be the last 'why did I make that' for now. Sure, I've got other figures, but I kind of wanted to focus on the ones that were a little bit different in the process from idea to figure, and hopefully I've let you into a little bit of the world of JoeK Minis :p

Coming up soon - might be one last figure on the way (hopefully!), and a word about the future!

What larks, eh?

Speak to you soon!

Joe

Heading into the last hours now...

Update #15 Jun 6 2014

Last Man Standing...

So, this will be the final figure that I'll be doing for the Kickstarter proper, and it's one which has caused the most debates.

Do I have the third hero rowing the boat, or do I have him standing tall, so he can be used as a separate figure too? Well, I think if we'd have had the fortune to get way over the targets for the Kickstarter, I suspect I'd have gone with the 'silly' option and do him in the boat. However, the reality is that making him as a free-standing figure works for all manner of occasions really!

Now, I have to say, as of around 30 minutes ago, I was not going to put him up as an add-on for the campaign. The only picture I had of him was basically a bit of putty in the basic form. However, whilst he's not done yet by a fair old way, I think he's presentable enough to give you the basic idea! And without further ado...



Now, my very very cunning plan is this...he will be carrying a spear. He will also be carrying in pretty much the same position as where you see the oar - or at least raised in such a way that with a small adjustment it could rather easily be converted into an oar (can you see where I'm going with this). So, if folks then choose to do a little converting, and plan to make a wee boat for the scene, then I reckon you can have him in the vessel rather well!

Well, that's the plan!

I think he's looking great already though, and I do think the face is just awesome (in this side-on position!), and I really hope you have enough faith in the project to put in a bit more of your hard-earned cash! I mean, the other two would be most upset if you didn't!

Getting near the end now folks!

See you next time

Joe

This is just about down to the last day (26 hours to go as I write this)

so anybody still on the fence about the trolls (or any of JoeK's other minis) need to get pledging

I concur Orlando

Wow...the pain and suffering of me mercilessly pimping my stuff is nearing the end



https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1113411001/paul-bonners-trolls-of-trudvang

Cheers folks!

Joe