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 Alpharius wrote:

Creator Jody Siegel 4 days ago

Hehe, but seriously guys, if you requested finished models be sent to you, don't wait six months and not follow up. I'm still waiting for Tim to get back to me on his order. If I don't give you a shipping confirmation and it's been more than a week, ask again.

Updatewise, I had one of my clients come back to me in need of some alterations/repairs so I'll try and have it done asap so I can get back to the death knight.

Atomic facepalm!

So yeah, this campaign's money is long gone, and the only way for stuff to happen here is if Jody makes more money...somewhere else.

And before Rhode Island's First Son chimes in, I don't want any stupid little fething mushroom men!!!

But they're so cute

That Death Knight is totally worth the wait. It's at least--at least--15% more finely detailed than Reaper Bones' Mangu Timur, Anti Paladin, or Malek minis.

 RiTides wrote:

But they're so cute

Spoiler:

They are, but they are also NOT what got me to pledge here.

They're also still not something I want...

Yeah I know, just thought your description was hilarious

What were you aiming for from this, btw - was any of it completed?

I went for:

1) Asura and Gnoll
2) Ifrit
3) Basilisk
4) Death Knight

I think Asura and Gnoll and the Ifrit are done?

Not sure about the Basilisk.

And as far as the Death Knight goes, well...

We'll be headed towards the one year anniversary of him working on that one sculpt soon . If he finishes it you'd have 3 out of 4 done!

I think I pledged for the whole undead package. Sigh.

Latest ramble from Jody:


Hey all,
I wanted to give you a quick update on what I'm doing and also provide you with a timeline for the next release plus some updates about solutions I've been thinking about to make the business better and get miniatures not just sculpted, but ready to play with faster. A lot of these points are related so please bear with me.
Why is it taking so long?
Asside from the life problems like getting hit by cars, seeing doctors, making appointments and the stupid things in life that keep me from work. The main problem slowing down the release of several miniatures is the need to not be wasteful with how I use the kickstarter funds. This is a big problem! As you know I have a number of sculptures done but not released and a number of released miniatures in metal that are not on sale right now as a resin.
Resin is awesome
When I first had the resin miniatures for the desert set made we only had enough cast to take care of the backers that requested the resins plus a few extra. I didn't want to have funds tied up in stock and I didn't know how long they would sit for before being sold. I also really wanted to give the packaging the update that the Ifrit got. But what I've seen from the Beer and D6's sales (which are doing much better than the metal miniatures for a few reasons) is that I should be selling hundreds of collector's minis. Remember back when I said I didn't like resin because I prefered the more resilient metal miniatures for gaming purposes? It seems my opinion has nothing to do with a what a large number of people actually buy them for.
Getting these miniatures cast and in the shop will allow me to get metal miniatures into production as they're completed rather than collecting a few to master on a single mould. Having to collect miniatures has been killing me. People need to see releases in order to know that you're still alive and in business, not dying a painfully slow death. So holding back may have looked neccessary during those months when I my gal was pregnant and out of work, but it was probably a stupid decision in terms of growth and the long run.
"I want to see painted miniatures"
I lot of you, including stockists have asked for or commented that seeing painted versions of the minis would be really great. I totally agree with you. Painted miniatures help inspire and give people ideas to work with. It's helped a lot with Beer and D6's, and since I'd like to release rules and start including cards with the miniatures as they're released, it's going to happen starting with the Death Knight.
Pricing
The last time I looked at what people were charging for miniatures was probably 4 or 5 years ago. Recently I was checking out some figures I liked and was really surprised with how much the cost of figures has gone up or how inaccurately I valued my own goods. Most indy companies don't sell miniatures in huge quantities or require large investments to use their products so they need to find that right balance between competative, and making enough for each figure to justify the effort. So as a pricing experiment it's been interesting to note that selling miniatures at 25-40% less than some of the other shops has not increased sales when it comes to such a specialised product. Or at least no one has written to me thanking me for making highly detailed figures at a reasonable price.
Since we'll be including cards with the miniatures in the future, now is a good time to reevalute the cost of each figure and account for inflation and increased costs to the product and packaging so no more $10 flat rate. I tend to always land on the side of what I think is a good deal though, so don't worry!
Timeline
As you might have guessed, including color game cards with the Death Knight means that we have to get him painted, and that we also need to have the basic rules for the game complete and the summoning circle ready, and tested.
Summoning Circle
The Summoning Circle has been under way now and the pencil draft should be done this week. I'm currently waiting on a set of ultra fine technical pens to arrive to ink it in. Then we'll scan it onto the computer and if there are any edits that need to be made we'll get those done. This should only take a couple of weeks, and I'm really excited about it so as soon as it's done I'll be sharing it with you along with a description of how to use it and what everything means.
Rules
Basic rules will be finished in text format before the cards can be made so that we can test the game out. It will take some time to create graphics to explain the game and demonstrate battles, movement, etc. but with basic rules in text it gives us a reference so that we can get cards with creature stats and spells made and inlcuded with the miniature. My target for the rules will be the end of the month. If I can get the summoning circle done within two weeks, we'll be on track with the rules.
Painted Death knight.
I'd also like to have the death knight ready and cast, ready for painting by the end of the month. Depending on the schedule of my painter, he may be able to do it, but if not I'll do it so that we can have it done asap and get on to the next step. For this, please assume a reasonable amount of time for a skilled painter to paint a mini plus shipping times.
If I'm not doing the painting, I will be making resin moulds for about a week. Once the moulds are done I should be making at least 100 miniatures per week, until the moulds are exhausted and we have 200-300 resins ready for packaging.
Cards
The cards will be a beta version but I want us to be able to test the game thoroughly the way it's meant to be played and give you an opportunity to try it out and report back. If we end up making changes to the cards you'll be able to get replacements at cost. I'll make them available for download too. Once we have a painted miniature, we just need to insert it into a card template and then send the cards, certificate out to get printed. Printing done in the US takes only a few days. The cards that have to be made overseas take a little longer so we should assume around two weeks for this step.
Once the Death Knight is released, we'll repeat this process with the rest of the undead and desert set. If I can find a really good resin caster then I will be able to hand off the casting and painting jobs to others so that I can focus on sculpting and fulfilling orders. In the end, we won't have to wait for a complete undead set before you guys can get those miniatures which are already done like the lich, zombies, and ifrit. And you'll also be able to give the game a spin much sooner.
My goal is to have the summoning circle, basic rules, creature card, and casting all done before the end of September.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
So....emphasis seems to be on the stuff I'm quite convinced that no-one really cares about except Jody at this point.
Game mat and stat cards for a game that was, at best, a vaguely interesting freebie to be included with the miniatures, and is now another rock to hit in the endless tumble down a cliff face that this KS has become.
No mention of sculpting other than finishing the long suffering Death Knight within the next two months. Lots of talk about price points, casting materials blah blah blah.
Get sculpting, update us with pictures of the miniatures we paid for being sculpted, not your attempt at a business plan that none of us have the good will left to care about.

Yeah, my good will for Imbrian Arts dried up a long time ago.

I'm tired of Jody's rambling excuses, the only communication that I want to hear from him is a brief note to let me know when my figures have shipped.

So, probably at some point five years from now.

If then?

At least he somewhat hints at the fact that the Kickstarter money for this campaign is...still around, in some capacity?

Not that I believe it though...

What a mess!

well some firms do charge a premium,

but generally they are the ones with real dedicated fans built up through positive interaction and communication with the fan base

I certainly think charging actual shipping costs would not be unreasonable (although I'm pretty sure he did to international buyers anyway),

but as for an across the board rise.... not convinced

Edit: and as for resin, if he can cast it himself fair enough, but LOTS of resin casting is time intensive and expensive (as you end up QCing and remaking moulds all the time), it's also not something I'd fancy doing at home with a young baby around unless I had dedicated air flow cabinets to make certain none of the fumes went wandering.... and if you contract out your resin casting it's not cheap, not cheap at all so the margins are often worse than metal

eg http://forum-of-doom.com/index.php?topic=14200.0

He's casting resin in-house afaik, which basically means it's really cheap to do since he is already set up for... just takes time. It seems he's motivated to do that since he will sell them in his shop (which is another thing in the update) - but not motivated enough to sculpt the remaining items. It's possible we'll hit a one-year anniversary of his working on a single sculpt.

It's a shame because I think his work is amazing. I would gladly buy it in his online shop, since it's easy to file a claim if he didn't ship (and I believe he would ship)... but getting all the money upfront has been really bad for his motivation to work on anything that he's already been paid for.

He is probably fine because his work is so good I'm sure companies are willing to pay him to sculpt freelance, but he's dropped the ball on fulfillment worse than all but one other campaign that I've backed (out of 170).

Creator Jody Siegel 2 days ago

Sorry for the slow response, I've had some annoying things pop up. The apartment complex posted notices on everyone's doors saying that all our vehicles needed to registered and operational or they would be towed. I had to call them up, explain my situation and promise to get it sorted out asap.
Leg still hurts every day but it's manageable as long as I don't lift heavy stuff. I'll get an update out soon! Let me finish up this Death Knight first

Oh feth me.

Oh that Death Knight,

how many years work is that now?

Does Jody sculpted with his toes (regarding the leg comment)

Death Knight is going to be a solid calendar year of work... if by work, you mean sitting on the shelf with a post every few months about a random thing that would have taken 5 minutes to sort out but somehow took up the entire few months.

Sorry, I'm fiesty today

At this point, I do feel bad making fun of him. He probably needs professional help.


Is Mikh available?

Closing in on the 3 YEAR anniversary of this campaign successfully funding - later December 2012.

Looking back now, seeing that "FEB 2013" ship date is...yeah.

Alpharius 7 days ago

"My goal is to have the summoning circle, basic rules, creature card, and casting all done before the end of September."

OK - September is gone! How'd you do?

Also, how's the Death Knight coming along?

Creator Jody Siegel 6 days ago

Welp, I am getting married in 8 days. When I laid out my timeline the wedding was far enough out that I hadn't even considered it. Usually us guys just have make sure we show up on the day... So I will have the death knight done before the wedding, but I've had no time to do the rules write up. It's looking more realistic to save rules for the next miniature since I'm going to be up to my eyeballs in family and wedding preperations just prior to the wedding.

Well, that is great news for him personally! I hope with that out of the way, he'll make a commitment to getting the sculpts done - it's hard to hold out much hope for that at this point, but with no progress in a year, it will kind of be now or never come the end of this year to see if he plans to push to finish the project, or let it fade away incomplete until folks forget about it.

We won't completely forget about it, but yeah, I catch your meaning...

I thought he was already married... Did he have a child, a divorce, a car accident, and a new engagement since the kickstarter ended? It's like Days of Our Lives with him.

He had the baby first, now he's getting married.

I wonder if there will be a honeymoon/vacation too?

And we come full circle...which is a lot like not moving if you blink.

 Alpharius wrote:
TO really get the tears (of frustration? of rage?) flowing:

NOVEMBER 2014 Update pic of the Knight:



5 Months later, the MAY 2015 Update pic of the Knight:

Have we all prepared our 3 year anniversary gifts?
Leather is traditional, but I don't think Jody is a stickler for tradition.

Three years tomorrow since this debacle began.

If Jody ever happens upon this thread he should really read the first few pages to get a sense of how much good will and genuine excitement he squandered.

Sad, isn't it?

He last logged on to Kickstarter on Nov. 12, so...yeah, I don't think he much cares at all anymore.

Either he doesn't care at all, or he actually believes all of the bs excuses that he writes, and genuinely thinks that he is the victim of circumstance.

Sometimes I think that he does intend to fulfill his obligations at some point, but then i come to my senses and laugh at my own stupidity.

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:
Either he doesn't care at all, or he actually believes all of the bs excuses that he writes, and genuinely thinks that he is the victim of circumstance.

Why can't it be both?

At this point, I don't think many (any?) of us will be seeing what we paid for...

Copying this from the comments:

Jody really seems to have just "run out the clock" on this campaign (which is the smarter way to not fulfill things, than admitting that you won't =/). There has been absolutely no progress for the last full year. It's a shame, because the models I got early on this campaign (from those that were already sculpted at the beginning and available in metal, thank goodness!) are just plain awesome. A wasted opportunity, and a waste of his name! It seems like he is having no problem getting commission work behind the scenes, but obviously will never be trusted by people to run his own Kickstarter again. Shame on you, Jody =(
This is in contrast to folks who I've seen struggle to fulfill their campaigns, but try very hard, keep their backers updated, and continually put their nose to the grindstone. Jody has sculpted nothing for an entire year, so obviously this is not true in his case... I feel bad for those of you who trusted him to make a large pledge and have gotten literally nothing back! Not even an attempt at working on the project this year... might be worth reporting this to Kickstarter guys (you can do so with the button at the bottom of the campaign page, noting that there are "post-funding issues" (the creator is not communicating), or by selecting one of the other options and typing in what the issue is).

Definitely worth reporting the campaign for those who would at least like to see him communicate:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1463917927/imbrian-arts-miniatures/description

(Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and click "Report this project to Kickstarter", and select post-funding issues)

 Alpharius wrote:

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:
Either he doesn't care at all, or he actually believes all of the bs excuses that he writes, and genuinely thinks that he is the victim of circumstance.

Why can't it be both?

At this point, I don't think many (any?) of us will be seeing what we paid for...

True, the two are not mutually exclusive. Maybe I was prepared to give him a pass if he was actually insane? Actually, that's nonsense; why would I ever give him a pass?

The sad truth is that I've totally lost interest in the models that I pledged for (and will never receive), I think that maybe this whole experience has somehow tainted them for me.

*

RiTides, that post that you quoted sums up the situation pretty well I think. Maybe it is time to report Jody, even though I can't see what good it will do.