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Figured I'd make it official.



My apologies for making it so large, I don't know how to make the images tinier here without using spoiler tags.

I started on this idea three years ago when a man by the name of John Seung, who goes by hhello on DeviantArt, granted me permission to license the mecha for WHISPER.

The last few months I've been in close works with Marchen Atelier, a pair of great 3d sculptors, and Impact! Miniatures, to create these mecha. The initial goal, the Sokar and Bastet, are the core third-generation mecha of their time. I've already received great assistance by Impact!, and they sent me some 3d print prototypes.

I then sent those on to Mastergunz, who some of you might know if you know Battletech or CAV Reaper, and Nathan Burg, of Deschain Designs.



Mastergunz finished and decided to send back "the Red Fox". The kneeling Sokar pose - in its "superhero landing" pose - he took some scale comparison shots.



Next to 6mm infantry, and below, next to 15mm infantry.



I decided on a scale neutral 50mm in height for these mecha, though that will flex either way in some cases.

I also decided on spincast resin, particularly due to the fact that shipping these days is a question mark, and I didn't want to double-tap folks' wallets for shipping costs with white metal miniatures.

So, if you have questions, you can ask, I'm just really busy on finishing the alpha rules.

If you'd like to see more pictures of the prototypes, check out Mastergunz' Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/pg/MastergunzPaintWorx/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1931315347105311

And if you want to see yet more pictures of newer designs, I've created a Facebook Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/174693989369987/

This is just an announcement to make everyone aware. I'll let you know when things go live.

Looks good. Will be keeping an eye out for the KS.

Thank you, Ahtman. I'll be certain to keep everyone in the loop.

...Well, I guess now I know what were you doing instead of working on the Heavy Gear RPG ^_^

Both minis look cool, but nothing from them say "big mecha", IMHO. They basically look like heavy power armors from an Infinity-like setting (they look very similar to some Halo designs, actually), apparently with an added jetpack. Which is all well and good, mind, but IMHO the scale you want to portrait is not the scale they appear to fit into.

Anyways, good luck, those are two cool minis.

The RPG is handled by Arkrite. I've had this idea for a few years, but only recently did a friend call me out on it and point me in the direction of Marchen and Impact.

Since then, I've been working my day job to make ends meet while I get this prepared.

No, they won't look like regular mecha. John's artwork envisioned a polymer muscle surrounding a reinforced skeleton. I call these and their more advanced counterparts the third and fourth generation. Earlier generation mecha have a more mechanized look, like the Raptor.

I'll add photos of the 3d sculpt renders shortly.

Very interesting, but I agree with other comments - the mechs simply look like humans in armored suits at a bigger scale.

If you had told me that these were similar figures in 3 different scales, I wouldn't have blinked an eye.

...which is a shame, because I love the concept

It's no shame or skin off my back.

The idea was integrating mecha with their pilots.

WHISPERs were started as interplanetary drop forces using special forces personnel. The first designed were assigned to the elite of their 27th century warfare.

Imagine a 35-year-old Navy SEAL. He's run operations longer than most, he's put rounds downrange in greater quantities, but his body is getting shot up. By the 27th century, cybernetics are a thing, and rejuvenation nanotech can keep him in better shape, but put him in a 55-ton war machine that can sprint 90 miles an hour, and make a hyperspace thread jump from the Oort cloud onto a planet. Then, give him the ability to neurally link with a limited artificial intelligence to use that WHISPER as his own body.

He can run as hard as he wants, gun down targets like he was 20 again. He's a guy that I envision running a third or fourth generation.

Earlier generations now are able to be made in greater quantities, updated and given new life, but I envision WHISPER in a small scale skirmish with WHISPERs as the centerpieces, and infantry and tanks holding the line as best they can, using whatever cover and firepower they have handy to put a dent in the mecha.

The initial game size would be 4 WHISPERs, and 8 support units (infantry, light power armor, heavy power armor, low-end tanks, and high-end tanks) per player.

With the plethora of options in 6mm, 10mm, and 15mm, I wanted to leave off developing infantry and tanks, and give folks the option to stand in whatever they had available, rather than have to purchase the whole kit and kaboodle.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Edit: And if folks want to use these as light TAGs or heavy power armor in 28mm, they're my guest.

You ought tp take a look at the Poseidon and some of the other designs. The Sokar/Bastet are probably the most "guy-in-a-suit" looking of the bunch. Others, like the Raptor above and the Poseidon are much mord mecha-like in appearance.

I know I'm baking it when it goes live.

Thanks for that, Barzam.

And for those curious, if you don't want to go to the Facebook Group, I'll post the images of the Poseidon, a Stretch Goal:

Awesome stuff!!!!

Appreciate that, Malika.

Great stuff but I wouldn't use Resin for them, miniatures this size are perfect for PVC, restic or boardgame plastic.

I spent a couple months going over the options, and I became somewhat familiar with the start-up costs of the various materials available.

I want high detail. White metal is arguably still one of the best for this. Weight, however, makes these packages more expensive to ship to Backers and future consumers, thus, it is unlikely. I also want to keep weight down so Backers and future customers aren't paying half the cost of the miniatures themselves in shipping alone.

Plastic is light on weight, and recent applications have made detail less of a problem, but they are still inordinately expensive to begin manufacturing. We're talking nearly ten thousand to white metal's hundreds for a single pose master and production mold. Plus, there is still examples out there that lead me to believe plastic just isn't quite as detailed as white metal or resin.

PVC and restic I'm not familiar with, but what I read lead me to understand they fall in a similar grade with plastic, but they've received mixed reviews on detail.

Resin comes in many forms, but almost always it comes with a slightly higher mold cost, it burns through its molds somewhat faster than white metal or plastic, but, the trade-off is extremely great detail and a reasonable weight that undercuts the shipping costs of white metal.

For some of the thinner pieces, I'm staggering the expenses of Stretch Goals such that if we do run into some issues with thinner pieces warping or breaking off, I might ask of the caster to retool a specific piece in white metal, but so far, I don't think that will be an issue.

Congrats, Brandon! Living the dream as a game designer! From your post above, I'm not sure what material you're leaning towards. Is a combo of multiple materials an option ala the Dp9 resin tanks with metal bits? Glad to see you progressing on Whisper again.

Thank you, warboss.

I am sorry, I was trying to explain why my final decision was spincast resin.

If some bits are too fiddly/thin to properly work in spincast resin, then I'll ask if we can create those fiddly bits in white metal to ensure they are detailed properly.

I'm thinking of using Smoothcast 305, which was recommended to me by a gentleman from White Dragon Miniatures, who I backed in their Marine Tactical Unit Kickstarter a couple years ago.

The detail on those miniatures is still top-notch, and while things between WDM and Prodos fell through, the material itself I hear is good.

An example shot of a 15mm WDM trooper with the Bastet WHISPER Mastergunz did.

Any chance we can see a comparison against a 28-32 mm?

BrandonKF wrote:
No, they won't look like regular mecha. John's artwork envisioned a polymer muscle surrounding a reinforced skeleton. I call these and their more advanced counterparts the third and fourth generation. Earlier generation mecha have a more mechanized look, like the Raptor.

I suppose you already know this, but... change "polymer" there for "myomer" and that's what Battletech has been uning since the 80s. And well, it's also basically almost every power armor ever, even Space Marines. By which I mean, that should not really inform shape too much.

That Poseidon looks much less anthropomophic than the rest, although the size of the arm missiles make the idea of envisioning it as a giant mecha kind of iffy... how about a closed launcher, instead of "naked" hardpoints?

If you really want to do a sense of scale, maybe adding a bit of panel detailing, ladders or somesuch ould help in that regard... dunno, just a thought.

I also backed the Marine Tactical Unit KS from WDM and I have to say that the material is very good, IMHO.

EDIT: A size comparison with some Infinity or GW current stuff would be great, yeah. The red mecha reminds me a lot of a Guges, and I could use something like that, particularly if it looks big enough for 28mm... would there be a way of assembling them without melee weapons?

BrandonKF wrote:
Thank you, warboss.

I am sorry, I was trying to explain why my final decision was spincast resin.

Ah, in that case the apology is mine. I missed that part in the first post somehow. That infantry does look nice. I'd also echo the call to put the WHISPER figs next to some of your infinity TAGs and such as I suspect you might get some cross sales if the sizes match up (I don't know if they do personally as I don't own any CB models myself).

 Albertorius wrote:

BrandonKF wrote:
No, they won't look like regular mecha. John's artwork envisioned a polymer muscle surrounding a reinforced skeleton. I call these and their more advanced counterparts the third and fourth generation. Earlier generation mecha have a more mechanized look, like the Raptor.

I suppose you already know this, but... change "polymer" there for "myomer" and that's what Battletech has been uning since the 80s. And well, it's also basically almost every power armor ever, even Space Marines. By which I mean, that should not really inform shape too much.

Yup. Polymer myomer fibers. They work.

*****WARNING****WALLOTEXT INCOMING*******

“... imagine that you can create a human being from scratch. Now, imagine you can take out many of our defining traits… the need to reproduce, the need to feed, the need to hydrate, the need to breathe. Effectively, you eliminate two thirds of the body’s lean body mass, that which is taken up by those organs, and replace it all with lean muscle mass, or, more appropriately, skeletal muscle compounds. That was the beginning of our design work behind Sokar.

“The first and second generation of WHISPERs were profoundly devastating in direct actions. Wherever they and their pilots went, action reports showed they were top in marks for achieving the stated goals of their missions. These pilots were pulled from some of the most renowned special operations forces of their Dominions. They were already somebodies in their craft, the WHISPERs just enhanced their already formidable skill set. Their downside was their maintenance. To employ them, our research discovered that the man-hours on maintenance for first-generation WHISPERs were twice that of 21st-century fighter planes, such as the F/A-18E Super Hornet.

“The power supply wasn’t the problem. Miniaturized Tiggs-Dyson eventium engines are simple designs in most respects, and immensely easy to replenish when they reach their half life, provided you have the core material to replenish the energy source. It was the hydraulics, joints, motive systems… engineers spent nearly two decades trying to refine the original designs.

“The second generation started on the original idea of utilizing polymer muscle groups in specific key areas to improve both strength as well as less wear and tear, provided the muscles were properly lubricated. That was our epiphany moment. Why stop at just key areas?

“The trouble starts when you create a mass of polymer muscle, you’re expecting it to operate with the same achievable rates of acceleration and deceleration that natural muscle does. Without the proper lubrication, it will overheat very swiftly. Artificial muscles have long had difficulty in terms of flexibility. After researching, we decided on twisted fibers of electroactive polymer muscles, with an ion-based electrolyte lubricant. The electrolyte solution we had was a particularly red tint, which, when it bled, looks a little like human blood. That was somewhat disturbing to see, but it helps maintenance crews know if there is a break in the seals of the suit, and they can address it with a concentrated film of repair nanomachines to reknit the damage to the dermal layer.

“To maintain flexibility and keep the muscle mass sealed, we made an oversuit of sub-dermal and dermal layers of cross-linked polymer. It functions like a skin over the ‘meatsuit’, as we call it. Over that, we added two denser layers of cross-linked polymer that acted like a flexible armor, and we added thin layers of the same fluid we used to lubricate the muscle groups. Under pressure, the polymer’s artificial elasticity gives the Sokar a good degree of resistance to being punctured by lower-velocity weapons. Natural youthful human skin has an elasticity of about 180 percent when stretched and returning back to its original form. Early generations of cross-linked polymer in cosmetics could achieve approximately 250 percent elasticity, but ours could flex up to 350 percent.

“Internally, there’s a few key components – organs, of a sort – that we designed to assist operations. Primary sensors and cameras were placed within the head module, but since no brain is necessary outside of the relatively tiny limited artificial intelligence matrix, we were also able to store several back-ups to fire control systems, the balance mechanisms, and other necessary components. In case the head was removed, secondary sensors and cameras were placed on external armor components. The external armor components are a ceramic composite mixture of the latest type in main battle tanks.

“The skeleton is titanium alloy with an external layering of tungsten alloyed with iridium, giving it flexibility as well as enhanced structural integrity. The internal specifications of the fire control systems are worked like nerves, so that the WHISPER doesn’t have to ‘squeeze’ the trigger. Instead, when the pilot thinks to squeeze the trigger, the WHISPER translates it as a microsecond fire command through the nerves, through the connection in the hand against the weapon system, and the weapon discharges.

“There’s more in there, but I’m not allowed to discuss it all with you. However, by volume and mass, the Sokar weighs roughly 34 short tons at dry weight, or about 31,600 kilograms. Approximately 75 percent of that is lean muscle mass. Fully armed and with external armor plating and sensors, the weight jumps to approximately 52.5-55 short tons. The artificial intelligence matrix has its own inhibitory systems in place to ensure that a pilot doesn’t try to lift more than it registers itself capable of doing, so as not to damage the machine’s internal muscle systems, but with so much muscle, it’s a monumental difference in capabilities. I’ve seen footage of some operators deadlifting a literal main battle tank in combat situations and throwing them sideways, and we know for a fact that just about every WHISPER is capable of clocking 90 miles an hour in a dead sprint. I’ve heard that some younger engineers have begun trying to design even faster ground speeds, upwards of 120 miles an hour, but that’s the next generation’s work.”

-Doctor Hedwig Basal-Hampton, Throne Confederacy engineer, Documentary “The Sokar: Next Generation WHISPER Warfare”, released August, 2665 Anno Domini

***WALLOTEXT ENDING***

-

The poylmer muscle masses are put in an ion based electrolyte that is essentially a salt water gel lubricant that's highly conductive (allowing ease of transmission for impulse control). Being highly conductive, it's also good at heat transfer out to a condenser/coolant system to remove heat generation. Most WHISPERs of the third and fourth generation transfer to one of five condensers, though some have more thanks to miniaturization. In addition, protein nanomachines within the electrolyte solution as a system flush during maintenance for general upkeep allow WHISPERs of the third and fourth generation to maintain their systems in between combat missions.

-

Exposed Muscle Frame on a Sokar/Bastet class WHISPER



Close-Up Image of Sokar/Bastet class WHISPER Cockpit in Open Position

That Poseidon looks much less anthropomophic than the rest, although the size of the arm missiles make the idea of envisioning it as a giant mecha kind of iffy... how about a closed launcher, instead of "naked" hardpoints?

If you really want to do a sense of scale, maybe adding a bit of panel detailing, ladders or somesuch ould help in that regard... dunno, just a thought.

I also backed the Marine Tactical Unit KS from WDM and I have to say that the material is very good, IMHO.

EDIT: A size comparison with some Infinity or GW current stuff would be great, yeah. The red mecha reminds me a lot of a Guges, and I could use something like that, particularly if it looks big enough for 28mm... would there be a way of assembling them without melee weapons?

The Poseidon's packing its optional equipment, torpedoes.



As for optional arms? There's one arm that has that for the kneeling pose with the Sokar/Bastet, but I can try making another and tack it in as a part of a Stretch Goal. The 3d files are already finished, I just have to pay Heriberto and Gibran a sum to repose the models, although that will cost extra to get masters and production molds made on Impact!'s end.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 warboss wrote:

BrandonKF wrote:
Thank you, warboss.

I am sorry, I was trying to explain why my final decision was spincast resin.

Ah, in that case the apology is mine. I missed that part in the first post somehow. That infantry does look nice. I'd also echo the call to put the WHISPER figs next to some of your infinity TAGs and such as I suspect you might get some cross sales if the sizes match up (I don't know if they do personally as I don't own any CB models myself).

As you wish.

Squalo TAG, my nephew's prototype (he wanted black after I painted white, go figure), and a Hac-Tao by Nathan Burg of Deschain Design.

So, baby Evangelion.

I like the bit of background material regarding the WHISPER designs. My only nit-picking is: why would a 27th century documentary mention a 21st century military aircraft as a frame of reference for extreme maintenance needs? Breaks the forth wall a bit mentioning the Super Hornet, which is a reference contemporary readers will get, but the audience of that documentary likely wouldn't understand since they are so far in the future.

The Poseidon is a neat design. I like its heft and it looks like it would be a real brawler. Is it intended for under water combat? The trident and torpedo tubes suggest as much but the frame looks like it wouldn't move underwater very well. Are the downward pointing elements on the back torso some sort of propulsion system?

JohnHwangDD wrote:So, baby Evangelion.

Yes. With some Code Geass, Gundam, and a few others thrown in the mix.

DarkTraveler777 wrote:I like the bit of background material regarding the WHISPER designs. My only nit-picking is: why would a 27th century documentary mention a 21st century military aircraft as a frame of reference for extreme maintenance needs? Breaks the forth wall a bit mentioning the Super Hornet, which is a reference contemporary readers will get, but the audience of that documentary likely wouldn't understand since they are so far in the future.

The Poseidon is a neat design. I like its heft and it looks like it would be a real brawler. Is it intended for under water combat? The trident and torpedo tubes suggest as much but the frame looks like it wouldn't move underwater very well. Are the downward pointing elements on the back torso some sort of propulsion system?

It does break the fourth wall, somewhat. Could be he's an eccentric history buff and also an engineer.

And yes, the Poseidon's an amphibious design from the Northern Martian Federation. Your intuition is spot-on with the propulsion system.

No, those are overwhelmingly not-Evangelions. At least 90% of "your" core design concept is Evangelion knock-off.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
No, those are overwhelmingly not-Evangelions. At least 90% of "your" core design concept is Evangelion knock-off.

John, he said it was an inspiration and affirmed your "baby evangelion" comment. Is your point that he didn't agree with you enough?

Fine, fair enough.

I'd say closer to Gasaraki more than anything.

 Barzam wrote:
I'd say closer to Gasaraki more than anything.

Yeah, other than the cockpit being about in the same position than an Eva's, the rest looks more reminiscent of Gasaraki.

The setting stuff looks quite cool, Brandon, and now that I know they're torpedoes, the "missiles" look much more logical ^^ (still, I think I'd probably prefer them as torpedo tubes, but that's just me).

warboss wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
No, those are overwhelmingly not-Evangelions. At least 90% of "your" core design concept is Evangelion knock-off.

John, he said it was an inspiration and affirmed your "baby evangelion" comment. Is your point that he didn't agree with you enough?

Barzam wrote:I'd say closer to Gasaraki more than anything.

Albertorius wrote:

 Barzam wrote:
I'd say closer to Gasaraki more than anything.

Yeah, other than the cockpit being about in the same position than an Eva's, the rest looks more reminiscent of Gasaraki.

The setting stuff looks quite cool, Brandon, and now that I know they're torpedoes, the "missiles" look much more logical ^^ (still, I think I'd probably prefer them as torpedo tubes, but that's just me).

John created the concept art, and he's a fan of all mecha.

I asked and he granted me use of the art for the universe.

I was going the role playing route 3 years back, but that fizzled. I've got a good amount of background written up, but in the meantime, these miniatures will be a good starting point.

And yeah, I know torpedo tubes make good sense, but Elartwyne actually had them even larger than that in the initial concept art (which actually fits, since a modern torpedo might roughly be the length of a WHISPER).

At 8.2 to 8.5 meters tall, a WHISPER is just shy of being as tall as a modern Abrams or T-14 is in length. Makes Micromachines tanks useful for stand-ins at 10mm scale.

I've been getting a lot more done in the meantime, and I set up a preview of everything for the folks in the WHISPER Facebook group. Some great advice and questions about the original WHISPER, which is actually just a different head for two varying chassis. The Sokar and the Bastet.

Poseidon prototype getting a paint job. Scale shot was requested with Heavy Gear models, so here ya go.

Iguana: "Who are THESE guys???"
Poseidon: "Baby, I was born this way."