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I like the guy with the double chin. He needs a special portly body though to go with it.

Yep. Gonna need to get me some of those heads.

The screaming one on the left is going straight on a Commissar body and the one on the right with the Stogie and 'stache is full on tank commander material.

 Barzam wrote:
I like the guy with the double chin. He needs a special portly body though to go with it.

Buy Creed cut off his head, replace with Mr. Twinchins.

Put Creeds head on a standard trooper. Watch your opponent scream in rage as Creed outflanks Creed onto the board, who then proceeds to outflank 10 lasguns into the face of some unwitting xeno scum.


CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!

Dear God I need these now just make some bodies and arms maybe some legs a couple of guns :

Everything looks fantastic. The Rambo Gobbo and everything for the Orcs is just amazing.

When is the new Ork codex rumored to drop again?

Love the new heads comeing out from you guys. I hope you might get around to doing some human heads that don't have massive double chins. XD

I'm starting a small HH project, and realy need some bare heads to add some verity.

Maybe I missed it, but the old pack of Jungle Honeys is nowhere to be found on the site.

Also, any word on the new girls?

Scarface and cigar chomper look brilliant. Not sold on the other 3. No. 1 looks a bit too gaunt, like a recent corpse, while 3 + 4 look too fat. I like my officers with the kind of chiselled features that suggest death and encourage obedience. Just my two cents.

Damn nice heads there! I'm going to add them into my force even if i need to get creative as to where they go! :-)

I've just added Officer Heads to the store:

http://maxmini.eu/officer-heads-bits

Thx for the comments guys. Heck, they started me thinking about extra torso kit .

Pretty awesome IG heads and I don't see that the girls are too revealing.. I like it as it gives me a chance to keep my skills up on painting flesh.

. On a side note - we've just got new batch of rubber (different type we've used so far) for spincat moulds and the work on female guerilla jumpstarted. Apart from regular duties we've got 2 moulds vulcanized today and we wish to keep this pace so the squads will be ready for release on the beggining of new year .

Those officer heads look nice. I'll have to grab a set.


Przemas, I can't see the jungle girls on the website anywhere. Are they still available or have they been taken off the store for good?
Also is there a picture for the Guardsman Sniper?

@Snrub: They'll be back soon . Moulds for those damaged with time and we had slight delay with getting rubber.

I'll make new pics of the guardsman sniper and will upload them by the end of the week.

Yeah sweet. Cheers mate.

Love those Guerilla girls, I will add them to my big TGG army and i wouldn't say no to even more :>

They'll look great hanging out with Ariadna.

Can't wait for the other three to get released, slowly but surely building an Escher gang here.

We're warming up after Xmas holidays . Hope you had as much fun as we had .

Right about time to release new models for the female guerilla:

http://maxmini.eu/female-guerilla-reinforcements-miniatures

Along with Jane&Anne the whole squad is now doable


I think that in 2014 you'll see more minis from us .
We're also considering some crowdfunding projects. What do you think? What are in your opinions do-s and don`t-s ?

Do crowd funding, just not indienogo. Really kickstarter or nothing. Also don't bite off more than you can chew, if you only have ten models to get ready don't let the surge of backers try and get you to do twenty in the same time frame. I'd love to see a company say "that's what we have for now, we'll still take orders, but we're not doing more until these are done"

.
Yeah, I'd prefer to go for Kickstarter - the issue is that it has been US/UK only last time I've checked. Getting round those restrictions is not impossible but rather tricky.

KS rather than Indiegogo if possible

I'll add if you do use Indigogo please DON'T use the flexible funding option where you keep the cash even if the project fails to fund

it means very few people will be willing to back in the first place and makes it much less likely you'll hit your target

have a clear vision of what you want to achieve, with the project as while listening to what the backers say in the comments can help they often do not represent the 'silent majority'

Be responsive to them, listen to them but don't let them tell you what to make next etc

Be very pessimistic about delivery dates (and then add another 6 months)

think about how long picking and packing will take if you end up offering backers free choice of minis (rather than selling sets),

if you get a lot of complex orders (300-500 might well be possible from an established name like yours) sending them out will cost a lot of time (& money)

People prefer to see at least some real sculpts but if you use concept art make sure the sculpts match the art (preferably show earlier art and a finished model side by side)

Free stuff makes happy backers but make sure you know how much it will cost you

Make sure your certain about your postage costs (and remember prices can rise while you're sculpting/casting etc), you'll get more backers if you build the costs in to the pledges so it looks as if it's 'free'

And ordered, I am so going to paint mine with trousers on though, running around like that in a jungle isn't exactly good for your health.

And as I've said before, I'd love to see some variants that either brandish shotguns, belt-fed machine guns and sniper rifles, or ladies with empty hands so we can add our own weapons of choice.

 BrookM wrote:
running around like that in a jungle isn't exactly good for your health.

... unless you're super tough, bioengineered jungle chick .

And yeah, I know that multipart can be fun. We'reworking on a next project that should fit this description. For the female guerilla we've decided it would be too tricky - still (apart one of the models) we tried to make them in a way that would allow weapons swaps without much hassle .

@OrlandotheTechnicoloured: thx for the detailed post - will have to get back to it as soon as I get a while with my laptop.

Nice, thanks for the quick reply and as always, keep making cool things, no matter what the haters say!

thx mate :-) .

@Orlando: your post really encourages me to launch a campaign. One of the reasons we hadn't done it so far was that I wanted to make sure I know possible risks and ways to handle them. Luckily many of the things that are troublesome for starters are not a big deal for us, as we learned howto cope with those during years of running our venture. For example shipping - after sending tens of thousands packages I know real costs for both post and courier services, including preparing the package, boxes, fillers etc. Also manufacturing all by ourselves help a lot :-) .

Thx for reminding about keeping the focus on the goal - with lots of new ideas and suggestions it may be tricky not to dilute the core idea, lost track of it.

I'm taking the possibility of crowdfunding really seriously - I don't want to end up with a smelly dud . I've been browsing various campaigns for around a year trying to figure out what people do right and wrong.

Kickstarter is a tad of an issue due to country restrictions. Does any of you have an idea campaigns on it are usually more succesful than on Indiegogo? I'd like to figure out the difference as maybe for some of the projects it may not matter which platform we'll use :-) .

KS campaigns are often more successful on KS compared to Indiegogo probably for a variety of reasons

1. KS is bigger and has a bigger pool of backers who trust it enough to use it

2. Many Americans are reluctant to use non-US platforms partly because they understand their own currency better, partly because they seem to get charged poor currency conversion fees by their CC providers (and it seems a lot of US credit cards don't let their owners spend abroad without a lot of hassle 'oking' it with the provider first)

Since a majority of crowd funding money comes from the USA this negatively impacts Indiegogos potential

(which is why companies like Manitc carried on using the USA KS platform even when the UK one came on line)

Plus a lot I'm sure I've not spotted




Having backed lots (too many?) projects I can see 3 (4) basic areas which can cause problems

1. Getting the costs wrong is clearly a disaster

(know your tax position with regards to the project funds coming in, and with having KS stock on hand at the end of the tax year)

2. Delivering a product that fails to meet backer expectation (even if they're wrong) is not good,

so use the material you say you will (metal/resin/restic)
make sure your stuff looks like the concept art
make sure they are the size backers expect

3. Communicate with the backers via KS updates preferably once a week. Even if there's not much/anything to say, say something. Carry on until everything has shipped (and been received)

It's also good if you can chat in the KS comments as it helps build/keep a community

Mierce has got this pretty much perfect for their two projects
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mierceminiatures/darklands-first-edition
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mierceminiatures/darklands-a-world-of-war

Kingdom Death doesn't manage to update as often but when he does it's packed with info, and he does pop in to the comments semi-regularly
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/poots/kingdom-death-monster

Whereas CMON with Relic Knights shows what happens when backers hear nothing for long periods of time
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolminiornot/relic-knights

and Raging Heroes shows what happens when you promise (regular) updates but then don't deliver for weeks and weeks

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/loudnraging/raging-heroes-the-toughest-girls-of-the-galaxy

If you do run into problems backers who are aware of the issues and feel they have a relationship with you are far less more likely to forgive you

(4) Delays.

Most KS projects end up running late, very late. Projects take longer than the creator expects, they don't factor in the extra work stretch goals add, and things go wrong that they can't control

Personally this does not bother me (and a bunch of others) much, but it's a real issue for a significant number of backers so be realistic when setting your target date in your pledge levels (you can always say you'll try to deliver earlier in the blurb on the front page)



Automatically Appended Next Post:
And remember your project is a success if you hit your target!

A project does not need to bring in $1 million and hit dozens of stretch goals to be a success

You can always run another one when you've fulfilled the first,

and if you've handled the first one well a lot of the previous backers will come back, and they'll be much more likely to help promote you too

First of the new chicks look amazing just added to my to buy order list just checked out how much it will cost me

As to the KS any clue as to what it will be ?

As the gentleman above has mentioned pretty much covered everything for a successful KS, the pitfalls he has mentioned are very apparent in the KS I have backed.
The one thing I would add is if you do have any issues during the funding or production time frame, be clear and up front most people will be understanding if kept in the the know.

Although I am sure it will be successful and due to the fact it will all be done in house, the one thing that seems to be a big issue is dealing with third parties or out sourcing production.

Sorry, couldn't help it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9QjRl4Mfug

I'd have to echo what Orlando has said above, and throw another example of a good KS project into the mix: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/179741323/brothers-of-iron Though this is more about showing how well a small and focused KS can do compared to one where the creators get carried away and start throwing around more stretch goal that just confuse things.

Regular updates are certainly a must, as frequently as suitable during the project and then once a week or so after the funding finishes. Things like work in progress pictures (rough renders / greens / lego men with blu-tac capes), concept art, finished sculpts, other relevant images. Though do try and keep posts about how over whelmed you are by how the funding is going / has gone. One if you're funded pretty quickly and another at the end as a thanks to the backers, there's really no need for more than that.

Do take backer feedback on board, though you don't need to take action on all of it. That's probably going to be one of the more challenging aspects, there'll be dozens of ideas and suggestions flying around but not all of them will be right for the project at that time. Either due to thematic differences or financial implications of implementing it.

Above all, treat backers with respect, keep them informed and up to date and they'll spread the word and come back for future projects. Treat the like mushrooms (in the dark, covered in gak) and they'll respond appropriately.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
If you do run into problems backers who are aware of the issues and feel they have a relationship with you are far less more likely to forgive you.

Should this be less or more?



Przemas, what sort of products were you thinking of offering through the KS? Starting up your own game or just want to get a bunch of cool new minis out there?

I think Orlando pretty squarely hit the nail on the head with his post. I would like to add 1 thing about stretch goals though.
You shouldn't feel obliged to offer stretch goals. They are really just a added bonus for backers. Of course they are an excellent incentive, but if you feel you won't be able to handle the extra work load then don't commit to them. Now given you already have a well established business that has a good standing within the community I believe you could get away without stretch goals. People will already be looking forward to a quality product. There will be little need to entice them further. As an example look at the Secret Weapons KS. MisterJustin didn't offer stretch goals and his KS was a roaring success based purely on the merits of what he offered.

That being said. If you do intend to offer stretch goals it would pay to factor in the added time that producing those goals will take. Tack on however many day/weeks/months producing the stretch goals will take onto the main KS delivery date.
That way you have allowed yourself extra time to complete everything and on the off chance you finish earlier then predicted the customers will think you're a legend for getting them their stuff quicker.