OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I doubt it as long as a 'reasonable' attempt is made to deliver the KS I'm sure he's clear

and even if there was I doubt eco-Jeremy (or creature caster) have huge amounts of assets to go after

it actually sounds like it's a good thing the team have stepped in otherwise nothing might be getting delivered with the same lack of ability to do much

Necryan wrote:
Casting quality is sub-par; even the the Treewalker is more like a high quality pvc figure than an expensive resin one.

Hi all,
I sent a bunch of questions to creature caster team and here are their responses:

1. how much the models (specifically the two dragons in my pledge) will be priced at for retail.
A: Retail pricing has not been fully confirmed at this time, however we are planning on offering special pricing to kickstarter backers that will make the purchase price similar to the kickstarter price.

2. whether there is any chance of stock of these two models (emperor and mountain dragon) becoming limited during retail.
A: If you are worried about your kickstarter order not being fulfilled due to retail, we are not selling any of the pieces that are part of the kickstarter. Those packages will remain in storage. However when increasing your order, our stock will be quite limited to begin, as we will be transitioning straight from kickstarter production to retail production and sales.

3. whether your free shipping option for international delivery is tracked and insured?
A: It is tracked and insured to any country that is eligible for tracked mail. The vast majority of countries are.

4. when do you expect to start selling retail and at this stage whether there is a chance that this plan will not come to fruition?
A: We are 100% committed to going to retail in January. The Production team has purchased the IP from Jeremy and the retail business will be a separate entity from the kickstarter. The only crossover is that the production team has seen how much backers supported Jeremy and indirectly supported us, and we would like to give back as much as possible to those backers. Much of the production team's planned revenue stream for the coming year relates to this retail business.

5. Separately, I see several people complaining about missing parts from their pledges and poorer than expected quality of the casts. What have you done, if anything, to improve quality control ?
A: If parts are missing we conduct a review and then send those part out free of charge. In terms of quality we believe we are producing forgeworld (a leader in resin miniatures) quality product. We actually feel our resin quality is superior and that our casting is of equal quality (in some ways better in some ways worse).
Some reviewers seem to be complaining about mold lines, flash, and air bubbles which are common on all products that are produced with a 2 part mold. We do everything possible to minimize this, and feel that the models will be easily assembled by anyone with experience working with miniatures. Another review complained about bent parts, this is again very common with resin, and simply heating under hot water will allow the resin to be bent back into shape.
A further review mentioned that our resin felt like plastic... We find this an unusual criticism as resin is a type of plastic. What makes resin grey is the amount of dye that is added to the product. Another complaint mentioned different colored pieces, this was done early in the process when we were trying to determine the ideal color for the resin. As color had no effect on quality, and being long into the hobby ourselves we assumed that everyone would be priming and painting the models, we didn't expect this to be an issue.
Moving forward we will be taking extra steps to ensure the color is consistent between batches. What makes resin brittle is the amount of filler material that is added to the resin. We are probably the only company that doesn't add fillers to our resin, or have our resin formulated to include fillers. These fillers are much cheaper than actual pure resin, and cause the resin to become brittle. This brittleness makes it difficult to tool (cut/drill) the resin, as well as making it prone to breakage when dropped or knocked over. We aren't sure why anyone would want a more brittle, cheaper quality product, as the one reviewer seemed to desire.
We actually perform a triple check on all parts that are sent out. Once when demolding, and then have two people perform a check in the bagging and packaging process. Despite this some poor quality casts or missing pieces are going to be inevitable, but we will do everything within reason to make sure our customers are happy with what they have received. We are still working out our refund policy for retail but anticipate that it will be as follows - if you aren't satisfied mail it back for a full refund or replacement. Our actual packing and protection we give to the model is superior to any other company we have encountered, as we put each model in its own bubble bag.
We have had several compliments on the quality of the models through email and several in the comments section also... please remember that the comments section of the kickstarter tends towards negativity, and positive reviews tend to be 1 or 2 lines where negative reviews seem to go on for half a page. In addition we have had a year of extremely intense mold making and have learnt every step of the way. The spider demon and treewalker are some of the first molds, whereas the dragons are some of the last molds. While we are happy with the quality of the spider demon and treewalker, we did learn from the process of making such complicated molds, and we are even more pleased with the dragons and silver level models. Moving forward with new sculpts and molds there are even further improvements we feel we could make both in the sculpting process, and in mold making phase.

6. finally, what else do you have in the pipeline for development of new models and what timescales are you working to on that?
A: Yes we have new models in development already. We can't reveal too much at this time, however we plan on dropping hints and previews in the upcoming weeks. If you have any suggestions we are always happy to consider them!

7. I haven't received a shipping request yet
A: Canadapost has run into technical problems which they say will be resolved in a couple of days. Unfortunately it has slowed down the entire shipping process. Sorry for the inconvenience. The approximate cost of shipping two dragons to the UK will be ~60CAD.

We appreciate your patience and support throughout what has been a challenging kickstarter. It really means a lot to us, and we hope that you can see how hard we are trying to improve this business moving forward.

 TheKbob wrote:
I cannot count how many times I have (luckily) forgotten about this crap show since I backed it.

I almost didn't pay for my shipping. Just wanted to be a complete wash, but I bet I can sell it for more than what I paid to get it shipped, right?

Joyboozer wrote:
That is fething disgusting.
Was your order sent out before or after they supposedly increased their QA checks?

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Other notes:

Extremely oily. I had to wash my hands after handling the model, and I was left feeling like I had rubbed lip balm or some kind of Vaseline on my hands.

The model parts feel slightly brittle to me, especially compared to other resin models I've received from games like Arena Rex or Kingdom Death. By brittle I mean that the parts feel insubstantial, and almost not solid. I know they are solid, but there are pieces that give me the impression that I could squeeze them into dust with my bare hands with little effort.

The details are badly produced. When I imagine what knock-off casters produce this is the level of quality I am imagining. The wings especially seem like they were cast from a mold made from another production cast and not a master casting. They whole "copy of a copy" losing detail thing is what I am referring to.

I am not happy with the model.

 Wehrkind wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Other notes:

Extremely oily. I had to wash my hands after handling the model, and I was left feeling like I had rubbed lip balm or some kind of Vaseline on my hands.

You did, quite literally Mold release for silicon/resin is aerosolized petroleum jelly. As you can imagine, that means you don't want to over do it!

 Wehrkind wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

The model parts feel slightly brittle to me, especially compared to other resin models I've received from games like Arena Rex or Kingdom Death. By brittle I mean that the parts feel insubstantial, and almost not solid. I know they are solid, but there are pieces that give me the impression that I could squeeze them into dust with my bare hands with little effort.

That's interesting. Did you soak them in water? If so, did they float? I have noticed that other producers have resin that seems much less dense than what I use, but I am never sure if that is because I use more pressure in casting than others. However, only specialized resin floats, so if your parts are floating it is because they have internal air spaces, and you definitely could crush them in your fingers.

 Wehrkind wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
The details are badly produced. When I imagine what knock-off casters produce this is the level of quality I am imagining. The wings especially seem like they were cast from a mold made from another production cast and not a master casting. They whole "copy of a copy" losing detail thing is what I am referring to.

Hey, I have NEVER recast something that looked as bad as this! You take that back!
Seriously though, unless they really went nuts with the mold release (which is possible) there is no way their casts should look like this if the original was nicely detailed. Every model you buy has been recast at least twice, once from original sculpt to master mold, then master to production mold. The loss of detail is effectively zero with a very low bar of skill; about the only way to screw up surface detail that isn't on a mold seam is to gunk it up.

 Wehrkind wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
I am not happy with the model.

I feel you man. The more I look at the tree woman in front of me on my desk, the less happy I am. She's still ok, but I keep putting Mierce and Blood Rage models next to her, and despite being half her size they are much, much more sharply detailed. It occurred to me this afternoon that she looks like she was made from PVC like 3 years ago, back when Relic Knights shipped their disappointing Kickstarter. Modern PVC is much better, as Wrath of Kings and Blood Rage demonstrate, and she is really far from what resin should look like. I am increasingly convinced that the original 3D prints were just low quality to save on cost (thanks, Jeremy) and the resulting resins are thus bad. In all the ways the tree woman is flawed, I think it is much more poor quality original than poor quality casting. Thinking back to the first things I was casting, it was mold lines, pour points/vents and tearing that was the issue, and never "ok, got all the detail." Unless they used really, really crappy resin, but even then I am having a hard time imagining why it would be so selectively crappy detail wise.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Good info! So based off what you wrote below and above, do you think this is more a matter of poor quality prints or too much mold release, or perhaps a combination of both?

 Eldarain wrote:
Love to know where all the money went if the actual product seems to show all the signs of cost cutting and shipping had to be bait and switched at the last second.

 Theophony wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
Love to know where all the money went if the actual product seems to show all the signs of cost cutting and shipping had to be bait and switched at the last second.

Let's remember that the Canadian Dollar took a big hit since this was funded. That's about all I can think of though.


Has Kenny been heard from recently? Or did he realize how bad it was going to get and he jumped ship?

Joyboozer wrote:

I believe he was thrown under the bus by Jeremy in regards to problems with the pledge manager.

 angelofvengeance wrote:
At least with the "production team" you actually got something, though. I think if Jeremy had stayed at the helm, you would never have received the bugger.