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Am I the only one who has a hard time Not reading their company name as Tom?

 AduroT wrote:
Am I the only one who has a hard time Not reading their company name as Tom?

No.

 AlexHolker wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
Am I the only one who has a hard time Not reading their company name as Tom?

No.

Seconded. And when it says torn armor my mind say Tom Arnold

rigeld2 wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
holding a decent portion of their funds hostage.

Not that I'm looking to defend Defiance, but do we actually know how much money they have?
I just like facts.

It's been said to be $25k elsewhere. The person who said it won't name their source. I trust them to be honest, but have no idea about their source, so take it with as much salt as you need.

This doesn't smell right...

 skrulnik wrote:
I'm curious about something.

Why do so many people think that Torn entered into this KS with no other cash?

Wouldn't it make more sense that they entered it with the cash available to handle the non-miniature portion of initial production?
Then the 50k goal makes more sense, as that would roughly cover miniature costs.
That leaves them to cover the paper components, dice, shipping, and other costs.
Once you have purchased and created molds, and got a production slot, you can go to retail.

The goal of 50k by itself would never have covered everything, even a layman can see that, so they had to have some other capital to use.

At least that's my view of it.
Maybe I just can't fathom going to KS with a plan that cannot go forward at all without backer money.
If that was the plan, the initial goal was simply too low.

And all of this is besides the point that Defiance took money, did nothing, and won't give it back because they no longer have it.

Nobody thinks that, unless they forgot to read through the information at hand. Problem is with the whole thing. TOO MUCH left unmentioned. Its like a drama queen that keeps on giving it up as the day goes on.

They seemed like a nice enough crew, but they were uninformed as to what they actually are trying to do, and are now in a hard place because of thier inexperience.

Then there is the little bit about the OTHER unmentioned kickstarters that they are a part of.

Point on target here is that there seems to be more to the story as the situation progresses.

I'm interested in the figures, and thats honestly what I want to see, all this other stuff after the fact is background noise.

Anyone have any of the figures, yet? I'm interested in what exactly we are talking about that would need THAT much scratch sent to Defiance, that either party could not manage to make even just a couple of figures to start with. I could understand that much money would be needed for plastic sprues, but we are looking at a miniature range, with an already invested artist and design.

Grot - have you seen the digital 'sculpts'? They are uncastable.

I think that justification for the large chunk of cash is the corrective work that was needed on top of the mould making and casting, but not done. As far as I know, nothing has been cast yet on the miniature side.

I am creating my own game, and I'm doing the digital sculpting for it.

Even if a model starts out uncastable, which just happens sometimes, it is fixable within a reasonable time frame (which means reasonable amount of money).

One of the major reasons why you do things digitally, and then have the extra step of printing, is that you find out these problems before you go to the casting step and can fix them without destroying an already made sculpt. That's a great feature of digital sculpting. I can literally select, and resize parts of a model, or resculpt areas as needed.

You can also ask your sculptors to stick to certain guidelines to begin with, such as limited undercuts, keeping various parts within or larger than certain thicknesses, which is what I've had to do myself, even fixing such errors in other models.

So when I see all this back and forth, all I see is more lies or profound stupidity being thrown around by both sides.

Making a game is incredibly difficult, but KS money should let you get it done if you're prepared and acting reasonably in a production environment. It appalls me that they weren't able to do anything with the money I saw them pull in, when I'm struggling with limited resources.

 Grot 6 wrote:
Then there is the little bit about the OTHER unmentioned kickstarters that they are a part of.

If you are talking about CSM, they make niche old-style type metal figures and are not part of the company behind the Torn Armor wargame. CSM did launch a *small* range of figures set in the same setting Torn is using via a kickstarter which was fulfilled.

From the figures that I've seen, they looked well enough that Reaper of all people already has a few of the sculpts that look pretty similar to whats needed in the game.

How exactly are they "uncastable?"

A few snakemen, some mice, a couple of furries.....

Then we won't even start on the .... non "Spartans"... Seriously? Uncastable? Those are generic Ancients, not really that much of a streach to go to several different companies, cast with several different artists, and call it a day.

The main figures are already right there. Tim Prow? What does he say about the ... uncastable figures? Have you sent the concepts out to other designers? Tim's always had a pretty good eye for sculpts, he also has a well rounded experience base to work from on countless other game systems. Not really rocket science here.

Defiance has made a reputation out of taking money for no work, and as far as I can see here, peeing on Torn's KS project doesn't do them any extra favors.

The attitude on thier end really rubs one the wrong way too, then they try to spin it to become the "Hapless dupe" based on "Uncastable sculpts..."

They are figures. You concept a sketch, and give it to someone who knows what they are doing, Cranks it out, collect up some cash for it.
It doesn't take all that much.

As to the figures themselves, 25 thousand is a game. twenty or so figures a side. A couple of heros, some generic grunts of the same sculpt with different poses, then the scenery stuff, which could easily be in cardstock for the KS, and evolve as the project moves forward.

They should regroup and NOT try to push for all of that stuff to begin with. Just start small and work forwards.

Heros are already available, BTW...

The snakemen, maybe some undead, and a group of the ancients.... there, three groups to start with. The furries, break down into the factions four or five to start with, a couple of heros, some grunts, and maybe a couple of Reaper sculpts for laughs. Dragon, maybe some of those Animorphics that Reaper is known for.... maybe even some old school D and D type figures with a little twist to them.


Oh wait, They are already being sculpted through ANOTHER KS.... by the same company that made the first couple of TORN figures...

If the structure doesn't jive for digital sculpting... change it to something that you can work with, evolve the concept and have an evolving conversation as to how to work out the issues, or go back old school as a sketch to dolly.

What does not happen is the action taken by Defiance, who indirectly sent the project into an unknown territory for a successful project, and in its shoddy practices... tried to outright sabotage the project.


1. How much does 1 figure cost to put together from concept to sculpt?

2. If there is a variation on the same sculpt, how much of an increase does the cost go up?

3. If you PARTNER with different sculpters, maybe even get a contract together for the initial game, and keep them on board as technical/ artistic talent, does that make the game any less viable?

What about either buying or contracting for already developed molds? Similar to the concept design of the game?

What is wrong with pooling resources, and expanding on the figures and pulling them into one game?

I've seen the pedigree here that we are talking about. This concept for the game, the design, and the figures for the factions are not out of the ordinary. Newish and not your average scuplts, but they do not look at all to be "Uncastable, or the concept for them doesn't look overly complicated.

As I am still feeling, there seems to be more to the situation then what is being put out here...

The folk on Frothers (who include a number of professional casters and 3D sculptors as well as very capable armatures) all agree that the figures are pretty much uncastable as is

both from the point of view of the files (they've apparently been done for 'animation/gaming' with lots of unnessesary internal bits which give hollows in a print which will collapse when casting, having detail that just won't make it through etc)

and the general design so even if they stuff was printed you'd need to cut them into far too many bits to cast them (and this is from 'Pete' who can cast things no other caster will even try)

(This is not to say the 3D work is poor, it looks very much like Alyssa did not understand the requirements of 3D printing/casting and got the stuff done by somebody who didn't know either.

Like getting a general builder to put in a full extension, things often go wrong because neither the householder or builder quite understand what is needed but think they do.

Or getting a fresco done by a famous artist, if they don't realise they have to paint onto wet plaster to make it last. No mater how good they are if they paint onto the plaster after it's dry it just won't last

Tim Prow? You mean the dude that destroyed Warzone? What's he got to do with TA?

 Grot 6 wrote:
From the figures that I've seen, they looked well enough that Reaper of all people already has a few of the sculpts that look pretty similar to whats needed in the game.

How exactly are they "uncastable?"

Here are the digital files that Torn Armor were seemingly expecting to have 3d printed from the files and then cast in restic.

http://www.sixus1.com/showcase/torn-armor-miniatures/

As these files stand, there are too many very fiddly undercuts, thin weapons, weak points and mould tearing bits to make 'these' figures castable. Somewhere I read that Torn Armor spent 20 k on the digital sculptor, although I've heard rumours that they paid a chunk up front but haven't paid the full amount which is why he won't release all the base files and torn armor just have the final mesh to work with. Can we agree the meshes on that link are uncastable? The rest of your points can follow from there, but it's hard work to find all the links etc and type it out on a kindle

All is easily vast able you just break down the models into a sprue form is all.

 Empchild wrote:
All is easily vast able you just break down the models into a sprue form is all.

Have you seen how many parts you'd need for some of those? I know it wasn't one of the core models, but look at the platform they were selling at $40 or 3 for $100!

Guys, there's something called retopologizing in the 3d industry. Which can take a high poly final model and bring it back to a more workable polycount.

And even without doing retopo, I could still take those models as shown and probably work out a great deal of the problems.

The only fiddly uncastable details are actually the thin parts. But a lot of that surface detail could actually be printed by a quality 3D printer so long as its part of a thick and solid chunk. Thin parts can be selected, and a variety of common tools used to thicken them. It's not easy, but it's doable on a reasonable budget, which they had before they threw it away.

And again, we're talking poor production practices. You don't throw all your money, all at once, at a single or few sculptors, and you should know better than to do so without giving that sculptor clear instructions on the limitations of the sculpt.

Digital sculptors should all be used to working in limitations of all sorts. From polycounts, to some more esoteric limits.

That or just make sure you hire someone experienced at making miniatures, or understands what miniatures are. While sculpting I keep a little 3mm cube on screen at all times so I can make sure I'm not creating detail that's too small.

I've contracted out to a sculptor to handle stuff I couldn't do normally. The only problem I had was that the fingers on it was too small, but I was able to correct that.

These are not greens, or other physical sculpts that are set in stone.

richred_uk wrote:

 Empchild wrote:
All is easily vast able you just break down the models into a sprue form is all.

Have you seen how many parts you'd need for some of those? I know it wasn't one of the core models, but look at the platform they were selling at $40 or 3 for $100!

No they weren't. They were offering 3 to people that pledged $100. People need to stop damning Torn because their KS 'prices' don't make sense at retail. Crowd funding isn't retail.

I don't disagree they could be reworked, but you'd need the Files and the suggestion is that Torn Armor didn't have all of them, just the final meshes. That's why it took Nick genovese 40 hours to rework the Hollister from the mesh. Even at twice the speed and only 10 bucks an hour, that's a big chunk of costs before you pay the 3d printer, mould maker and caster.


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 plastictrees wrote:

richred_uk wrote:

 Empchild wrote:
All is easily vast able you just break down the models into a sprue form is all.

Have you seen how many parts you'd need for some of those? I know it wasn't one of the core models, but look at the platform they were selling at $40 or 3 for $100!

No they weren't. They were offering 3 to people that pledged $100. People need to stop damning Torn because their KS 'prices' don't make sense at retail. Crowd funding isn't retail.

People who gave them 100 bucks got 3 of them. That's selling in my book. Wrapping it in crowdfunding is just semantics. If I recall correctly they were listed at 50 bucks retail. I'm quite happy to argue on that figure if you like (and I'm correct).

Which is why you don't bork up the initial commission for the sculpts.

Fraud by stupidity (Torn) is no worse than fraud by deception (Defiance).

And let's be frank here, unless Torn actually did give that sculptor a proper set of guidelines while sculpting, then he is correct in not giving the working files until he is properly paid for his work. Because right now, not only were the backers getting screwed, the sculptor who is just trying to sculpt for a living is also getting screwed.

What the heck is the Hollister? And from which mesh?

Yeah, I don't think that Torn are worse than defiance, quite the contrary, torn were incompetent, defiance were borderline criminal. I can forgive incompetence, I've done it myself lol.

Hollister should have been hoplite. My kindle often thinks it knows better than me what I was typing.