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OK, folks, while the political debate is fascinating, how about we agree that international shipping is expensive and leave the discussion of why that is for elsewhere?

Honestly only reason didn't up my pledge is because I can't get what I really want in the PM post kickstarter. So $1 it is which I may use to grab some stuff if really tempted, probably just the rules at this stage.

Trike is less goofy than I was hoping, at least give the option for dorfs sticking out of it somewheres, dual side cars!

Guy who sculpted dancing gobbo and 3rd gens judging other people, hmmmmmmmm

In for $125 rat army pledge, not too much metal, some fun stuff I think. For the pm probably 3 squeel wheels, mebbe same for the dorf trikes if their awesome, and $20 of steel warriors to supplement dorf stuff from previous ks should be good.

Blinkin' Nora, NTrabbit. Even I think you need to chill.

And, looking at the last few pages alone, still think there are no misses here?

Krinsath wrote:It pertains because it's providing some context to one of the repeated criticisms of Mantic where there is a general unevenness to the models where some are great, and others are noticeably less so. Execution even after the sculpting is similarly hit-or-miss such as making a transparent team in DBX, then making the MVP opaque. When pledging sight-unseen a year in advance, that's good information to have as to why those themes seem to occur.

On the flip side, you are correct that it needs to be run through the filter of someone who feels slighted by Mantic and freely admits that to be the case. That can be a significant skewing factor, and may make the information exaggerated. Thus, it's more a prompt for further investigation than an "OH GOD RUN AWAY" scenario. Really, that sort of investigation should be part of the due diligence any backer would be well advised to undertake for any project, never mind who's running it.

This. Personally I stake a lot on the reputation of Sculptin'zombie - I don't think he'd risk that for just a minor, petty tiff or misunderstanding - and I note that part of his frustration was the lack of or willingness for QC at Mantic. Maybe he's overstated it, and maybe Mantic will hit on some good sculptors, or actively seek them in the future. But until that actually comes through in consistent quality of successive products, I think it's a telling insight and a good reason to exercise some amount of caution.

Hey, look. Apocalypto is on tv right now.

So I have 100 minutes left to fund this?

Is there anything in this that is outstanding deal wise?

is there anything in heere thats ks exclusive thats great?

Triszin wrote:
So I have 100 minutes left to fund this?

Is there anything in this that is outstanding deal wise?

is there anything in heere thats ks exclusive thats great?

The Plague mini is exclusive - maybe an Asterian too?

But given the recent Shipping Revelation and the ability to pick most of this up later on possibly cheaper and with free shipping from a domestic seller?

I don't think there's anything too fantastic here that would beat waiting until it releases at retail and you can see the final sculpts too.

$15 postage for UT sounds a bargain to me.

That is UK cost, $90 for US (may be lower,).

 Alpharius wrote:

Triszin wrote:
is there anything in heere thats ks exclusive thats great?

The Plague mini is exclusive - maybe an Asterian too?.

Lt. Roca, Ingulf Krestursson, Hacker Half-Tail, Ten'ur Go, Major Chard, and Subject 901 are all special characters with a KS exclusive pose/sculpt. Whether they're great or not is up to you.

 Vermis wrote:

Guy, leave the butthurt fanboy defence stuff for GW. Look here and then decide if he's in a position to judge the quality of minis and sculpting.

Pal, I see a link with a lot of fine sculpts...and like every single culprit of tiny legs, huge body minis mantic has ever released! If this guy is happy working somewhere else and Mantic is no longer releasing tiny legged minis I guess things worked out pretty well for all of us.

The murderbirds are a $485k stretch whilst the trike/half track for the Forge Fathers is at 500k. Around an hour to go, this should be fun.

I dropped my pledge down unfortunately. I felt like Corporation needed more umph than it got. It seemed more like it was added as an after-though. Then there was the shipping. Technically when you think about how much was shipping, it isn't too much... but when you add in retail usually is free shipping over X amount, the savings just wasn't there. I could afford to be more choosy in retail, not getting pieces I already have from previous Mantic KS, getting what I want, and free shipping. So in the end I lowered my pledge.

I suspect that is why they waited till the very end to mention more details about the shipping. If they let it slip too early, folks wouldn't pledge. This way they can be open and honest and still hope that folks won't notice just how much it'll be until it's too late.

Then I think I'll pass this time.

I bought a LOT of stuff with Deadzone 1 kickstarter, and seeing as there wasnt an army upgrade option for all the new stuff. meh

I'll wait till retail and spend a little more to get the stuff. I backed Deadzone 2 just to get n117 enforcer. None of these exclusives do it for me.

The next deadzone/warpath, should focus solely on new stuff and make options for those to select a bundle that only comes with the new figures.

Murderbirds are literally murderous birds. This made me laugh/cry a little. Glad I ordered the birds from Black Plague.

The ratman vehicles, the trike thing, the flyers, the tunnelers, the tank.. guys. I am pretty sure those vehicle designs were primarily picked from a variety of 80s cartoons.



EDIT: I did find examples similar to the others I mentioned but I really don't want to sit here all day worrying about that.
When I sent a message to Mantic declining an offer they were making, they said AW prices haven't changed. I asked if that means I can add whatever I want to an AW pledge and still only be looking at the same shipping cost. I have not heard back yet on that.

Anyone else think the forgefather half track looks a bit he-man vehicle ? Like a land shark/battle ram had a baby ?!!!

So a total of $484,917, I thought that they would breeze past 500k but still a very successful campaign with 5 armies nearly fully fleshed out. I hope to see lots of quality HIPS vehicles and infantry ready for release in Oct/Nov 2016.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
So Mantic put together a Marauder package of all the previously released Deadzone stuff... was there that much demand for old Marauder sculpts?

I guess they figured the numbers wouldn't allow them to found new marauders but they wanted to sell a few anyway.
A lot of the minis in this KS were actually ready for DZ2, I guess the KS wasn't big enough for them.

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:

As for the sculptor guy (I am assuming he did the Ogres) I think his feedback is very useful for backers.

the old ones are from Remy Tremblay, I just did the ogre mage

to the person asking what else I sculpted for KoW, I did the molochs, the goblin shaman on lizard you may have seen from the open day and some rework on other sculpts, can't think of anything else now.

 Azazelx wrote:


Any company will have turnover. Aragorn Marks was indie, then worked for GW, then went indie again in seemingly the blink of an eye. Juan Diaz, that guy who did the GW beastmen and is now doing more beastmen for Mierce - a company built entirely on freelancers. It's hard to say much about Mantic since they, like GW, seem to avoid giving a lot of info on who sculpted what. As for which recent models are "better" - the Ogre Berserkers are much better than those models that preceded them, both the Restic ones and the Metal Ogre Sham that's been sitting around for a couple years and has just been released. The Metal Chaos Dwarf sorcerer guy with two heads, also.


At this point you'e outed yourself to anyone in the know, so you may as well post your name here and let us know what else you've sculpted for other companies. I'm interested in taking a peek for the sake of comparison. Which KoW stuff?

anyone in the know could tell who I am from my first post, there has only ever been 1 in-house sculptor at Mantic
I posted a link to my blog in my presentation section: http://area51minis.blogspot.fr/


regarding turnover, you are partly correct, but the difference is that GW will select new sculptors carefully and train them until they match their style and a certain standard in quality.
Mantic won't be so picky and has been trying new sculptor with little experience with mixed results. In particular digital sculptors don't always have a clear view of what their mini will look like once printed in 30mm, or know how to make them suitable for production. Of course Mantic can offer them some input about production, but they can't direct them properly or even get them to work in a consistant style (the enforcers, vermyn and marauders just don't belong to the same range). That's when they can deliver a proper mini at all, during my time here I had many change to do on freelancers sculpts, including new ones. Once I even had to resculpt half a model (from a digital print) because the sculptor didn't know how to resize parts of the model. I wonder what we'll see next...
I have read on several occasion that mantic use second rate sculptors, but If you look in detail who sculpt what at Mantic you'll find that many of their sculptors have done better stuff for other companies. The problem is that Mantic can't get the best of them for many reasons (I'd be happy to develop but my post are long enough)

regarding the ogres, I don't agree, the old ones are excellent sculpts, with a questionable design choice (large torso and narrow hips), which iirc come from the concept art. I'll leave asside the mage as I did it to match the old ones and didn't had the freedom to change the design or the time to match Remy's sculpts. From what I have seen the Berserkers correct the design flaws (new concept artist who is also the sculptor), they are correct sculpts as far as I can tell (can't judge from a render) but the original ones would be a lot better than the berserk if they had the same proportions. At the end with design it's always a matter of taste.

 Vermonter wrote:
Hey sculptin' zombie,

Mostly what I would like to say is thank you for your high standards and the good work you did. You sculpted some great stuff during your time at Mantic - many of the figures you listed are among my favorites. You may not be working with Mantic anymore, but let us know how to keep track of your work and progress. Miniature companies often seem to like to keep their sculptors anonymous, but we do notice good quality when we see it, and like to follow good talent. I take it your first name begins with an S, last name with a Q? (I don't know if you want your real name printed here, hence the capital letters.) We do pay attention, and I've really enjoyed your work.

I wonder, honestly, if part of what happened to you was due to changes in the industry. Personally I think there are some things hand sculpting just does better than digital, and that there are qualities to hand sculpted work that digital will never recapture. I don't know if you work in digital also, but I could see miniature companies increasingly turning to digital sculpts for faster, cheaper results. I enjoy both hand and digitally sculpted work, but I hope there will always be a place in the industry for talented traditional sculptors.

Mantic do have bizarre artistic hiccups. Deadzone was a mixed bag of great sculpts and terrible ones. Overall, in no small part due to your work it seems, Deadzone was worth it for me. And while the 3rd Gen designs weren't to my taste, one in particular - the guy with the hanging arm and crooked fingers - that sculpt really was exceptional work. Well done. But as to Mantic, they do get enough great sculpts that it boggles my mind when they cut corners and produce bad ones, taking the resulting hit in sales. The Marauder ripper suits could have been a huge hit if they'd been better sculpts, their material notwithstanding.

On the other hand, Games Workshop has infinitely more money and resources than Mantic does, but they also produce terrible sculpts sometimes. There are smaller companies with higher aesthetic standards than GW, of course, but to be fair, Mantic aren't the only ones who stumble.

Particularly if you end up doing sci-fi miniatures again, Monsieur Q, I'd love to know about it.

thanks for the kind words. Indeed that's me, no big secret here.
the 3rd gen you mention is also my favourite, it was the 1st one, I should have stayed closer to it but had to rush to match Mantic deadlines and budget.

"change in the industry" was indeed the reason they gave me to make me redundant, althought it's a bit more complicated... I was supposed to do most of KoW sculpts after the DS ones, but they switched KOW and DZ2 KS, needing KS figures sooner and commissioning most from freelancers, I belive that's what precipited their decision, and they made sure to fire me in time so they wouldn't need to give me any redundancy pay, but wanting me to do the KoW models as a freelancer. In a different context they would probably have kept me longer.

I don't do digital sculpting but had a look at it, I agree with you about digital sculpting. but I think one of the problem is they use the easy way and just making an unposed model and bending it in software. It give awkward pose with anatomical issues, lack of personality, and regulary everyone looks like clones with the same face (it was supposed to be good for martians, not so much for human troopers). But anyway Mantic won't give their sculptors the ressource to do much better.

I won't compare Mantic with GW, their is indeed no comparisons in ressource. But their are also smaller companies that make more effort than mantic, and new ones come to KS every month. It's sad because Mantic has some potential and could do great games with great minis, but will rather deliver a "good enough" product. I think there is a good reason if Mantic KS are somehow decreasing.

you'll probbaly see my new work on my blog, and yes, that will include some science fiction.

 Vermis wrote:

 Mort wrote:

So you're pissed off at your ex-employer. You feel you have good reason to be. That's great!

But... what is the point of your rants here so far? To warn us that some of Mantic's future minis will be hit or miss? We knew that already - hell, some of GW's figs are 'hit or miss'.

So what's your agenda, other than to bash your ex-employer? What 'news and rumors' can you offer?

The news that with Mantic burning through sculptors at a quick rate, future Mantic minis might be more miss than hit? There have been plenty of misses in this KS already, whether you agree or not, and the message that the concepts and quality will not be stabilising and improving in the foreseeable future is a pertinent one, I feel.

There's also the news, or rumour if you prefer, that Mantic cares about quality and customers almost to the same degree as GW. I've said earlier that I suspected that much, given the dreck that Mantic hasn't been shy about putting out. Nice to have it confirmed.

And then there's the hint about what Mantic are like to work with. Now, it'd take a long while, a lot of sculptor turnover, and an awful lot of desperation for Mantic to come knocking at the doors of the likes of me! Also, I've been wondering about the 'professionalism' of, as you say, bashing an ex-employer like this, the dirty laundry in public, the reputation you might accrue, etc. To be honest I've come to the conclusion that it's good to know what Mantic are like to work for, and better to know in this way than not at all. There's too much vague, subjective, contradictory, and plain nonexistant info in this tiny industry as it is, even when you have the brains of a handful of pro sculptors to pick, every so often, and I like having one more concrete nugget to squirrel away.
What's more, like Vermonter I now know who Sculptin'zombie is, the degree of his established reputation and - from what little I've seen - his cool-headedness in this business. I can't easily imagine that these little exposés are just kneejerk tantrums, let alone from a notorious and unreliable individual; and to be honest, the bit about emigrating on the promise of a full time job, to have the rug pulled out from under you, by itself goes a fair bit towards explaining them in my eyes.

Mort, if you consider what I say is just 1 side of the story and many doubt it that make it a rumor, so it's the right place, no?
I keep seeing people claiming Mantic minis get better everytime, I think my explainations make sense here, but feel free to ignore them.
I'm just saying could expect as much hit and miss in the future as there was 2 years ago, despite some claims I read here.

Vermis, actually the staff turnover I had in mind was not just sculptors. There is a sculptor turnover, don't know if you can call it quick, but there are not much reason for talented people to stay at Mantic. There are still some good sculptors working Mantic (though they are probably busy working for other companies as well, there is a high demand for talented sculptors and Mantic is not the one giving the best conditions).
If they contacted you it may just be a consequence of me turning down any freelance work for them after after all of this, I guess they didn't had anyone else for the job.
Now if I wouldn't recommend working for Mantic as an employe, beeing a freelancer isn't as bad assuming you are ok with the price, they aren't too picky... (but may claim that your work is gak after realese if the customers don't like them)
they have tendency to screw people working for them though, I have a few other exemple in mind even though mine is probably the worse by far.

now I know this is probably beeing unprofessional, but given the circumstances I kept it to the minimum,
I'm certainly immodest, but think I have been one of the reason people think Mantic quality is improving, and I think people desserve to know they may not get the same in the future (maybe they will, just giving a warning)
it's not like I was giving a list of all their upcoming KS including secret IP they were working on (which I could... there wasn't even a confidensiality clause in my contract...)
I kept professional in my last days at Mantic and finished my work in time the best I can, but frankly now I regret it.

ArtIsGreat wrote:


Guy who sculpted dancing gobbo and 3rd gens judging other people, hmmmmmmmm
.

the "dancing gobo" looks exactly like the concept art and iirc it was one of the studio manager's favourite minis among those I have sculpted (could be wrong), the 3rd gen were supposed to be like this, though I admit I'd redo them differently now.

Anyway I did those miniatures before beeing employed in-house as test pieces and they got me a full time, so if you think they are poor you are just proving my point really.

Now I think my other work prove I can do properly proportionned miniatures as well, and most Mantic sculptors have done small legs huge torso minis at one point, so maybe you should be looking elswhere (like the art direction, quality control or lack of it)

Dropped out in the last hour.

Was originally a $115 pledge.

But after totting it all up. Looking at what I'd get vs waiting and getting at retail at discount.

Opted to wait instead as for me the value wasn't there.

What's this about the next project being post apocalyptic? Oh my.

 GrimDork wrote:
What's this about the next project being post apocalyptic? Oh my.

If that's the new licensed property... it could be significant. I'm hoping more in the lines of Fallout and less The Walking Dead.

I'll be honest, I wavered on the TW after seeing the shipping charge. But I ended up sticking with it. It's still a great deal, just possibly not as good as MM prices.

Gotta admit though, I blanched a bit at SZ's remarks. I was hoping the attitude he shared from mantic was a pissed off customer or somebody who just hates mantic like Holker does. But being not super familiar with specific sculptors, it sounds like a lot of you recognize him. And it's pretty damning. I was pretty sure these guys were the ones to replace the gw of old in personality and game quality. I'm frightened that I may have been wrong. But they're still doing right by me. And I still enjoy most of their sculpts. So time will tell.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 GrimDork wrote:
What's this about the next project being post apocalyptic? Oh my.

If that's the new licensed property... it could be significant. I'm hoping more in the lines of Fallout and less The Walking Dead.

If it's a licensed Fallout game (maybe the delay was due to NDA agreements if Fallout 4 content is involved) my wife has proclaimed that she "doesn't give a feth how much the shipping costs, we're getting it".

Who am I to argue?

Fallout could be spectacar. Even walking dead would be sweet. Or mad max. Any of that, if its more 28 mm minis for me. I guess they could brsch out and be like FFG and start doing different scales and card games etc... But I'd love me either of those first two in 28mm.

Even more reason to get that battle systems post apoc.

Could alternatively, be Mad Max?

 Compel wrote:
Could alternatively, be Mad Max?

I'd be up for Med Mex too.

 Alex C wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 GrimDork wrote:
What's this about the next project being post apocalyptic? Oh my.

If that's the new licensed property... it could be significant. I'm hoping more in the lines of Fallout and less The Walking Dead.

If it's a licensed Fallout game (maybe the delay was due to NDA agreements if Fallout 4 content is involved) my wife has proclaimed that she "doesn't give a feth how much the shipping costs, we're getting it".

Who am I to argue?

Oh god please no. Not Fallout. Not from Mantic.

~Eric

Why? They tend to do pretty well when it comes to rulesets (the current WP scare is really the one exception...) and with a clear set of concept art etc already available to work with that might well be just about the best thing that could possibly happen to the franchise, TT wise.
The artistic direction is there, included in the license. All they have to do is get it to market - and they've done a pretty good job of that over the last few years.

I got snarky. Sorry about that. Redacted.

 NTRabbit wrote:
I don't think it's wise for anyone who would be adversely affected by a $100 shipping fee to spend over $500 on minis at once anyway, but people are free to make their own decisions!

....Unless, of course, the $500 you were about to spend was fairly 'borderline' as it was. Adding in almost $100 for shipping pushes it over the edge to a deal-breaker for some folks. I know I lowered my pledge. I really only 'need' the one faction and its vehicles, the others would have 'been nice' to have, a luxury, but not for almost $100 shipping.

Don't get me wrong - I am not angry at Mantic for that. They're in Europe, and shipping to the States (or heaven forbid, Oz) is expensive. I am not one of those Americans who thinks we should get 'free shipping' always and everywhere we go. But I also know when to cut back to a level of service that is more reasonable and tolerable to my budget, and my needs.