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BACKDROPS 2: BACKDROPS BOOGALOO!

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This launches on TUESDAY, that's Tuesday 30th January - very soon indeed!

I am REALLY chuffed to be working the fantastic artist Jon Hodgson on these again. They're by him aka Handiwork Games, but I'm on board to assist with various bits and bobs of the campaign. Second brains are always handy. I help!

For the dakkadakka thread of the previous campaign to see how that went, click here







The first two books will be RUINS AND TUNNELS - one sci fi, one fantasy, as well as the existing books in A3 size.

If the campaign goes as wild as the last one, Jon has been frantically painting on some examples of other books we can add as stretch goals, including WINTER and CLOUDS. And perhaps those in A3 too?

WHAT ARE THEY?

Last year, after an enthusiastic chat at UK Games Expo and doing the spiderman meme of "wait, we're the same!" the idea formed to turn some of Jon's backdrop art into a published book, so everybody had access to them in high quality print.

We put together a short Kickstarter on a hope and a dream, and IT WENT WILD. The phonecalls were mostly going "OH MY WORD THEY'VE SMASHED ANOTHER STRETCH GOAL WHAT DO WE DO!" and so the SECOND book came about - Sci Fi Designs.

Since then, they've only gained and gained in popularity and we realised there are SO MANY different themes we can do. We being Jon doing the actual work and me saying "Hey this could be cool." TEAMWORK!

You can buy these NOW from the Bad Squiddo Games shop, also Handiwork Games, the latter is the only place you can purchase the commercial license if you wish to use these...commercially!



HOW DO YOU USE THEM?

You simply pop them behind your minis and take a photo! It helps make your minis look cooler, and it can be as simple as that, or a tool for more elaborate scene making. During the last campaign I found a new passion for photographing miniatures so I am hoping to share this with you over the next week - what I have learnt along the way and top tips and tricks.

Here is one of Jon's example pics, expect to see lots more like this. Literally a hill, a book,, the mini, and some blocks of wood (it can be anything, I use books!) He's written a series of tutorials on how to make a photo rock and taking the photos.Click here for them. and I made a nice little video with some tips here.



Sign up here for notification at launch!

Having such a big catalogue to choose from, I decided this morning to focus just on the same background, and the Krautcover Soil of Sparta (my favourite). Simple changes like slightly different lighting can change the feel of the scene.

All the minis shown are from Bad Squiddo Games, Rubble City from Fenris, bits and bobs by Bad Squiddo, and other bits of terrain made by berlintuesday.

These backdrops work by simply putting the model in front of them, or even better - on a little plinth, but I like to see where I can push it by making whole scenes. And it's a great excuse to show off some Bad Squiddo minis!

I mentioned in the other thread that Americans might not know the A3-A4 etc paper size system.

A3 is about 12"x16", while A3 is about the size of printer paper. So the size of a National Enquirer vs the size of a Time Magazine.

#anythingbutthemetricsystem

...one of those A3's is wrong, Kid.

A3 - 420mm x 297mm - 11.7 x 16.5 (inches)
A4 - 210mm x 297mm - 8.3 x 11.7 (inches)

I think Kid Kyoto's second A3 was a typo

I made this scene to reflect me having a break between all the million things I have to do before Vapnartak!

That sitting down ATS lady is so versatile, she's seen some things, for sure.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


A3 is about 12"x16", while A3 is about the size of printer paper. So the size of a National Enquirer vs the size of a Time Magazine.

Yeah my bad, A3 is the size of a tabloid, A4 the size of a magazine.

#anythingbutthemetricsystem

A4 is three tightly packed guinea pigs, A3 is six tightly packed guinea pigs

Will have to take a look at this one. Backed the original set and it is indeed excellent.

 Annie wrote:
A4 is three tightly packed guinea pigs, A3 is six tightly packed guinea pigs

But are the guinea pigs very close, or are they far away?

Thanks gang!

The guinea pigs are.....the friends we made along the way.

---

Here's a short video that shows off some of the new ones, I've had more land since then so I'll show them off in the next couple days, but also get Jon to put them all together in smaller images.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPn4o0PTKco&t=1s

and a peek of one of the new ruins from the fantasy ruins book

AND WE'RE LIVE!

Please help share around, weeeeeeeeeee!


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonhodgsonmaptiles2/jon-hodgson-backdrops-two-backdrops-boogaloo

And that's an instant £10k

Nice work!

Thanks for the reminder! Gonna add two new books it seems!

WELL THAT ESCALATED! Thank you!

From Jon:

"
We're racing through those stretch goals! Thank you so much for your support!

A lot has happened in the campaign, but I don't want to bombard you with updates on every little detail, so we'll keep it to one a day!

Last night we unlocked the two new books - Fantasy Ruins and Tunnels, and Sci-fi Ruins and Interiors - in A3 size. You can add those onto your existing pledge, or get a pledge level for just those books.

The Winter Backdrops Book is also unlocked, and maxed out as I'm typing this! You can now add it to your pledge as an Add On, or pledge for it on its own. I think it's going to become a fast favourite for the sheer moodiness and story it brings.

We're looking at Winter in A3! Exciting times!"

Here's one of Jon's pics, i love the little fire in the barrow


and a couple of mine! I've been taking most of these on my phone to show how it can be done without anything too fancy




If you have the two existing books, I'd love to see what you've been doing with them, please do post below,

I get hold of some A3 test prints tomorrow so I can't wait to muck about with those, and show you the scale comparison and whatnot.

link to Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonhodgsonmaptiles2/jon-hodgson-backdrops-two-backdrops-boogaloo

SKIES ARE UNLOCKED!

We've nearly unlocked everything.

Please do have a peep as there's so much more in there now
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonhodgsonmaptiles2/jon-hodgson-backdrops-two-backdrops-boogaloo

I've been playing with some sheets of the A3, still test prints but these ones are closer to what the book will be. They are stunning art pieces in their own right.

I've used a single figure to show the difference here


and a line for more scale, all 25mm bases.



I'll be playing with busier pics tomorrow; I wanted to show you some idea of scale first.

Here's A3 next to A4, ignore those shadows, the office lighting is terrible, thats just some stuff above making a shadow, it's not on the print!


and one of the sky pics from Jon, more to come:

The extra cool thing about this book is that it's not tied to any location or time period, so the most versatile.

I've been busy packing for Vapnartak this Sunday (in York, come say hello if you're there!) but managed to get some photos sorted in between.

I'm REALLY enjoying the A3 backdrops. I really enjoy building little scenes so having more backdrop gives more room to play, the extra height is also really useful.

This photo was taken quickly with a camera phone before I left work last night and it's so beautifull!



Here is one of the sci fi A3 backdrops with an unreleased Bad Squiddo mini (just not released YET!)



And I keep meaning to take more photographs that use more figures, so heres another of the A3 Sci Fi book to show some of our Ghosts of Gaia range.



Here's the link, we've almost unlocked A3 skies!

http://kck.st/4bj1q1C

EVERYTHING IS UNLOCKED!

I managed to get the last of my own Kickstarter: "Ghouls by Paul Muller" all shipped out before traveling, just as the latest painted ones arrived, yay! This is another shot on A3.



and all the books, for reference




(A3 Skies backdrop IS unlocked, image just hasn't been updated yet!)

Thanks everyone who came and chatted at Vapnartak! It was nice being able to show off the A3 and A4 sample pages that I have, and I even found an old book on how to make dioramas on Dave Lanchester's stand! Success!

The Kickstarter ENDS today, at 5pm UK time.

It's extra important that people realise there is no pledge manager, for this, ie you cannot add anything to your pledge after 5pm today. This is unlike most other Kickstarters (including Bad Squiddo Games ones) and is to make things as simple as possible for Jon, as he juggles all sorts of other projects.

So please do check your pledge has everything you want in it. If you have any questions, PM Jon direct on Kickstarter (or the comments section) and he'll help you.




I had a nice chat with Jon on Youtube last night, it was fairly last minute and I had to learn how to use the streaming software (go me!). I stream a lot but just myself directly which is easy, using something that can show a guest and images was more complicated than I thought, but I got it, hooray!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9tIZ3IYb-M



link to the project is here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonhodgsonmaptiles2/jon-hodgson-backdrops-two-backdrops-boogaloo

thank you everyone who's been involved so far, genuinely looking forward to seeing the photos that result from these!