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I didnt see a thread for this, apologies if I missed it, Kabuki is running a KS to a Frazetta licensed death dealer model

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kabukistudio/frazettas-masterpieces-death-dealer

Thanks Silence, great to know about.



Will be watching with interest...

Backed. I like the alternate Conan head they've included.

2nd pose death dealer has been added, additionally some neat stretch goals for different scale minis

A little over two days to go on this, I've wrestled with which version to get, but (sadly) the grown up has won and I've gone for the more budget conscious 1/50, but the sculpts look remarkable regardless.

Kabuki has said that his is licensed, but Frazetta does not seem to be aware of this. Anyone know what he deal is?

 Todosi wrote:
Kabuki has said that his is licensed, but Frazetta does not seem to be aware of this. Anyone know what he deal is?

Holly Frazzeta advertised the Kickstarter, at least a month before it started, on her Facebook page...
hard to believe she is not aware of this...

cheers
jah

 jah-joshua wrote:

 Todosi wrote:
Kabuki has said that his is licensed, but Frazetta does not seem to be aware of this. Anyone know what he deal is?

Holly Frazzeta advertised the Kickstarter, at least a month before it started, on her Facebook page...
hard to believe she is not aware of this...

cheers
jah

Wasn't there a fight/dispute about the estate. Maybe one side knows but the other doesn't? Who has the rights anyways?

Wikipedia wrote:After siblings Billy Frazetta, Holly Frazetta Taylor, and Heidi Grabin filed a lawsuit against Frank Jr. in March 2010, claiming misappropriation of their father's work, which they said the artist had transferred to a company controlled by those three, the family issued a statement on April 23, 2010, that said, "all of the litigation surrounding his family and his art has been resolved. All of Frank's children will now be working together as a team to promote his ... collection of images....

Looks like it has sorted itself out.

Well, I received my Death Dealer today. I will say that other than smelling unusually strongly of something I've not encountered with resin before, the cast is crisp, the detail is good and some pieces one could almost push fit they match up so well.

However, read this description..

Kabuki on Kickstarter wrote:A smaller version of our beloved Death Dealer on steed, 35mm scale (or 1/50) so perfect for the collectors and gamers too, still cast in urethane resin for sharp and clean details.

and look at the image I've attached of the Deathdealer next to a Mierce cavalry size miniature, and see if you can guess if and what I've got a problem with..

They did say he was 35mm, making him significantly bigger than 25/28/30mm scale.

I'd use him as a "Sir Andre the Giant" type character instead of rank and file; at least that way he has an excuse for being really big, on a really big horse.

You are mistaken Vulcan... the little guy is the death dealer... and it looks woefully off from 35mm to me...

 Vulcan wrote:
They did say he was 35mm, making him significantly bigger than 25/28/30mm scale.

I'd use him as a "Sir Andre the Giant" type character instead of rank and file; at least that way he has an excuse for being really big, on a really big horse.

I think the problem Azreal13 has is that figure is smaller than mierce.....

Precisely that. I thought choosing a comparison model that was quite similar would better illustrate the point, seems I've muddied the waters!

For clarity, the hobbit on a pony in the foreground is the Deathdealer.

Here's a better lit shot of perhaps a more familiar comparison with a GW Bret horsie...

That is truly miniscule... I think you have a right to be pissed Az honestly... Jeez I am getting really nervous about my 75mm verison...

Those bretonnian horses are fairly huge though.




He will scale well with historical 28mm's but not with blown up GW heroic-28mm-but-really-32mm minis (or minis of similar size) and I agree it's somewhat misleading to claim he's in 35mm scale.

 MajorTom11 wrote:
That is truly miniscule... I think you have a right to be pissed Az honestly... Jeez I am getting really nervous about my 75mm verison...

I'm happy to concede that the quality is there. The resin smells funky, but it obviously casts well and holds detail, and even the smaller more fragile pieces don't feel like they'll easily break.

But I cannot fathom how this is supposed to be 35mm scale.

For the 75mm backers, I guess it depends where the error in the maths happened whether this will be an issue or not!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Zywus wrote:
Those bretonnian horses are fairly huge though.

Spoiler:

He will scale well with historical 28mm's (just not with blown up GW heroic-28mm-but-really-32mm minis) but I agree it's misleading to claim he's in 35mm scale.

Which is a problem when I intended him to stand by himself as a display piece and don't need him to scale with anything. I just couldn't stretch to a 75mm version, but I felt 35mm real scale should have been at least equivalent to heroic 32 in terms of overall stature, and would have been content with that.

....oh.

My mistake.

i'm sorry that you are disappointed about your Death Dealer 1/50 but surely it's a 35mm model, please take a look at the screen capture from the 3d master file and see it by your self.

If the miniature is smaller than similiar models from other companies i don't understand why that means it's not a 35mm figure.
Games Workshop is popular for manufacture oversized and mis-proportioned models (just because they WANT them like that and not because they're not able of course)

we are not inaccurate when sculpting a model.

I'm against scale creep and I do love Death dealer.

I'm just going to repost my comment from the KS, as I'm not going to get involved in this debate across multiple sites..


It should be noted I didn't compare solely to GW, I'm not trying to follow some agenda, I also pictured the main body of the model against a Mierce cavalry model, which was even less favourable, and can probably find models from one or two other manufacturers which will do this model no more favours.
Quite what picturing a 35mm standing human next to this model is expected to prove in terms of accuracy is unclear, but the fact remains that in terms of sheer volume this model is just "off" in terms of what one would expect from a 35mm cavalry piece.
I'm saying this as a 25 year veteran war gamer with experience across multiple ranges, not some no-nothing GW afficando.
Regardless, I've made my point, people can view my images and decide for themselves, there's nothing more to be done.

@Kabuki Studios -

I understand your point, however, there is 35mm, and then there is the 35mm accepted as industry standard. Now you can argue here that there is no 'true' industry standard or whatnot but I think you know that generally people accept the heroic scale to represent more people's size expectations than art scale.

So, while strictly speaking you may be correct on the exact spec measurements with a caliper, but you have a marketing failure on your hands here in that you did not specify art scale or heroic, so instead you left a lot of your customers completely to their own devices as to setting their expectations, which is going to hurt both them and you.

As a 3rd party manufacturer who makes a lot of kits compatible with other lines, you know full well that people buying a mounted knight at 35 mm are fairly likely to be wanting to use it as a proxy in other systems. Otherwise, like myself, they would buy the larger version likely if they were wanting a display piece only. You should have accounted for that and made sure they knew 'hey, this 35mm is artscale, so it will likely be much smaller than heroic scale minis you may own fyi.'

The milk is spilled already here, but as someone who owns a marketing company, and as someone who has worked in the industry, do yourself a favor and don't attack your own customers when clearly you could have communicated better during the sale. Don't pull an Apple 'You're holding it wrong' move here, learn from it, keep your customers happy. Telling them 'What??? You were expecting this kind of 35mm? Stupid, we did this kind of 35mm, you should have known that!' is not going to result in good PR for you.

I am a customer on this and I am not subject to this as I ordered large sizes, so please consider me a supporter. I want to make it clear I am not saying you have done anything terrible or that you have mislead your audience. I am merely pointing out that in this case, the audience was left open to mislead themselves and that is something you can learn from and avoid in future to your own benefit. I am not trying to bash but be supportive actually, I just think that you can handle this a bit better in terms of explaining yourself in a way that seems sympathetic and caring while holding firm to your point too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Posted this on the KS too... the response was... unprofessional. Saddened by this.

I've just done some quick calculations based on that 48.9mm figure.

This makes him 8ft tall to the tippy top of his axe, somewhere in the upper 7ft range to the top of the head.

For a large warrior, mounted on a large horse, that is...modest.

(For reference, I grew up in a horse riding family, I'm not just pulling things out of a hat in that regard.)

Yeah it is tiny... even at art scale, it is small. 'Math doesn't lie' but aesthetics and expectations are not set by math alone. Again, he didn't lie to anyone, but he seems hell bent on gakking on anyone pointing out is is smaller than nearly all other 35mm models out there as if they are making up slander. (his guy may be 35mm tall, but that doesn't mean it is in proportion, or that it is optimised for miniature painting and casting. I can make a model 35mm tall and then completely botch the limb thickness and proportion.

Having worked in design and 3D with mini companies before, I can say that measuring to the head alone and ignoring everything else is extremely misleading. I remember having an awesome 3D sculpt of something that looked flawless on a screen 9 inches tall and zoomed in, but then they printed a master and it was the right height but unbelievably thin and frail looking otherwise. Absolutely scale correct, but also very unsuited to a miniature. I know a lot of pro sculptors working in 3D, they will vouch for that being a very real issue. So yeah, showing a pic that head to toe the mini is 35mm standing up straight doesn't mean much. How many minis stand bolt upright? What height does it end up being when you bend the knees and back? If a 32mm mini is measured as 32mm tall when posed, not when layed out in a straight bolt upright line... this mini, posed, is likely to be 30mm tall. Anyways, i digress, but the aggressive defense is extremely simplistic at best, and outright incorrect at worst.

I genuinely wish I didn't back this project, the work seems fine and I love the subject matter, but this guy thinks the client is there to serve his expectations, not the other way around. I regret supporting someone with that attitude, as a business person in a service based profession, that just rubs me all kinds of wrong and reeks of inexperience. There are ways to dismiss a customer leaving you looking polite and giving the impression you have listened, even if you have no intention or ability or even obligation to change anything and are not at fault. No point to alienating people willing to give you money.

This guy has no ability to distinguish between constructive criticism and an attack. Really disappointing, I wanted to like this and enjoy my experience.

Sorry, if I'd kept my mouth shut you could have continued in blissful ignorance!

Still, live and learn, the information is out there now for people to make informed decisions about purchasing at retail or even persuing a refund through KS if they feel strongly enough.

I hope the 75mm versions have none of the issues, Tom.

Probably going to get a turd in the box along with it now lol...

At least you know it'll only be a small one.

I will never understand why it's so hard for many (most?) crowdfunding campaigns to simply make some comparison pictures with their models and some existing ones, (preferably well known ones). I realize it's more difficult if sculpting digitally, but surely one can make a test-print just to show size?

Every campaign I've ever looked at, the first questions is always, some variations of "could you show it compared to X".
Eventually some do (lately it seems some finally are getting the hint and making a comp pic in advance) but it's usually like pulling teeth.

And it's such a effective insurance against people getting the wrong expectations of the final product.

Exactly, what you and I have said would actually protect him from issues... but alas, he would rather yell at people.

PS@Az LOL