New Miniatures Line in the Making- Equipment Master Pic 3/12

[wolfgangbrooks]

Hello all. I'll be heading off to Cold Wars tomorrow morning with a car load of stuff I hope sells better than usual. Why's that? Well I'll be meeting with a sculptor I've been working with on a line of figures. I'm a bit nervous as I haven't seen the dollies he's been making for the figures yet, but he's done good work so far with the equipment so I think it'll be all right. :)

What I'm doing, or at least starting out with, is a range of diving suits with separate helmets and backpacks in 28mm. I should have at least three different helmets when the line debuts, but I'm not sure about how many body styles yet.

The first one will be a generic suit, with several poses holding an underwater rifle/compressed air gun. I want to also produce some with tools, and some without anything in their hands, and potentially some carrying sea-harvesting things. (Think of the scenes in Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea where they're netting turtles, checking lobster traps and such.)

There will also be more variant helmets, weapons, backpacks and such released, both with the figures and as packs on their own. I've also got some more ideas for different suit types such as an armored version, organic Atlantean style, and some deep diver hardsuits. (Found many strange and weird things doing research for this.)

I've contacted another sculptor as well, and I'm going to be asking him to start either on a range of sea creatures: Normal, prehistoric, and fantastic. OR a line of multipart sci-fi civilians/crew with separate heads, and maybe arms. (The Star Trek project on Matakishi's site should give you an idea of what I'm shooting for.) I'll eventually get to both and more, but money is tight and my tax return will only go so far. :)

I want to debut some of this at least at Historicon in July. It's been going slow so far, but I think I could be getting production copies of the first batch of divers within a month.

I probably won't be able to respond to anything until Monday or Tuesday, but I'd like to hear your thoughts about all of this. Especially what it would take to get you to buy in. :) Proposals for pack sizes, how to package the variant heads and backpacks with bodies, integral vs slotta basing, and such would be nice too.

Thanks in advance for your comments, and reading through all of this.

[wolfgangbrooks]

Oh yes. The same diving tech has been used for years. And the old style diving helmets are still in commercial use today. The generic suit I'm having done now could potentially be used for anything from VSF to Modern settings and maybe into the future. :)

Edit: I've looked at the concept art I did for the sculptor again, and decided I wouldn't be too embarrassed to show it:

Suit:
http://wolfgangbrooks.deviantart.com/art/new-suit-concepts-74259491
Equipment:
http://wolfgangbrooks.deviantart.com/art/Assortment-66285717
Scrapped Idea:
http://wolfgangbrooks.deviantart.com/art/Heavy-Diver-65819609

[Weird WWII]

I too am starting my own miniatures company with my own capital so I know exactly what you are going through.  I told myself that I need to produce minis that the BIG BOYS do not so I get a better chance at sales.  I think you have picked a good scale for your topic as most pulp is 28mm or larger so your target audience will more then likely be responsive to that range.  To my knowledge there are not to many diving minis to be had so that is good.  I know the costs of hiring sculptors and others to cast can get expensive really quick especially if you are trying to produce a large line at once so my advice is to stay within the type of minis that are not currently sold by the bigger companies or by anyone.  If they are a success the big guys will follow suit but hopefully you would have made a profit or at least your money back until they do.

Good luck and can't wait to see what ya got,

Brian Cottrell
What The?! Miniatures

[Malamute]

Great idea, I am sure there is a market for these types of figures(I'll be buying some )
Selling them with a choice of heads, equipment etc is a good idea. I think my preference is to buy figures individually as opposed to pack size. I don't know how you feel about that and I am interested to see the other views on this.
An exciting project.

[dodge]

Good luck it sounds very promising.

Dodge

[headzombie]

As someone who also used his own hard earned monies to start a miniatures business I wish you luck!

[Captain Blood]

In plastic presumably?  :wink:

[Super_Gibbon]

Good luck!

Personally, I would love to have a model of one of those giant scorpions that used to live in the ocean way back before dinosaurs. Then I'll get some divers and do a little lost world type stuff.

[Rhoderic]

Personally, I would love to have a model of one of those giant scorpions that used to live in the ocean way back before dinosaurs.

That sounds cool, got a name or a Wikipedia link or something like that? Or are you talking about trilobites?

[Super_Gibbon]

Something like these guys:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/seamonsters/factfiles/seascorpion.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaekelopterus

I've loved these things since I was a kid. There was a series of dioramas of prehistoric ocean life with a model of one in the Carnegie museum of natural history right near me in Pittsburgh. As a kid, it was my favorite place in the museum, even more so than the flashy rock star dinosaurs. They remodeled and I think they got rid of it.

[UncleRhino]

I saw a miniature of a eurypterid ages ago, one of the guys with a better memory can tell you who made it...but I know I saw one out there somewhere...Somebody help out an aging gamer!

UncleRhino

[Heldrak]

I probably won't be able to respond to anything until Monday or Tuesday, but I'd like to hear your thoughts about all of this. Especially what it would take to get you to buy in. Proposals for pack sizes, how to package the variant heads and backpacks with bodies, integral vs slotta basing, and such would be nice too.

Thanks in advance for your comments, and reading through all of this.

For my personal taste, I recommend a slottabased model as opposed to a solid base, as it is relatively easy to clip a slotta tab away and mount a figure on a washer (for those that hate slottabases) but it is relatively difficult to remove a solid base (for those that prefer slottabases).

One thing you might want to consider in making your decision about packaging (and marketing) is if you will have a specific rules set that you will be manufacturing for/marketing towards. My instinct is that you will garner more sales if you have some kind of game-related underpinning for your figure line.

I don't think that having a specific rules set in mind for your figure line could possibly hurt your sales, and it might help. If your first projected line is a group of deep-sea divers (nothing wrong with that :love:), you might want to consider partnering with a company that makes an established rules set that you admire and try to connect your releases to a special deep-sea supplement for that set of rules. It makes your release more of an "Event", and gives you a leg-up on sales to other admirers of that game system.

As regards what you put in a pack, you might want to look at what some of the folks that you consider your direct competitors are doing and average out the cost of each component in a pack (for example, if company x, company y & company z are your nearest competitors, figure out roughly what they're getting per component in a pack and build your own packs accordingly). 5 Components per blister seems to be a popular pack size amongst the various Pulp-themed manufacturers (note that this is 5 components, not necessarily 5 figures).

One thing to bear in mind as your figures go from the concept model stage to the master mould stage is the way your various components break down into moulds- If you plan to do a brisk business in selling separate component packs (loose heads, weapons, backpacks, etc.), then you probably want to have those pieces in a different mould from your baseline body components so you're not running spins of extra body components that you won't sell.

Finally, One personal pet-peeve of mine is when companies make multipart models and they fail to include a baseline bare head with their miniatures (every head is either wearing a helmet, a hat, a mask, has disfiguring scars, etc.). Please include at least one plain, normal hatless average-guy human head with every model set.

P.S. Having a female model or two in a group seems like a popular and much-requested option...:wink:

EDIT:

There's an interesting discussion on the economics of single figures/vs. unit packs going on right now over at the Steve Dean painting website:

http://www.sdforum.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10114&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15&sid=a13831e651fefd08c1b94cce7507bdad

[wolfgangbrooks]

-Kampfgruppe Cottrell: "If they are a success the big guys will follow suit but hopefully you would have made a profit or at least your money back until they do."

I tried that, and apparently Brigade beat me to it... But I think (hope) he's just sticking to the one pack. (Nope, apparently not, dammit.) I live in eternal fear that Brigade will swing over and cover something I want to do. :) Double for Blue Moon given how prolific they are becoming and that accursed Old Glory Army Discount.

-Captain Blood: "In plastic presumably? "

If I had that kind of money I wouldn't need to work. :)

-Super_Gibbon: "Personally, I would love to have a model of one of those giant scorpions that used to live in the ocean way back before dinosaurs."

That's certainly what I'm going for. Invertebrates will rule the earth again.

-Heldrak: "For my personal taste, I recommend a slottabased model as opposed to a solid base,"

I do as well. Most of my stuff these days is going on the rounded plastic bases like the ones Privateer Press uses. Though I am seeing the attraction of relatively flat bases. Whatever I do, I'm sure people will complain either way. :)

"My instinct is that you will garner more sales if you have some kind of game-related underpinning for your figure line."

I agree. Best thing I can think of doing is see if Rattrap will let me do an underwater book for .45 adventures. Or try my hand at a micro-game of my own. I'm also altering the design a little bit so that they could could also be used as retro spacesuits. So they could go with Fantastic worlds.

The thing that seemed to sell figures at Cold Wars was people playing in the demo games and coming by to get the figures they saw or played. I know we moved alot of Hydra's Robot Legionaires like that.

"...then you probably want to have those pieces in a different mould from your baseline body components so you're not running spins of extra body components that you won't sell."

Yes, when I do start selling components as packs of their own I'm putting them on a separate mould. Actually already have the backpacks and weapons sprued up and mastered. I could have that part of the range set into production already, and we did well enough at Cold Wars that we could spare the money to do so.

"Please include at least one plain, normal hatless average-guy human head with every model set."

My sculptor suggested some plain heads. I think that is something I'll do, or at least have a pack of them.

"P.S. Having a female model or two in a group seems like a popular and much-requested option... "

Yeah, but in a bulky suit, how could you tell? :) But that is a good idea, I'll talk to my guy and see what he thinks about how easy it would be to change the dolly into a female version.

As for singles vs. packs I think singles would work only because I'm the producer of the figures and can order stuff like that. :) But when you have to think about economies of scale, and the number of molds you can afford, you start to think ill of everyone wanting their own way. :) I think I could do it for shows and off the website, but selling to other stores (if anyone wants them) would be a problem, and I'd have to have set packs.

Thanks for the comments everyone. If you have anymore questions or comments or pics of monsters you'd like to share, please do. I'll have some pics of the stuff I've already had completed up soon.

[wolfgangbrooks]

Here are the pieces I got at Fall-In late last year against the centimeter edge of a ruler.



According to my sculptor the gun on the far right has been reworked with larger barrels. And these have since been sprued two backpacks of a single design together with two of the hoses. I forget how many weapons are on a sprue, but I think it's four or five. Weapons will be cast on the figures, but sold as accessory packs if anyone needs some of these.

I'm trying to think of some figures I have that could model these for you guys, but my mind is blanking right now.