Sleazy Merchant and Sleepy Sentry preview

[Alxbates]

Heya folks - Alex Bates from the Forge of Ice here.

I've been working for several years on a setting called Azor - it's a Lost Land akin to King Kong's Skull Island (or Marvel Comics' Savage Land, or ERB's Pellucidar or Pal-Ul-Don, or Doc Savage's Thunder Island or Python Isle or Fear Cay, etc etc etc).  As my inspirations come mostly from Pulp sources rather than fantasy or sword and sorcery sources, I generally limit my posts to the Pulp boards here, but I think that these figures will be useful for fantasy games, too, so I'm posting here as well.

I will shortly be releasing a small set of figures via Kickstarter - a Sleazy Merchant and his Sleepy Sentries.



Every RPG I've played in always seems to have a sleazy merchant or slave trader or crooked senator as a villain, and he always seems to have low-rent guards who are prone to falling asleep on the job.  Or getting drunk, or perhaps ensorcled.

The ancient ruined city, Azor, is decadent and corrupt, and this fellow is a fine example of the sort of corrupt official that can make life troublesome for the protagonists.  He was sculpted by Kev White and painted by Jason Huffman.  



There are six guards in total, all sculpted by Bobby Jackson - two standing awake and alert, and four in various stages of slacking off all the way to slumber.





Everything has already been sculpted, and master castings have been made - all is ready for production.

Should the KS be wildly successful I do have a couple of small stretch goals in mind, shields and some loot for the guards to be standing watch over (admittedly not doing a very good job at it), but the plan is to keep things very simple and straightforward.

Thanks for looking - I'll post more news as things get closer to being released.

I also have an armored crocodile, Queen of the Jungle, a Snakeman and a terrain piece that I expect to be ready this summer, too.

I have a thread that I'm keeping updated in the Pulp forum here, or you can check out the Forge of Ice Facebook page at:

www.facebook.com/ForgeofIce

Cheers!

-Alex in Alaska

[Earther]

They look absolutely splendid! I love that merchant!

[Little Odo]

I like these - and not everyone is the exact same size and build as per real life. Nicely done.

[beefcake]

Very nice.

[Juan]

I like a lot this vignette; this is great!

[fastolfrus]

Looking good.
How much is postage to the UK?

[Furt]

Really nice and different. The style is brilliant and very Conan/Sword & Sorcery to me.

I'd like to see the ruler a little closer to one of those erect guardsmen.

Will you be doing more alert versions of the guards down the track?

[Doomsdave]

Alex, great idea and execution as usual!  I have supported all your KS so far and will likely be I for this one as the minis have been excellent.  What's really got me excited though is the terrain tease.  When will get some sneak peeks of those?

[von Lucky]

I like these sculpts!

[Alxbates]

Looking good.
How much is postage to the UK?

I have no idea yet   

That's one of the things I'm working on figuring out, different postage rates for different pledge levels.

[Alxbates]

Really nice and different. The style is brilliant and very Conan/Sword & Sorcery to me.

I'd like to see the ruler a little closer to one of those erect guardsmen.

Will you be doing more alert versions of the guards down the track?

Your wish is my command!



And here are two of them, painted and based on Games Workshop round bases.



More poses of the alert guards are certainly a possibility, depending on the success of the project they could even be a stretch goal.

That's part of the reason I'm posting previews, to get some idea of what people want.

I've gotten a lot more interest in the awake guards than I had expected, so it's good to know.

-Alex

[Alxbates]

Alex, great idea and execution as usual!  I have supported all your KS so far and will likely be I for this one as the minis have been excellent.  What's really got me excited though is the terrain tease.  When will get some sneak peeks of those?

I'm really glad that you (and the other commenters here) seem to like them!

I like figures that have some humor in them, some lightness and character, and I think that it's something that's often lacking in current model releases.

My favorite sets as a kid were the big Games Workshop boxed sets that'd have a scenario, some terrain, and a bunch of character models that could be used as troops for the various Warhammer army lists, but were often funny or weird and were meant to be used as NPC's.

My current favorite miniatures line, the Wargods figures by Crocodile Games, has some Basti villagers that are my absolute favorite figures in the series.

And, since my setting has an ancient civilization in it, very much inspired in part by Conan, but also by all the lost cities encountered by Pulp characters like Tarzan and Doc Savage, the common trope of guards falling asleep at their posts seemed like a fun place to start.

Of course, low-rent guards like that need a dishonest merchant to employ them, and thus, this set was born.

The lost civilization that I'm constructing is (loosely, loosely) based on Minoan Crete, an outpost colony that was built in a jungle, so the clothing and gear should make sense in the context -- and be useful for lots of other settings, from ancient Egypt up through Roman times.  Someone mentioned that they wanted to paint the merchant to be Rick Ross!

The terrain piece I've designed is my own take on what a Sphinx might look like if you lived in a place where dinosaurs still ran around.

I'll post pics as it gets closer to completion -  the LAF's own ShortscaleDave is sculpting it.

-Alex

[abdul666lw]

They remind me of She:often rendered with a somewhat 'Egyptian' look.
But they would not be out of place in Southern Shem or on Tékumel, either.

[Patrice]

Excellent!

Since some others manufacturers are releasing magnificent Carthaginians, but I'm not into big battles (I prefer skirmish adventures) I was thinking about things that could happen south of Carthage and not always including Romans but unknown people as well...

[mweaver]

Those guys are fun, Alex!  Hopefully I won't sleep through the Kickstarter during one of my don't-check-miniatures-sites periods.

-Michael