Shieldwolf Miniatures - Siberias Lions revealed

[Shieldwolf Miniatures]

KS-1 released probably some of the most detailed and dynamic miniatures ever available, amongst which (besides the Wyvern, Mammoth and twin-headed Dragon which have been widely exalted) are the Siberias Lions! 





Hopefully our KS-2 pitching off in a few months with the multi-part hard plastic Shieldmaiden kit will release even more! 

[Vermis]

KS-1 released probably some of the most detailed and dynamic miniatures ever available

 

[Shieldwolf Miniatures]

Lol!!!   Is someone paying you to comment always in a negative and non-productive manner Vermis or you have some other reason to do so?  

I will not comment on the Wyvern, Mammoth and twin-headed, for everything that was available during the concept stage had already been taken into account and the best-money-can-buy collaborators were instructed to outclass them.
In the meanwhile nothing new has come to challenge these minis so we are pretty confident of this range and (thankfully) so our our supporters.  
Shieldwolf has elevated the bar a lot in the last couple of years and we are currently producing top-class product.

Perhaps I am wrong and you could direct me to another set of fantasy lions more detailed and/or concept innovative?
Or perhaps not...  

[Major_Gilbear]

KS-1 released probably some of the most detailed and dynamic miniatures ever available, amongst which (besides the Wyvern, Mammoth and twin-headed Dragon which have been widely exalted) are the Siberias Lions! 

Lol!!!   Is someone paying you to comment always in a negative and non-productive manner Vermis or you have some other reason to do so?
I will not comment on the Wyvern, Mammoth and twin-headed, for everything that was available during the concept stage had already been taken into account and the best-money-can-buy collaborators were instructed to outclass them.
In the meanwhile nothing new has come to challenge these minis so we are pretty confident of this range and (thankfully) so our our supporters. 
Shieldwolf has elevated the bar a lot in the last couple of years and we are currently producing top-class product.
Perhaps I am wrong and you could direct me to another set of fantasy lions more detailed and/or concept innovative?
Or perhaps not... 

I'm sorry to say, but I think that whilst we customers expect some promotional language from companies, your specific choices of phraseology come off as rather... Well... Conceited, arrogant, and also a little defensive.
I'm pretty sure you are just excited about your products, but it's hard to gauge someone's attitude when reading text (especially if they're not posting in their first language). Anyway,  I feel you should be aware that people may react accordingly, and that trying to ridicule them for it doesn't really enhance your company's image.
Surely if your models are so good, just posting photos and details should be enough to sell them to those interested?

As for best/most dynamic/wildly popular/etc... Well, they don't look especially dynamic to me I'm afraid. The lions pictured are puffy-looking, which is enhanced by the mass of their dreadlocked manes and bulky armour. Likewise the riders perched on top look somewhat awkward and stiffly-posed, as if they were generic clip-on rider models rather than specific sculpts for the lions. The detail and styling of the models is nice though, and the paintjob is just superb.

Anyway, I do like the efforts Shieldwolf Miniatures is making, but I do wish that the models and ranges you produce were a bit more consistent in both their direction and release schedule, and the photos on you your site were better (or even complete - several minis have no photos at all). So far, I've not been tempted to buy any, but I do keep checking in to see what's new in case that changes.

[Duncan McDane]

If I were to buy one of these lions it would be the top left one - despite his underpants of chainmail )-, as it is the only one who to me looks like a menacing, threatening muscled lion. The one standing up, well, I don't know if lions do that sort of thing, but as the armour covers it muscles the pose doesn't work for me. The one on the right looks like he's digging a hole in order to do a number 2.
The dreads, well, it's a design thingie, so Shieldwolfs' choice. I guess I like my animals to look more feral. The armour plating is a fun idea, but it looks a bit soft in some places and the headgear on the left and right lions is far too elaborate for me. I'd change the riders for sure, but that is because I don't like renaissance-style armour ( sorry, White Knight  ), I prefer the barbarian/Dark Age look, so just a matter of taste.

Anyway, good luck with them and keep your updates posted but you don't need to describe them as raising the bar etc. etc. Leave that to Games Workshop, their target audience still might fall for that but over here most of us have seen it all, read it all, shook our shoulders and we simply let our wallets speak  .

[Shieldwolf Miniatures]

@Major_Gilbear
We are indeed excited about the range and this product in particular. We know of nothing similar and we are very proud people liked it.
Vermis has been negative in other posts and forums with us, so his consistency of picking on us would eventually not going to pass by.

During the preparation of our KS-1, we didn't just design a few minis, the aim was to create the best. Saying the best, as I said above, we took in account everything else available and put forth to make something better. If you notice we do say "probably" in the OP since we know we will never be able to please everyone. To each his own. 

Like I invited Vermis, we would like to know what could compete with this. However, I will not continue the comparison, since our aim is to project our doings and not what the competition does better or worse. Apologies if it sounded that way, absolutely not.

As you say, people will decide, but we have great plans and the exposure is greatly needed to speed things up.
Completion of our KS-1 is going great and in program despite the problems we faced (very happy with our consistency), rule-testing on the "War is Coming" also in progress and to be released within the next few months with KS-2, preparation of KS-2 and hard plastic tooling with new learning curve (in which we invest heavily, much heavier than one could imagine probably), on-line shop function, retailers and distributors shipments etc etc etc.
A lot of things going on, so the exposure is necessary and so is the recognition for what we are trying to accomplish.

@Duncan McDane
The dreadlocks was our idea, e.g. people over at Natfka praised the concept and there were over 150+ people who participated in our give-away. Then again, people like Vermis who has consistenly hammered us on our "non-innovative" would still say the same, so little to say.
Lions are sold separately and there's a very generous discount for the pack. We try to treat our customers with respect. If I have failed to communicate that, my fault, guess it's the second language barrier like Major_Gilbear pointed above. Imho written speech can be often misinterpreted.
On a final note, we wrote here the same things we wrote everywhere else (FB page, reaper, dakka, etc). We don't treat this forum otherwise nor do we obviously want any hostilities, we want more exposure for the good of the company and the hobby, and we are grateful this forum provides it. If people find our projects/range/language etc offensive in this particular forum however, we must reconsider how we present this here.

PS. Regardless if we agree or not, both General's and Duncan's comments I found very polite and constructive btw. 

[Malamute]

As for best/most dynamic/wildly popular/etc... Well, they don't look especially dynamic to me I'm afraid. The lions pictured are puffy-looking, which is enhanced by the mass of their dreadlocked manes and bulky armour. Likewise the riders perched on top look somewhat awkward and stiffly-posed, as if they were generic clip-on rider models rather than specific sculpts for the lions. The detail and styling of the models is nice though, and the paintjob is just superb.

Well, the thread title grabbed my attention and after looking at the pictures and reading the text I have to agree. Sadly I was drawn to the massive oversized battle axe..... The blade is nearly as big as the figure

Nice idea though, I like lions

[Shieldwolf Miniatures]

Well, the thread title grabbed my attention and after looking at the pictures and reading the text I have to agree. Sadly I was drawn to the massive oversized battle axe..... The blade is nearly as big as the figure

?... Maybe this will help you see the details better? 

http://www.shieldwolfminiatures.com/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=78

Like almost everything else in our range, these too (as soon as they come back to us from Italy) will have the appropriate 360's we always go to trouble into making to exalt the view of the models as much as humanly possible.
Siberias Lion_A for example already has it 

http://www.shieldwolfminiatures.com/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=75

Nice idea though, I like lions

Thank you. We do too! 

[Vermis]

Surely if your models are so good, just posting photos and details should be enough to sell them to those interested?

As for best/most dynamic/wildly popular/etc... Well, they don't look especially dynamic to me I'm afraid. The lions pictured are puffy-looking, which is enhanced by the mass of their dreadlocked manes and bulky armour. Likewise the riders perched on top look somewhat awkward and stiffly-posed, as if they were generic clip-on rider models rather than specific sculpts for the lions.

Anyway, I do like the efforts Shieldwolf Miniatures is making, but I do wish that the models and ranges you produce were a bit more consistent in both their direction and release schedule, and the photos on you your site were better (or even complete - several minis have no photos at all). So far, I've not been tempted to buy any, but I do keep checking in to see what's new in case that changes.

If I were to buy one of these lions it would be the top left one - despite his underpants of chainmail )-, as it is the only one who to me looks like a menacing, threatening muscled lion. The one standing up, well, I don't know if lions do that sort of thing, but as the armour covers it muscles the pose doesn't work for me. The one on the right looks like he's digging a hole in order to do a number 2.
The dreads, well, it's a design thingie, so Shieldwolfs' choice. I guess I like my animals to look more feral. The armour plating is a fun idea, but it looks a bit soft in some places...

Anyway, good luck with them and keep your updates posted but you don't need to describe them as raising the bar etc. etc. Leave that to Games Workshop, their target audience still might fall for that but over here most of us have seen it all, read it all, shook our shoulders and we simply let our wallets speak  .

Yup, all this.

'Shieldwolf', I'm not your biggest fan; but I'm at least grateful for more injections into the fantasy miniatures market, and I thought these lions were fair enough. Not spectacular, IMO, but better than Mantic's similar efforts (though that's not saying much) and not bad enough to warrant snarky comments, until I read your hype.

That's one of the words I could use to sum up this general side of fantasy minis - hype. You got a lot of publicity for your orcs, and customers for this kickstarter; all excited about the mad poses and big teeth and little details, no doubt. I can't say too much about that. They'll go for what they want. But for me, all that stuff they go for, it's another example of the 'exxxtreme fantasy' theme - more style than substance.
What I mean is, you've got your concept of battle-lion cavalry, and you've got your fancy little details like the plaited manes and smooth mail. Okay. But that don't impress me much. Anybody can have a weird idea and, these days, most can dress a sculpt of it up in tiny details. The thing that concerns me is the bit in the middle: the impression that, like a lot of new fantasy minis, the details are dressing up - covering up - a sort of wandering, somewhat confused sculpt.
Like the two guys I quoted, I think the lions are a bit stiff and awkwardly posed, rather than super-dynamic pinnacles of the art of miniature sculpting. All the bits of big cat showing under the armour look like they've gone down the common route of making things look strong and impressive by making everything thicker and with as many convex 'muscle' contours as possible. The resulting effect for some of us, as mentioned, is to make them look puffy and unnatural. The faces look puffy and round. The paws look blobby and bland. The limbs look... mechanical, almost, with a covering of balloons. The muscle, wrinkle and toe contours mostly look like lines, like texture, marked into the surface, rather than structural features.

I'm gonna pick on those paws and the forelegs in particular. I really do think the former are unecessarily crude, like rounded-off square blocks. They remind me of paws that annoyed me before (such is the way my mind works) - was it the Mantic lions, or the ones with the GW high elf chariot? In any case these are pretty much the same: square blocks, with toes all lined up in a straight line, and spiky/doglike claws fully extended on every paw, whatever it's doing. I mean, did your sculptor just go to those older minis and copy them? 'Cos that's how it seems to me. Has your sculptor not got access to google images? Has anyone at Shieldwolf ever heard of cats?
The forelegs: those 'forearm' muscles look way too even, regular and overdefined. It looks like the riders have a ritual before battle, strapping bunches of bananas to their steeds. Take a look at this photo. When you're clinging to the back end of a cape buffalo with a view to lunch, you don't want to fall off and get tangled up with the front end of a cape buffalo; so you can be sure all those limb muscles, including the claw-controlling 'forearm' ones, are firing off. See how much those claw muscles show up on the foreleg. See the shape the toes can take when the claws are strongly extended. See how the leg muscles can create concave hollows as well as convex, steroidal bulges.

The plaited manes I actually don't have as much of a problem with. I think it's an interesting quirk that makes some kind of sense in a subculture of soldiers and their domesticated(?) battle lions. I just think you overstate the length (lion manes are more of an area coverage thing, and a lot of it goes under), and - despite lavishing what I think is a bit too much attention on quirks like this - again, the plaits look like simple lines of texture scored into an even tube, rather than interwoven locks.

I could say more about the armour and the riders, but I think I've said more than enough, already. You say these raise the bar, but in my opinion the best they do is keep the bar where it is.

[Shieldwolf Miniatures]

The long answer is appreciated Vermis. Maybe we have gotten on the wrong foot and you will eventually like something we present, thankfully we have a lot coming.

These lions are fantasy lions, the fantasy aspect imo does not limit itself in the perspective of a human soldier riding one, but the way we envision the armor, the simpler yet believable muscular structure etc.
Anyway, in order to avoid making a future fuss (a third time!), we will simply limit ourselves in posting pics and answering questions as General suggested. 

And btw, remembering the previous intervention our Shieldmaiden plastics will have a fantasy aspect so they are not historical models, there will be esthetic intervention to them. We will be showing progress as the KS-2 comes closer, plastics are currently necessary in our opinion for our game.

[pocoloco]

Well they are a nice set of _fantasy_ lions and riders. Maybe I don't like the axe of the middle rider but things like that can be easily swapped if needed.

Now, for the shieldmaidens you guys should make a similar set but shieldmaidens riding war-elks  

[kaiser]

I like the one to the left, because, like Duncan said, it looks menacing, while the others look weird in an unrealistic way (I get that it's fantasy, but the leaping one has a stiffness to it that looks unnatural). I just browsed through your range, and the goblins are by far the best of your figures imo. They have some of the qualities of modern sculpts while maintaining a lot of character. The lions are not for me, but I look forward to see what else you come up with.

[Shieldwolf Miniatures]

Now, for the shieldmaidens you guys should make a similar set but shieldmaidens riding war-elks  

I'm sorry but we have already commenced the sculpting of the Ice warbears. Same footsize as the lions i.e. 75mmx50mm bases, we call it monstrous cavalry (I think they qualify). And they are BIG... 

[white knight]

Them's some big lions. 

[Blofeld]

I think these look like good minis. Its great to see a new route being taken with the combination of conquistador style riders and the mythical lion mounts. Are they available in the UK or just via you European store?
Thanks
Blofeld