In these last days of panic, terror and troubles, I think that it's wise to borrow the words from a man that really mastered the "Hakuna Matata" lifestyle!
Many of you sent me a lot of messages, in the last days, worried about the Italian situation and, in specific about my health: don't worry guys, I'm solid as stone, you are not risking to lose your favourite Dwarf dealer. Thank you so much for caring about me!
Believe it or not, I'm living these days as a kind of mental trip: everybody around us are almost literally telling us to panic and brace for the world's ending, but everything around me seems just normal, to me.
I don't know how to handle this situation, emotionally speaking!
For what concerns us, we have started to ship the Kickstarter rewards, and I'm quite happy: over 140 parcels have been already shipped and in brief times the first backers will receive their DPF miniatures!
Moreover, we are obviously designing more and more elves, and what a better way to enlight this day, than sharing with you the new Elf Archer (and first "lady" of the Elf fellowship)?
As usual, working on a female subject has been really challenging for us, because girls are always more difficult than males! At first, we focused on how to differentiate male Elves from female ones: we didn't want just to add boobs and wider hips!
As you may see, we decided to change a bit the proportions of crucial body parts: the hands, for example, are smaller than those of the male subjects (and the absence of the typical gloves worn by male characters amplifies this concept, visually speaking) and so are the ears, while eyes are a bit larger (and this is a kind of fetish of mine, I love girls with big eyes!). We carefully used the clothes to better define the femininity of this character: for example, she also wears very large pants, but their volume is shaped differently from the males' ones, designed to accentuate the hips. Since the beginning, I wanted for this character a kind of ethereal vibe, I wanted to push the "fairy" style of our Elves in a feminine way: the leaf cloak, for example, is shaped to remind the wings of a butterfly/moth and her sandals design (I decided for a very Japanese style) helps to give a more feminine silhouette to her legs.
Being this character the "C" alternative of a character class (in specific, she is the Elf Archer C), I decided to continue the tradition born with the Iron Crow Sentinel C and the Bluecoat Soldier C, and I gave her a lantern as her "C" colleagues!
I particularly love the fact that she carries a lantern, and wears a cloak that reminds the wings of a moth, I think it's funny, almost poetic.
And here we are, with the first 3 Archers ready to ambush/patrol/whatever they usually do, in all their sneaky glory!
I think that with the Archers' class we reached a solid design, a good mix between Japanese vibes and classic Wood Elf style: they seem to be popped out from a curious mix between Studio Ghibli and Grimm Brothers, I'm really proud of them!
What about the future?!
We have to sculpt still 2 more Archers, one of them will be the leader of the group or something big in general: I would like to design it not like an Elf, but more like a big dryad/spirit/avatar/whatever, a fairy creature that is worshipped by Elves and awakens in times of need to lead them to victory...what do you think about?!
Moreover, we have already sculpted 2 new characters, but they will be presented later in time. I just share with you a small sneak peek about one of them (one of my favs of the current range):
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm happy to share with you the Venoraptor, one of the deadliest creatures of the New World!
This small dinosaur (1mt height) lives in packs and is quite smart, for being a cold blood lizard. As you may imagine, looking at the sinister smoke that is coming out of its mouth, these guys have a poison gland in their throats, able to secrete a poisonous spit that turns into an urticant smoke, once exposed to the air!
This little friend belongs to a very particular Elf character, a shady guy that tames Venoraptors and use them to hunt the intruders!
The name "Venoraptors" suggests quite easily their main characteristics: in Latin, in fact, "poison" is spelt "Venenum" and "to hunt" is spelt "Venari". I couldn't ignore this curious common roots between these terms, "Ven-", so here is why "Venoraptors"!
Curious to see more?!