With the latest KS fulfilment in the home stretch (it seems like a miracle, but I have to ship only 250 rewards -on more than 700, including the only Pledge Manager orders!-), it's time to make one last effort and complete in the best way this amazing journey of ours.
Again, I take advantage of this post to thanks again all the backers out there that have patiently waited for their rewards, and those who still have not received them: words can't describe how thankful I am for your support and understanding.
As I wrote a couple of posts ago, this unexpected delay in the Elves' campaign fulfilment destroyed my schedule, but despite I'll have to postpone the next KS project for a few months, I want to look the glass half-full and take advantage of this extra time to polish as much as possible this new range.
Let's take a look then at what to expect from this new trip in Big-Scale City!
First of all, the design process is finally over. As you can see from the pic at the top of this post, the final range is a very nice glimpse of the colourful peoples of Inneath. The greatest observers among you may have noticed that there is a missing sculpt: the Iron Crow bust.
Do not worry, he's not gone. On the contrary: he's going under delicate surgery to get a brand new pair of legs!
In fact, when I started to design this range, I imagined a good mix between busts and complete figures. Unfortunately, I realized that I hate busts (or better, I prefer complete figures), so I realized that it would look weird a range with 7 kits, of which only one is a bust.
So I asked Valerio to sculpt legs to turn that half Dwarf into a complete one.
Despite we put A LOT of effort and enthusiasm into this little range of new sculpts, the upcoming campaign won't relate only to them, but it will be a perfect chance to give a new shape to some of our best kits!
As anticipated, in fact, I want to take advantage of this project to produce a big-scale version of some of our existing characters.
I selected 7 of them, a good mix of some of our best-sellers: characters that, in my opinion, would benefit the most from the upgrading.
This time, you don't have to be great observers to spot a new entry: ladies and gentlemen, I'm finally able to release the Redcoat Sentinel!
We sculpted this brave girl and her prototype Vespa (made by those geniuses from the famous Giotto inc.) a long time ago, but for one reason or another, she didn't manage to conquer a place in my schedule.
Of course, we all know the real truth: she was just travelling all around Inneath with her Vespa, skipping her duty!!
Being a KS campaign, of course, things might (well, are warmly expected to) evolve and get bigger as soon as the backers will join the project, unlocking new characters and features (my dream? Being able to collect enough funds to be able to offer a big-scale Iron Titan!) and I've already selected an interesting range of stretch goals for all of you (75mm scale Pug anyone?).
At the moment, I'm working on designing the campaign: this is the first time that I approach, as a manufacturer, the market of big-scale kits so I had to take a look around and see who my most experienced senpai set their pledges and rewards.
I noticed that, despite obviously the framework of the campaign being the same (so discounted bundles, stretch goals to unlock, early birds etc), things are a bit different from a campaign based on 32mm scale minis.
First of all, I noticed that (in general) there are fewer freebies involved: the reason is obvious (production costs will dramatically rise, so it's not possible to offer too many physical products for free), but I confess that I'm still in that distressful part of the pre-campaign where my brain keeps telling me "you fool! nobody would love you if you won't give for free tons of stuff!", so I'm still working on skipping to the right mindset because I love to be loved, but I don't love even more not to go on bankruptcy so I need to find a balance between my anxiety/lack of self-esteem and your expectations.
During these last years we designed so many stretch goals, in our previous campaigns, and it would be silly not to take advantage of them: I think I found a good compromise in offering, as stretch goals of the big-scale campaign, not complete kits but parts of them. For example, one of the stretch goals to unlock will be a single resized version of one of our Dwarf/Elf Scenic Bases. I won't be able to give you for free 3 75mm scale Imperial Crows, but I can afford to offer a single one. We designed many scenic sets, so my idea is to take single elements of them, as stretch goals.
Concerning stretch goals, I saw in other campaigns that it is common to offer alternative parts of the main kits (for example, an alternative head or weapon). Again, it is a smart move because it allows us to enhance the existing kits, without much effort.
I already designed a couple of alternative parts (an alternative shield for our glorious Iron Crow Veteran and an alternative head -with a helm!- for the Elf Knight kit), and depending on the campaign development, I will make a couple more.
And what about prices?!
Of course, this is the main difference between a regular 32mm range campaign and a big-scale range one. I saw that the average price for a classic "mega box" deal (all the characters and stretch goals unlocked) is set around 300-350€. I honestly can't commit myself before actually knowing the exact production costs I'll have to face, but judging on our existing big kits cost (like U'Raka), I think that despite it might seem a really expensive box, 300-350€ to get 14/15 big-scale characters and all the stretch goals is a fair price.
Of course, there will be also less expensive bundles, like an 80-100€ one (in general, I saw that this is the price for 4-5 kits) and the chance of grabbing only the single kit of your choice.
For an individual who's used to reasoning on 32mm scale logic, this increase in prices is kinda overwhelming, but if I put my inner insecurities apart for a second, I confess that I think our products are not lesser than those of other companies and if they manage to claim a more than deserved success, I think that if I'll work hard I can do the same. With a bit of luck.
I planned this campaign to start in February/March, but after the Elves' KS delay, I decided to postpone it to May/June: organizing a campaign is a time-consuming affair and I want to dedicate all my energies to shipping the remaining rewards as fast as possible.
In the meantime, please let me know if you have expectations, concerning this upcoming range, or if you have thoughts and opinions about that.
Tomorrow I'll talk about another incoming news: preorders!
As always: thank you for having read all my disconnected lines and for having created such an awesome and rewarding community to interface with.