The Orcs of Inneath will invade Kickstarter on O(r)ctober 2023, so there is still plenty of time before launch. These following months, as you may imagine, will be pretty busy because there are a lot of things to do: first of all, there are several characters yet to design, and this time I want to finally create a good-looking campaign with plenty of painted minis!
Moreover, I want to learn from my past mistakes and promote this project at my best, or at least try to do my best (as always!): if you want to help me, please share my towering Orcs all around the web and let's gather new friends in this already amazing community!
As I mentioned in the previous post, I finally had the chance to print a couple of Orc characters: the Orc Captain and the Bounty Hunter.
Of course, if it depended only on me, I would have already printed all my Orcs, but it's a long affair to prepare a 3d sculpt for printing and I didn't want to steal too much time from Valerio, who's still busy on completing the remaining characters of this range.
So I had to choose a couple of lucky candidates and I went for two very different subjects.
The Orc Captain is a towering warrior with a classic vibe, let's say that he's a mainstream subject: big sword, hero pose, grim vibe.
The Bounty Hunter, on the other hand, has a totally different look: he's not bulky (but he's still way taller than an average human), he's mysterious and covered in leather, with a big sombrero hiding his face.
As you may imagine, I wanted to start with two very different characters in order to highlight since the beginning the heterogeneity of the Orcs of Inneath, and above all have fun painting with two completely different approaches. The Bounty Hunter is one of those kits that will benefit the most from a box art because its particular concept is deeply connected to...colors!
He has many details taken from the Mexican traditional holiday known as dia de los Muertos, and as you surely know, the contrast between the theme of death and the vibrant colors used to celebrate it is iconic. For this reason, despite I think that this sculpt is already gorgeous by itself, being able to present this character with a painted version will surely enhance its concept design and help the backers to understand it better!
The Captain's sculpt is meant to give a lot of fun to all the painters out there. No matter if you are a newbie or a veteran, I think that you'll have such fun with this guy.
The design is simple yet with plenty of different surfaces to paint, I tried to design this kit as a kind of perfect "painter's gym".
First of all, it's big, and when I say big I mean this big:
I'm pretty confident that this time you'll have plenty of space to train your skills, without cursing my name (I'm looking at you, Elves!).
However, size is not his only quality and I bet that you'll find something suitable for your painting preferences: different kinds of metals (including a majestic Flonzo relic!!), clothes, skin, leather, wood...even a beard!
I'm still deciding whether to keep the skull ring or not because I fear it's too small, but I'll let you know once I have painted it.
The Bounty Hunter will get some adjustments, before going for the final production: I spotted a couple of details that have to be redesigned in order to be easier to paint.
First of all, the bullets on his sombrero are very small, and it was a big surprise when I realized that! Judging only from the 3d render, I thought they were ok, but once printed, I immediately noticed it. They will be resculpted to be fewer in number and bigger in size.
Same thing for what concerns the Orc's half-gloves, which I'm thinking to remove: they are a subtle detail, I fear that they would be tricky to paint, without adding enough value to the sculpt to justify it.
The rifle trigger guard (I honestly don't know if there is a specific name for it, or better, I'm sure there is but I don't know it!) will be thickened as much as possible in the final version, to avoid any fragility issue.
Believe me, being able to spot these potential issues and do these micro-adjustments way before the final production is a real blessing, I realized that I'm already less stressed!
Aesthetically speaking, I'm not particularly in love with the skull ending on the sword handle, I think that I'll replace it with something simpler. The wood texture of the chest can be enhanced a bit to make it easier to paint.
Apart from these details, I'm pretty impressed by how these Orcs are growing up. I think that they are promising, they have their own style but without losing that typical Orc flavor that people like about them!
The fact that Orcs, on Inneath, are mainly mercenaries, will reflect on the boardgame I'm developing in a unique way: first of all, any gang of adventurers can hire an Orc in their ranks (except for the Dwarves of Kazhuk Izril, who are not enthusiast about Orcs...), which will open many gaming potentials.
However, don't ever forget that they are not 100% loyal to your gang, they are just in the pay and that means that they might decide to change faction if your opponent collects more treasures and objectives than you!
As you can see, there are plenty of reasons to join this new project and add these Orcs to your DPF collection!