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In this Update:
• The Ball Joint Extrapolation
• The First Casts Production
• The Spin-Cast Resin Equation
• The Command Groups Finalization
• The New Heroines Apparition
• The First Mecha Presentation
• The Artillery Humanization
• The 3D Prints Escalation
• The Pledge Manager Compilation
• The Webinars Observation
• The Dark Elves and Sisters Conceptualization
• The Game Design Excitation
• The Winning Captions Multiplication
• The Friendly Support Ramification
• The Heroines Resizification
Sorry, we kind of went nuts on the titles...
In our last Update, we explained that we were reworking some details on the Troops, mostly minor proportion issues.
However, because we spent quite a bit of time playing with the actual casts, we saw that there was also room for improvement with the ball-joints system.
As you know, we have made some pretty radical choices to give you the most dynamic posing possible. However, this makes the multi-part swappability more difficult to achieve in an effective and elegant way.
We worked on that quite a lot in the 3D programs on the computer, but some parameters can only really be assessed with actual, real-life objects, which can be affected by such insignificant things as, for example, the thickness of a layer of glue...
Indeed, while gluing the parts together, we noticed that, when arranging some of the more extreme poses, the layer of less than one half millimeter of glue was sufficient to effectively disrupt the pose and make it look, well, not as elegant and balanced as we want it to be.
So, we're now going back into the 3D software to make the necessary adjustments before the 3D reprint of the masters. This means, again, a bit more delay for the Troops, as it is now Round 3 of the Modification of the Troops. We hope you agree that it's a worthwhile one.
But at last, the first Wave is finally nearly upon us.
The first set of Heroines are now at the foundry, being prepped for casting.
Two other batches will follow this week and the week after that.
Depending on how long the production casting takes, we plan to make either a First Wave with all of these Heroines, or 2 mini-waves with the 2 initial series of Heroines.
This First Wave is intended to include Yoko, Tania, Nathasha, Mimi, Volga, Vera, Irina, Hilda von Stroheim, Blondie, Bernadette, Cruz, vonX, Aaqila, Tarja, Sashenka, Mortaria, Katrina Zerga, the 5 Lulus + the Freebee Lulu, and the 3 mascots (Charlie, Harry, Jinx).
There is a chance that part of this First Wave will also be available in spin-cast resin just a few weeks after the metal release.
Err... wait a minute! Did we just write Spin-cast resin Heroines?
In our last Update, we explored the possibility of making the Heroines available in spin-cast resin as well as in white metal. We asked your opinion on this topic, and a vast majority of the replies we got supported that option.
So, it is now official!
Barring a major catastrophe or a natural disaster, we'll have all the Heroines available both in white metal and in spin-cast resin.
HOWEVER, please note that this was not the original plan. As stated in the last Update, the Troops and Supports will always get priority treatment in our resin-cast production schedule. This means that most of the spin-cast resin Heroines will be available ONLY once the rest of the production has been taken care of.
And yet, at this point in time, since we are reworking several details on the Troops, there is a good possibility that a first batch of Heroines be made in spin-cast before the foundry starts working on the Troops. We'll keep you posted on that.
The spin-cast resin Heroines will be available at the same price as the metal ones.
As promised, here are the sculpts of the Command Boxes for the Jailbird Division, the Kurganova Shock Troops and the Iron Empire.
This means that all the Troopers are all virtually done now. We are just finishing a few of the Heavy Weapon Specialists guns, which we will show you in the next Update. And we are eagerly moving to get the Support Units done.
Of course, we'll also been working on a whole bunch of new Heroines. Here is the latest batch.
And please note that this last one, Arthemisia, is still a Work-in-Progress, but she was so close to be done, we wanted to share her with you anyway...
NB: Work-in-progressAnd here is the first of the 3 Mechas, the KST one.
Please note that the pilot, at this point in time, is just a place-holder and not the definitive version.
Now that the sculpt of the machine itself is done, and we are working on an assembly system that will help you get the most flexibility possible when you put it together.
If we succeed, this means that you will be able to pose the Mecha in many different ways. And therefore, you'll be able to have a full unit of them while making them all look different.
Here is also our first set of Artillery for the Jailbirds.
One of our main tasks at this point in time is to finish outputting the Heroines 3D Prints.
We are preparing the 3D files in the required format, sending them to the 3D printer, verifying the prints when they come back in.
Sometimes, we need to fix some issues, create a new 3D file and send the corrected version for a reprint. Then, everything goes to the foundry for production.
Once at the foundry, the 3d prints are first duplicated to create enough submasters which will be used to make the production moulds.
It is at that point that we do a final check of the prototypes, and we may request changes, perhaps even new moulds before going into actual production.
Below you'll find images of some of the 3D prints that are being prepped to be sent to the foundry this week.
The white stuff that you see on the pictures are just a bit of Blue Tack (Patafix) to temporarily hold the miniature together for the photo shoot without damaging the delicate 3D prints.
As we are nearing the release of the First Wave, we will soon be opening the Pledge Manager. You will be notified as soon as it goes live.
We are often getting questions as to what will be doable with the Pledge Manager, so here are some of the answers we often provide:
You will be able to up you pledge for a limited time if you want to.
You will be able to change you shipping address if you need to do so.
You will be able to notify us if you want to use a Drop Shipper, and which one it will be.
If you don't use a Drop Shipper, but still want to get your shipment as soon as we have minis available, you will be able to purchase shipping for as many waves as you want.
If you have other questions, just drop us a line.
Did you pledge for one of the Webinars, or for the Connoisseur Box or the Connoisseur Add-on?
Then by now, you should have received an email message giving you the location and password of the recordings of the Art Direction and the 3D Sculpting Webinars we presented back in December.
These two webinars went on much longer than expected, and so, you are looking at over 7.5 hours of video, instead of the planned 5 hours.
We went deep into the most important notions that we rely on to create Raging Heroes miniatures, and we tried to explain them in the most approachable manner.
If you haven't received your email, please contact me.
If you wished you had been able to be a fly on the wall, then please know that we are about to do some Google Video Hangouts that will be recorded and shared, and that will cover aspects of our work.
These Hangouts will be available for free to everyone. Of course they won't go into as many details as the Webinars did, but they will give you a good feel of the work we are doing on a daily basis.
Our concept artist Alex has been doing some amazing work for our next Kickstarter project.
Only last week, he sent us over 40 different designs for that project, and then 40 more today, most of which were beyond excellent!
At this point in time, Round 1 for the Concept Art of the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Dark Elves is done. Round 2 will aim at filling the gaps in our range and finessing a few special characters and troops and, overall, make sure that everything is consistent across the range.
A lot of work has also been done on the Sisters, and while we are still debating some very specific points, here is one Sister character, a low-ranking officer from the Regular Troops in its Sci-Fi version. We hope it will whet your appetite...
It's now been a long time since we began working on the Raging Heroes game.
However, to date, we've never been able to give it our full attention.
But this is about to change.
Since the very beginning, our plan has been to come up with a fresh and exciting new way of looking at the wargame experience. We have accumulated (and discarded!) many ideas and concepts since we embarked on this quest. And we are now not very far from implementing these into a rule system.
To help us in this task, we are currently in contact with several renowned game designers who have made ground-breaking work in these last few years.
Wish us luck!
As you know, we have an ongoing caption contest featuring the TGG characters which takes place on our Facebook page. Here is the winning entries and some runner-ups for Bernadette, followed by the runner-ups for Sergeant Parker.
Winning entry - Congrats to Dan Sanders!
We are regularly contacted by crowdfunding project creators who want us to talk about and push their campaign in our TGG Updates. We usually don't, though, because we don't believe you should be subjected to third party 'adverts' in this manner.
However, today, we are making an exception: one of our TGG backers, Brian Khoo, has contacted us regarding his crowndfunding project, and in this case, since Brian's project is not directly game-related and we thought it might be a good opportunity if you are a PC power user, we decided to let you know about it.
We are not involved in any way in Brian's project, but this is a way for us to thank a member of our backers community who have been so generous and supportive of our work.
His project is called 'The Gladius - World's First Passive Submersion-Cooling Gaming PC'
It will be running until February 16, 2014.
One of the questions we're being asked with increasing frequency these days is whether we plan to release some or all of the TGG Heroines in 54mm or, even, in 6 inches (about 150mm).
Of course, it would be something great, and actually quite simple to do, as it requires no new sculpt, except perhaps a few details enhancement. However, the cost of printing and moulding would be quite high, and of course, manufacturing schedules have to be taken into consideration...
So, while we really like the idea, we shall need to make sure that it won't impede our other projects and, most importantly, that there will be enough demand for it.
It's been suggested that a small Kickstarter later on in the year would allow us to gauge demand and determine the project's viability. We think this could work.
In that case, we'd probably make sure to have a straightforward simple board game to accompany the miniatures, and possibly create a set of chess pieces with the TGG.
If you have any thoughts on this, please feel free to share, either in the comments or via a direct message.
Comments will be approved before showing up.
At Raging Heroes, every army we create starts with carefully chosen ingredients. For the Dark Elves, you've got: Refinement. Elegance. Extreme Evil. Gothic fashion. Japanese Rock bands. Scandinavian fairy tales illustrations from the 19th century. Find out more about your past and future favorites!
