TGG2 - UPDATE #11 – Freebie #10 + How We Upgrade the Concepts + Unlocked Stretch Goals to Date
April 04, 2015New Freebie: Onyx, Master Assassin
It would not have made sense to have a Dark Elves Kickstarter without a proper Assassin character, so here is Onyx, Master Assassin for the Dark Elves.
Upgrading the Concepts
Creating a Raging Heroes mini in an ongoing process. From the very first idea to the last version of the file we send to the 3D printer, we continually keep on refining the characters. To give you an idea of what you can expect here are a few examples of this process, taken from the TGG1 Kickstarter...
Dr VonX
Dr VonX is a renowned Iron Empire medical researcher and field medic.
As always, I created a mood board for her as part of the preliminary work (more on Creating the Concepts in Update 07).
The very first concept we made for Dr von X was definitely not quite here yet. For example, the face and the body language were not good.
So, I made a very rough drawing to give more precise direction to Alex, our concept artist.
His updated version was much better but the face was still not right.
We wanted her gas mask to have a very distinctive, somehow lady-like look, but in a creepy way However, we could not get that in time for the launch of the Kickstarter, so here is the image we showed in the campaign:
After the campaign was over, we went back to work on the concept, specifically to get the face right. The real game changer was to find the right shape of her gas mask’s eyes. Believe it or not, it took nearly a full day of work!
Also, the rest of the team had a great idea: to have a cyber arm with a teapot and a cup. It was the perfect way to express Von X's personality.
So here is what we ended up with:
And here's the final sculpt:
TGG1 Freebies
We had similar reworks on several other minis, like for example for some of the TGG1 Freebies.
At first, some of the Freebies had been planned to be be tank operators, so they were designed as just torsos to be placed in tank turrets. But since there was a high demand to have them as full characters, we quickly added legs to their concepts to show in the campaign. So, of course, a few lacked a bit of character and life-like poses needed for truly distinctive miniatures. So we reworked them and here is one exemple with Kristina Karlstein:
Here is the concept we shown during the campaign:
Here is a complete redraw we did after the campaign, just before sculpting
and here is the final sculpt
Baba Yaga
Finally, let's talk about Baba Yaga, the matriarch of the KST Yaga Soul Weavers.
Her concept was really cool, but when we turned it into a sculpt, we felt that it was lacking strength. The sculpt needed more motion to evoke the swirling power of her magic. Her right hand really needed to look like something that would grab you no matter how fast you would try to flee. Her long hair had to feel like something that would move around her as if it had a life of its own. So here is the concept, followed by the first sculpt, and then by the resculpt and final version.
We hope this gives you an insight of the kind of work we are about to do on the TGG2 minis. We think they should look pretty cool in the end ;)
All the Unlocked Stretch Goals To Date
This campaign is going smashingly, with more good things to come. And so, as we're entering this long week-end, we thought we'd do a bit of a look back on what's been accomplished so far.
Also, if you're doing your shopping list, we thought you would enjoy seeing everything that's been unlocked after we funded this campaign.
Please note that on top of all these unlocks, you also have available everything that was unlocked from the start when we funded:
- Sci-Fi Sisters: Regular Troopers
- Sci-Fi Void Elves: Executrix Regular Troopers
- Sci-Fi Lust Elves: Skinners Troopers
- Fantasy Sisters: Blade Maidens Troopers
- Fantasy Dark Elves: Harpy Troopers
- Fantasy Lust Elves: Flesh Eaters Troopers
These images are also going to our TGG2 Pinterest board, where you'll find loads of TGG2 images all in one place to see and share easily.