TGG2 Update #74 – The biggest Toughest Girl EVER: Photos + Video + Production News + Scenery and Game News

This is a special day today and we are very excited !

We are very excited because we have very good news from the foundry, and it's a special day because the miniature we have to show you today is something that is a truly exceptional technical accomplishment, something we have dreamt about for quite sometime but that had remained an impossible thing to do for many many years.

So without further ado...

The first cast of the Avatar of Shaah is here!!!!

It's just fresh from the foundry, we received 3 photos today and it is quite amazing!!! (Click on images for larger versions)

We'll have more photos in the next few days, as well as photos from the War Pulpit whose moulding process just finished today.

So why is it so special? Well, without the resin spincasting technology, it would have been VERY hard to nearly impossible to produce such massive pieces as the Avatar of Shaah, the Spider Mother or the Altar of the Succubi in such large quantities as we are doing now for you. All the foundries who produce large resin kits like this one use the traditional process of hand poured resin casting which requires redoing the moulds from scratch every 30 to 50 casts and pouring each mould by hand, etc.
With spincasting, it means that we can produce the large pieces exactly the same way we produce the small ones and this is quite something. This means more great massive kits in the future :)

That being said, were are we with fulfilment? Here is some more information:

Shipments and Stocks

We've now shipped over 6,500 parcels for this project.

If your Rewards Selection does NOT include any of the models mentioned below, then by now you should have received your shipment. If that's not the case, please contact us at RagingHeroesTeam@gmail.com so that we can fix this.

While the mould makers at the foundry were working on the Monsters and Machines, the rest of the team was hard at work spinning the other moulds and building up our stocks, which will be needed for when the Monsters&Machines become available. Here's a photo of some of last week's arrivals:

If your Rewards Selection was only missing the Mounted Knights (see images below), please know that your parcel is scheduled to ship next week.

The next models to be produced will be the Centaurs, the Avatar of Shaah, and the War Pulpit (scroll down for details on their production status). I can't commit on the order of production for those yet, because we haven't yet seen the prototypes. Either one may be the first to get final approval for casting. As soon as I know, I'll have an Update out to share that with you, together with photos of the casts.

Mounted Knights

(Click on images for larger versions)

The Mounted Knights are finally here! Earlier this week, we received a large quantity of the Troops, and a smaller quantity of the Command Groups, with more expected at the end of next week. We immediately assembled a few of them and took some photos to share with you. They look quite stunning and we believe they'll definitely be part of the best-sellers in our Fantasy line.

Our graphic artist, who was putting these photos together for the Update, said: “People are gonna love them or die!”. We found this quite funny although perhaps a bit true knowing the belligerent nature of these fair maiden riders.

If the Mounted Knights were the only thing missing from your Reward Selection, then please know that we will begin shipping starting Monday.

Avatar of Shah, War Pulpit, the Centaurs, Asharah on Pegasus, Yscarloth Fantasy and Sci-Fi

These moulds are either done or in the process of being done at this time. We'll have more pictures of the Avatar and the first pictures of the War Pulpit casts this week. More will follow in the next 7-10 days.

But why did it take more than a month to get them here?

To help you a bit better understand how this works and why it can take quite some time, I thought I'd review the process with you:

1. Once the foundry receives the 3D print, they first check all the parts for mouldability, verify how they intend to place the parts into the moulds, etc. With such massive and complex kits as the Monsters & Machines, or even smaller but tricky ones like the Centaurs, it can take quite some time.
   
   
2. At this stage, the foundry may ask us to reprint some parts because even if we checked the 3D models together, once they have the physical model in hand, they may spot problems that were invisible before. Of course, between 3D printing and shipping, that adds up a few days to the process.
   
   
3. Once everything has been validated, the foundry starts making a clean mould, which is the Master Mould. This master mould is not made to cast the miniatures you will get in your hands. Instead, it will be used to cast only a few sub-masters. The reason for this is that, to make the production mould effective, the foundry needs several copies of the master.
   
   You may wonder why we don't 3D print several copies of the same miniature, and so give the foundry more than one master. That is because the 3D prints canrarely withstand the various ordeals they would have to go through during the full mould-making process. Believe us, we tried!
   
   
4. Once the master mould has been created, it is run several times, usually between 10 and 30 runs.
   
   
5. From this, the best casts are selected. Those are carefully reviewed and hand-cleaned and occasionally green-stuffed and polished one by one. The goal is to ensure that each sub-master is absolutely perfect (some companies fail to do this because it's a costly and time-consuming process, and so the sub-masters come out with mould lines or minor defects that will be reproduced ON EVERY SINGLE CAST!). Depending on the model, this can be a very time-consuming operation.
   
   
6. Those sub-masters are then placed in a new mould that will become the production mould. This is the stage we are at right now for all the models listed above.
   
   Of course, for large kits, more than one mould is needed to make all the parts. Mould size also matters. For example, the Avatar of Shaah requires 12-inch moulds. Here are some photos of several of the Avatar moulds:
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

The man reason why TGG2 production has been so long is because the TGG2 miniatures can be incredibly more complex to cast than the TGG1 models. You can thank all those massive flowing capes, multi-directional set of limbs, extreme posing, spiky elements all over the minis, etc. for that. But at the same time, they are what make the TGG2 models so special.

As one of our engineer friends told us, if we were to transfer the craftsmanship that goes into making the TGG2 models into a more “normal” industry than miniature-making, the price of each cast would be sky-rocketing.

The Spider Mother, the Draahk and Horse Chariots

These three models are prepped and ready to go into master moulding. Actually, the Spider Mother is almost all done.

I will share updated news on that as soon as we know more about these kits.

In the meantime, we'd like to share the photos we took of her 3-D prints so that you can see how will lethally gorgeous it is, and how BIG, too. In fact, we could not resist and made a short video just for the fun of it. Arachnaphobists beware! You have been warned!

Like we mentioned in our previous Update, we never fully assemble 3D Prints before sending them to the foundry because traces of glue or other adhesive materials can react badly with the mould. But this time, because of the complexity of the Spider Mother, the foundry asked us for an additional print that it could use to better understand the miniature. Since the original high-resolution model require 2 weeks of 3D-printing and cleanup time, we printed a low-resolution version to be used as a reference. The images below are the low-res version of the print (which is still quite decent to look at).

(Click on images for larger versions)

The Altar of the Succubi

(Click on images for larger versions)

The Altar was the last model to be 3D-printed and it's got a lot of pieces! On top of all the massive structural elements, there are at least 30 characters in the kit (Harpies, Slaves, Blood Vestals).

It has now been fully cleaned and green-stuffed and will ship to the foundry this week. BTW, special thanks to UPS for getting our precious parcels back and forth across the Atlantic flawlessly and speedily. It costs big money, but it's totally worth it.

Metal Models

As stated earlier, the metal models will be done last. So, unfortunately, if you have those in your Rewards Selection, your shipment will be delayed until they are ready. I hope to be able to tell you more on this soon, but that really depends on the master production moulding of the larger models (which is not far from being finished).

However, if you are not particularly attached to metal and will be happy with resin, then simply contact us at RagingHeroesTeam@gmail.com and tell us that you'd like to switch from metal to resin so that your shipment can go out earlier. We'll be happy to make that change for you.

TGG3 and Scenery Kickstarters

So with the Foundry, and our packing team fully busy, what is the creative team working on?

You'll be happy to know that the sculptors have been producing several units and heroines for TGG3. This time, at last, we'll start that Kickstarter with many of the minis already sculpted and 3D printed.

If you are wondering what TGG3 will be, it will feature the game that so many have been asking about and waiting for a long time for. It will star several of your favourite TGG1 and TGG2 characters (but of course, you'll also be able to play any TGG miniature you like). You will finally discover more about the complexities of the TGG universe as well as the many wars and intrigues that take place in it.

But before TGG3, we are now VERY, VERY close to launching our Scenery Kickstarter. We would have loved to show you more stuff early on, but the project morphed several times, and went through a crazy amount of revisions and refinements. You know how nit-picking we can be on design.

So, what can you expect? Well, we'll give you all the details in another Update, most likely this coming week. You can prepare for something massive – really massive!
It's going to be virtually ready to play: no need for complex modelling and no need for painting, just some basic assembly.
You won't be playing around a few piece of scenery on your table, it will be more like the scenery IS your table, because it is so big.
In just a few minutes after opening the box, you'll be able to set up a table that looks as big and impressive as something you've seen only on display tables at conventions.
And what if you prefer smaller tables ? No problem, we'll have smaller kits too.
But at the price they will be, it would be sad to settle for small...

So stay tuned for our next update coming in the next few days, with more photos of the Monsters & Machines, better estimates of shipping for those models, and images from our Scenery Kickstarter.

And to include, we'd love to have your feedback on scenery (scroll down to submit your answers):