Since all of the Polyversal Kickstarter models have been shipped to Collins Epic Wargames, I figured it was about time for another general business update.
Before you read the novel below, here is the tldr version: My stuff isn't that popular, hence I can't release as much stuff, please be patient. Remaining releases for this year will definitely include the remaining Renaissance stuff, Microwasteland wave 2, and 3mm scifi, with the ratkin hopefully pulling in prior to the holiday season.
Now, I’ll start this off by saying that I have great ambitions for the business, ambitions which the sales in no way reflect. I know that some folks get a bit angry when I preview things and they don’t come out for quite some time. That happens for a few reasons:
1. I am restricted by sales, especially sales of newly released items
2. My moldmaking / casting / sculpting tends to be somewhat down on priorities vs. more active clients or kickstarters, which is fine and understandable.
3. Other random stuff (illness, etc.)
So, I have a ton of stuff ready for release, because I tend to like to spend money on getting stuff sculpted, because it’s fun and it distracts me from my day job. It is also the time I get most enjoyment out of the business. Why do I tend to drag my feet on moldmaking? Besides the sometimes-painful scheduling aspects, once your product is molded and out for sale, the loss becomes real. Before I officially release that big Renaissance line, or that expansion into 15mm fantasy, or that super-expensive 6mm CAD sculpted elf line, I can still successfully (mostly) lie to myself about its prospects. Once they are out the door though, that’s it, it is all in the numbers.
So, in no particular order, below is a list of all of the items / projects I have on deck, with a little blurb of where they currently stand.
3mm Scifi Sets – I personally want these pretty bad, so I am sponsoring them with my own funds. Starting off with 2 army sets worth from Javelin’s excellent National Cheese Emporium Shapeways store. Waiting on some time estimates for these, but since they are slightly delayed I am going to see if I can possibly release more than just the 2 sets in the first wave, to make a bigger splash.
6mm Fantasy Bugbears – Moldmaking hell since Oct 2016. When will I receive the molds? Unknown. Will they work? I sure hope so.
6mm Fantasy Elves – 50% of printing complete. The other 50% will cost almost as much as the moldmaking for another release, and will probably take somewhere upwards of 2 months to receive anyway. Prognosis for this year does not look good, unless I release in 2 waves, which has historically boded ill for the second half of the release.
6mm Early Renaissance – 5 or 6 random packs. I have been spinning the molds myself…the fill rate for some of the poses is, shall we say, soul-crushing. I should have enough done for release within the next couple of weeks, if my hands hold up.
6mm Renaissance Spanish – Just cleaned the masters, will be sending for moldmaking to step into their queue. A few unknowns here. How long will it take to get the production molds back? No idea. Will they work in my machine when I get them? I really think so, assuming they lovingly vent the cavities as well as the molds they used to spin themselves.
Microwasteland Wave 2 – Finished sculpting for forever. These will need to come out this year because they are sitting on the shelf mocking me every day. When exactly? Minimum 3 months…minimum
6mm Fantasy Ratkin – Sculpts in hand. Currently undecided as to whether I will try to cast these myself or send them out. Leaning towards sending them out, unless the Renaissance Spanish molds are super-amazing. When will that be? I guess after the microwasteland stuff. This is where things get fuzzy because they start to rely on sales. All I can say is, I really would like to release them this year, if I can.
6mm Free Goblin Republic – The great goblins and such have been sculpted for forever. The lesser goblins have been in progress since roughly August of last year. The sculpts are pretty close to being finished I think, but I know the sculptor (also my main moldmaker and caster) is also involved in a popular kickstarter, so his time is going to be extremely precious. This all boils down to me having no real idea when I can get these released, I cannot even hazard a guess.
15mm Fantasy – Lots of stuff sculpted, a good bit of it molded. Why have I not yet released at least the demons? I’m going to euphemistically just say that I am facing some production issues with them. In the meantime, I have gotten a bunch of 15mm Dark Alliance stuff sculpted. So I am essentially going to wait until I have those also cast up and release everything in one big splash. When? Before the end of the year I hope, for the sake of my own sanity. I sincerely hope these are at least moderately successful so that I can release some other probably-extremely-unsuccessful like:
Random 6mm large monsters! I had some cool art done of a bunch of generic 6mm monsters, which tend to have two salient characteristics: expensive to make, poor-selling. But dammit, they are cool. The first ones I had done are some 2-headed giants, that could be at home in a variety of armies. Look at the art by the awesome Christian Schwager, how can I not make these? And the renders by the awesome Francesco Pizzo:
I’m going to cut the list at this point, since anything past this point is entering the realms of the farther future, making it not worth talking about until there is more to show.