My name is Andrew May, for the last couple of years I have been working as a freelance miniatures sculptor, creating wargaming figures for several well know companies plus private collectors. In addition I run my own miniatures business "Meridian Miniatures".
For last few months I have been working on my third range of figures for Meridian Miniatures, "heroic scale" gothic sci-fi miniatures. Up to this date I have found Kickstarter to be an excellent way of launching new miniature ranges to the general public without interfering with my busy schedule of freelance sculpting but in my excited rush to bring these figures to the public found myself barely stopping to listen to feedback.
Cancelled campaign can be viewed here.
Across the various forums I have received some helpful constructive criticism, points being thar are that the figures seem too "wide" and that the legs appear short in proportion to the bodies. This is due to a combination of factors. Firstly I tried to emulate the dynamic posing of some of my favourite figures, due to the foreshortening affect of photographing them from certain angles the legs of some figures ended up seeming shorter than they really are. This was exacerbated by my overladening the thighs and midriffs of some of the figures with too many belts and other accouterments, thus obscuring the true outline of the figure's limbs.
Designing a good figure is as much about designing a figure that will look good in a photograph as in the hand, I unfortunately made some poor design choices in that regard. One other design choice that didn't find favour with many were the weapon designs. I tried for something too "over the top" and so will be toning them down a touch too while providing more options for gamers and collectors.
So see here the figures awaiting surgery, for the avid fans don't be saddened, these figures will return in new and improved form. Some figures will be disassembled and cannibalised into new versions, some will receive just minor tweaks and some will be entirely resculpted from scratch.
I will try to get the first figure released within a month and have at least one release each month from then on but having learned my lesson I won't be rushing anything! I will be using this blog to document the progress both in regards to the figures and also game design, background development plus general painting and modeling posts.
Please feel free to join in in the comments section, I will really enjoy listening to feedback and working with all of my supporters.
Thank you all.
Andrew
