I finalized my Kingdom Death Monster Kickstarter pledge today. Realization: I really need to stay off Kickstarter.
 |
| Imma hoof you! |
I really find the artistic direction of Kingdom Death appealing. All fantasy is a collection of tropes and cliches at this point, and a good execution requires expertly picking your cliches and fitting them to your imagery. Say what you will about the hyper-sexualization of that world, Kingdom Death Monster is stylish, disturbing and consistent.
The mini I am most excited about painting from the game is the never-really-mentioned antelope. He appears for a moment in the Kickstarter pitch video and in group shots of the game contents, but that's it. I l love the eviscerated abdominal cavity, the exposed musculature, the bushy tail, all of it! It's the sort of mini that I want to show to every manufacturer as an example of how to still be original with cliches like zombie animals.
Thought this was a samsung commercial for a second.
ReplyDeleteI had to search for what you meant. I see now why you would have thought that. Interestingly enough, the url promoted at the end of the film is not in service anymore. I guess that was 2008.
DeleteYou made me wish we had kickstarter at my region so you could pay my mortgage in less than a year :D
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I do love kickstarter concept (and would love to be able to use it as business model) but I'm seeing no (true) love for the hobby anymore; It takes a good ilustrator to create the hype and a good computer 3D modeller, then 3D print those in plastic. The games aren't really needed as people really "pay per mini". Sometimes I guess how people dare complaining how much GW loves money yet others jump constantly into the bandwagon of 3D modelling or fancy oversexuated designs.
I'm starting to miss the epic days when a guy could lose his hand and yet continue to produce hand made sculpts (nowadays even stephen hawking would be able) and games were plain fun aside from its minis.
I don't think its as grim as you say. Yes, 3d printing changes the game for some but there are still lots of hand sculpted minis being created. The Pirate Goblins I got from Indigogo are green stuff sculpts and metal casts.
DeleteI think I missed the epic days. I collected minis in the mid 1980's when there really were few games attached (mostly mediocre), played a game in the mid 90's which scared me off miniature gaming for 10 years and then started again in the mid 2000's. All three experiences led me to believe that rules were only a tool for selling the toys. I got in on Sedition Wars and Monster both for the game mechanics as much as the minis. I love coop group games like Pandemic and Ghost Stories, and a coop tactical mini rpg was very appealing to me. Hopefully the rules will be better than Sedition Wars, which were beta at best. There is a lot of promise there but they need to get someone to playtest the thing and figure out which rules just don't make sense.
I've definitely spent more on crowd sourced games/minis in the past year or so than I typically do on games. There is this expectation in crowd sourced projects for unrealistic value that will eventually drive creators out. If you can only deliver the high minis/$ ratio then small projects will go ignored. I have passed on quite a few high profile kickstarts, so I can at least pretend to have a modicum of self control. Pretend is the key word there.
Aren't those pirate gobbos you say done by Kev Adams ? That and cases like Perry Twins are a completely different matter.
DeleteI've worked at the modeller's workshop for the "Sagrada Familia" (you know, an unfinished cathedral by that artist Gaudi) and I learnt well that 3D printing serves well as prototyping (we got 2 printers there) yet we still were using plaster castings as definitive models to show at the architect's dep. I see that as a complementary tool, not as the medium most do to do it faster and easyer (humans can't undo or zoom in, i.e.)
Also the product (kingdom death) looks like has quality enough to be so flooded with asses and titties so badly. Don't take me wrong; I'm as pervy as the most, I ain't no priest yet I consider too much of anything can be never good.
thanks for responding, good read.
I guess it's the same here... I got scared off wargaming in the mid 90s yet never came back. Card games like Munchkin or boardgames like King of Tokio but no more mini collecting/ gaming.Since I kept that urge for painting and stuff I began to make my own minis, totally incompatible with most of other games or scales out there so I could keep on enjoying it at my own pace. That happened early 2000s but developed in mid 2000s. How curious...
In the end I'm with you on that rules were (and are) a pretext to sell toys or in some cases when they come for free, to add value to those toys.