Kobold Press Bestiary Miniatures: Iconic Races II Catfolk

March 2024 update
8 months ago – Wed, Mar 27, 2024 at 07:15:10 AM

Greeting Backers!

As always I have good news and bad news. I will also keep the news part short and give a further accounting below for those that want all of the details. (seeTHE BIG STORY AS IT WERE)

GOOD NEWS

First of all shipping is still going on, albiet slower than I want right now for reasons that are outlined later in this post. (seeTHE BIG STORY AS IT WERE)

I have shipped 62 packages so far mostly due to those being the ones that I can ship with the available models that are molded and castable.

I still have quite a bit of molding to do as I am moving into the large and huge class miniatures, which all have to be broken up into multiple parts for casting. Please keep in mind I am doing everything I can to make these models as few pieces as possible to keep down on assembly effort!

BAD NEWS

The molding/casting has not had much progress in the last 5 weeks for reasons I will explain later. The upside is that once I explain what is going on, this kinda turns into better news. (seeTHE BIG STORY AS IT WERE)

Everyone loves pictures, so here is a picture!

THE GREAT KOBOLD SIZE DEBATE OF 2024

Here is a picture of the master metals for the final sized kobolds from this project. They are not production molded as of yet, for reasons explained further below. My final decision was to split the difference, so they are a little bit bigger than WizKidz kobolds, but quite a bit smaller than my original kobolds for this line.

THE BIG STORY AS IT WERE:

Three years ago, Ed and I were approached by one of our contract casting clients about purchasing a SiOCast machine to enable us to produce much larger pieces for his line at a much more shipping and material friendly price. We saw a lot of potential in this machine, so Ed and I agreed as a partnership to purchase the machine for roughly $70,000. We financed the machine as a business expense and got it.

Immediately after getting it, we realized that we did not have the power needs at our old shop for all of our new equipment, so we arranged to move into a new facility. In 2021 we moved into the new shop and got everything up and running. Moving into the spring of 2022 money was really tight. We knew we needed to get a Kickstarter together to get some revenue pumped into the business to support all of these changes and the new monthly payment for the SiOCast machine. This led us to start putting together this Kickstarter. I started sculpting a few pieces as well as paying for a few other pieces to get us started.

At the same time, Kobold Press came to us with a proposition to produce miniatures for Tome of Beasts III, which many of you know was run almost at the exact same time as this Kickstarter. Ed and I discussed it and decided to take that on as a business. At roughly the same time I was approached by Res Nova games to produce the miniatures for a re-boot of Warzone which was a fairly popular wargame in the early 90’s. Ed and I talked about it and again decided that we should take the work because…..bills.

Over that summer I arranged for the miniatures for TOB III to get sculpted and started molding those. At the same time I began all of the pre-production consulting on Warzone which was a lot of art directing for their miniature sculptors on how to make good miniatures and this took a lot more of my time than I anticipated. I was also picking away at the sculpting for this project as well as assigning work to outside sculptors.

By the end of that summer, Kobold Press approached us about doing a similar miniature project for Wastes of Chaos. Once again, Ed and I talked and decided that we needed the work. I assigned all of the sculpting work to other sculptors for Wastes of Chaos and figured we for sure had that covered.

Through all of this I had been working on this Kickstarter in between everything else with the intention of Ed and I being able to slam this out in no time.

This bring us to a year ago when the first real problems started with the SiOCast machine. The machine broke if I recall at the end of October of 2022 and was not back up and running until January of 2023, during which time I was molding the first stuff for the Catfolk Kickstarter that you are all part of.

In January Ed came to me and informed me that he would be quitting his “real job” and buying an RV and moving west with his wife so that he would have more of a motorcycle riding season....

Anyway, without beating the issue to death, I was kind of left high and dry to finish everything by myself.

If you are counting, that is:

Tome of Beasts III, Iconic Races:Catfolk, Wastes of Chaos and Warzone:Eternal in addition to all of the other client work that we had on the books as well as the additonal payment for the SiOCast machine by myself with very little income coming in from Effincool Miniatures.

To say this has been the most challenging 2 years of my life would be a gross understatement…Thank the maker that I have a good paying “real job”.

WHERE ARE WE AS OF TODAY

TOB III as well as Wastes of Chaos are delivered or at least have orders trickling in that can be filled with the stock that I have on the shelves of those minis.

This brings us to Warzone:Eternal, which I have put a lot of energy into, but still mostly in a consulting capacity until January of 2024 when we started ramping things up to get into production. This project is very massive by comparison to all of the other things that have been looming over the last 2 years. Mostly to the tune of roughly 75,000 miniatures!

I try to be a person who sticks to their word. It is very difficult for me to back out of things that I have committed to, but by the middle of January I came to the inevitable conclusion that I simply could not continue punishing the backers of this project due to the business decisions that Ed and I made together..and I had to break my word with Res Nova.

I spent some time (quite a lot of time actually) trying to find another company that would be able to take care of Warzone and do as good of a job as I promised to Res Nova. I have spent the better part of the last month pivoting this project over to another company, which in itself was no small task as there are a ton of models. This is a huge part of why there has been so little progress on this project for the last month or so.

If you are still with me, this is the best accounting of all of what has happened in one place, and I hope that it further explains some things that I have been vague about for the past 2 years. It really is down to a one man show, but I will get it done.

With Warzone shifted I now have a clear path for the next couple of months to go 100% at this project without multitasking other things at the same time.

As always, thank you for your continued patience with me.

John

Regarding the sizing of Kobolds
9 months ago – Wed, Feb 14, 2024 at 06:24:17 AM

 

Short Update
9 months ago – Thu, Feb 08, 2024 at 02:15:28 PM

Hey Backers!

Kinda short update. I am shipping orders (only 54 so far) as I can. It seems that most of you backed for either the full package or the Catfolk and random other minis. What this means is that there is no way to really prioritize how these are molded if that makes sense. 

What I am doing is everytime something new is molded and castable I am searching through the huge pile of orders to sort out what can ship.  That is a tedious process, but it is the only way I can keep all of this straight. I apologize for this but I cant really see a more efficient way to do it.

There has been some concerns about the fulfillment of this project. I want to re-assure once again, that there is no danger that this will not fulfill. It is just going to take the time that it takes. I own 2 other businesses that are very successful, so the actual funding of this project is not really the hold up. Shipping has been brought up as well, but to be honest the rates are not that much higher than when Ed collected the shipping over a year ago.

The problem still once again boils down to time. In order to keep my equipment and building operating I have about $4,500 in overhead per month. $1500 of that being the payment for the plastic injection machine. To do this I have to keep all of my contract clients happy as well as fulfillment from my webstore. When I am not doing that, I am working on this projects fulfillment. I know that does not seem fair, but the alternative is not an acceptable option to me.

I am one man show currently, which means I am the only person molding, casting, quality controlling, clipping and packaging the minis. In addition to that I am also the only person picking orders and handling the shipping. It just does not leave a lot of time to do anything else but keep my head at the waterline even with me putting my own personal money in every single month.

As I said though, I have other sources of income, so this is going to get done, it will just continue to take time. I am thinking realistically taht I can have this out the door by the end of May/June. I know that is not great, but that is the best I can do right now.

Now that that part is over, here is the fun stuff....pictures!!!

In the processing of everything I realized that I never comissioned the Leader for the Barbed Kobold set, so I quickly made this fella. I think he came out pretty well!

In closing I will continue to try to be better about updates and thanks again for all of the patience you all keep showing me!

Also as always, if you want to talk about anything to do with this project, but prefer to not do it on a social platform, please feel free to email me at [email protected]. :-)

John

December Update
11 months ago – Thu, Dec 21, 2023 at 06:22:22 AM

Hey gang.

Just making a quick placeholder update today. 

What has been going on?

I know it has been 2 months without an update. I also know that I said that everything should be up and ready to go once the restaurant closed for the season, since the Kobold Press Wastes of Chaos minis were all molded and ready for production. 

The reality of that is that I have struggled with the casting machine for more than half of that, with it being fully non-operational for 3.5 weeks of that time and only partially functioning until 3 weeks ago. 

Immediately after I got the parts to repair it and got it back up and running, the Effincoolminis.com website crashed with a catastrophic failure. The website is absolutely crucial to the delivery of the Wastes of Chaos Kickstarter and due to the nature of its failure I was unable to access email accounts as well as any of the shipping orders for that project.

What this means is that instead of being able to work on this project at the level that I wanted to, I have been an equipment repair person and a website builder. I have also spent a good portion of everyday for the last 3 weeks packing and shipping miniatures, since a lot of Effincool Miniatures is down to essentially a one man operation.  

Where I am at today:

As of today I have all of the Catfolk molded for plastic and metal. I also have all of the miniatures for the first group of add-ons molded for plastic but not all of them for metal yet. 

Since I now have enough of a backstock of cast miniatures for future backer orders for Wastes of Chaos, casting time on the injection machine has opened up. I will be able to begin casting and hopefully shipping orders by the end of next week. For now, this will only be the people who just have the Full Clowder and miniatures from the Add-Ons section. As I am able to mold more pieces, I will be able to ship the appropriate orders. This means that if you backed for everything it is still going to be a bit of a wait.

Next week.

I am planning on an update with pictures next week to show those models actually in the process of production. If you have specific parts of the operation you want to see, please comment and I will include those in the update!!

Finally,

I know it has been a ludicrous amount of time and I am ashamed that this has unfolded the way that it has, but if I could have planned for it, I would have...

Once again, sorry for the delay on updates and on delivery/production.

Thanks for your continued patience with me.  :-(

John

Off to the running start!
about 1 year ago – Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 03:02:53 PM

Sorry once again for a late update. Ill keep it short and sweet.

Due to the lack of time for the past 4 months I still have not started full production of these miniatures. I have been working 7 days a week for 10-14 hours per day at my seasonal restaurant. This year was even more challenging than any previous and I wont bore you with the details.

What I can say with a sigh of relief is that last night was our official final night for the season at the restaurant. I have no other roadblocks in my way and will be able to dive headlong into finally putting the rest of these miniatures at the front of the line of stuff to do and getting them in your hands!

I know it has been a long road so far and we are still not done with the trip, but I anticipate being able to start shipping some of the orders that do not include Stretch Goal miniatures next week. With more miniatures molded and being produced every day.

For those of you who are losing faith, I understand. i would be in the same boat, but I can only keep giving you my word taht this project will deliver 100%. Thank you for hanging in there though and being as understanding as you have been.

Not much else to say except my next update will hopefully show off more production miniatures as well as trying to get a list of the pieces that are ready to ship and a timeline on when the rest will be available.

As always, thank you for your continued patience on this. It been a bumpy one!

John