Phase 2 - Split Shipments
almost 7 years ago
– Fri, May 26, 2017 at 12:28:49 AM
Phase 1 went off without a hitch, 62/72 are already shipped. The remaining 10 are waiting on a restock of either Orcs or Wildlands, and will ship when they get in.
Phase 2 can now begin, which will primarily be taking requests for Split Shipments, with a couple of quick notes;
1> We currently have art for the Legendary Games' Sampler pack, the Printable Heroes packs, Deadlands and Deadlands Horde packs. These are not held up because of art, but simply require us to invest the time to finalize the art files, color correct them, and print. Additionally, art for The Grove Horde is virtually complete. If you are waiting on these packs only, you do not necessarily need to split your shipment, since they should be ready next anyway. (although if you want your other items as soon as possible, that's your decision)
2> We assume that the "Custom 80-96p" miniatures will be done absolutely last, and may take a considerable amount of additional time, even after the other new packs are completed (Pirates, Demonblood, Dragonborn, Cyberpunks, Spacefarers, and new Legendaries).
Everyone should consider this pack to ship on it's own automatically.
A single pack, without bases, can ship as a "letter" at a very reasonable rate. We intend to eat this price (about $0.70 cents per backer) and ship all the custom miniatures on their own when they are ready. So if this is the only reason your order would be held up, you shouldn't need to request a Split Shipment.
Requesting Split Shipments
To begin, we're going to focus on those willing to pay the uncharge to split their shipments. If you'd like to add the cost of a second shipment, simply send $10 USD to our paypal account ([email protected]) for domestic shipments.
This link will automate the process https://www.paypal.me/Arcknight/10
Once these requests are settled, we'll look into what our next phase of delivery will be naturally, based in part on what new art assets become available.
If you are an international backer and would like to request Split Shipments, please email us directly at [email protected] to discuss options.
Recap
Minimal Assembly
As a reminder, one of the ways we're cutting our labor and speeding up the delivery of this project is to minimize our assembly. Particularly with steps that would be done automatically when popping out the miniatures.
Your packs will likely still have their white print film that can be easily peeled or picked off the miniatures with your fingernail, and they will be in full sheets, with the panels not yet popped from the sheet. Popping the panels from the sheet is the exact same process as popping any individual mini from it's panel, and should not cause any difficulty.
The added steps may take a minute per pack, but it saves us from doing thousands of packs at once before shipping continues.
Progress Update and News - May 22nd, 2017
almost 7 years ago
– Mon, May 22, 2017 at 10:35:36 PM
Art Updates
I have far too much art to release in a single update, and further if I made a massive update, it would be hard to reference in the future.
So it is my plan to release about 3 individual updates per pack, at various stages in the art development. The first should show all the early sketches and teasers, with at least 30-40 completed sketches, so you can finally see the meat and potatoes of whats coming. The second should showcase a lot of finished art and be "well under way" and the third update when the pack is completely final, with perhaps some last minute edits or reworks. Also remember that once the artists submit their art to us, we sometimes modify or alter the art, color, or scale pieces according to our needs, and the final 'print' may look different than the final digital art.
In some cases, there will only be 'sketches' and 'finished art', while for other artists, there is a major intermediate step where a lot of pre-final art and coloring get done, and we can show you this stage to showcase the work. Its really cool to see it, but many artists skip the step entirely and take their sketch and go right for the final, and there is no intermediate step to show you.
Lastly, we should be able to glance over the list of updates, and see these post names, and get a general understanding of how far along the pack is, and how close it is to completion.
If we browse and see Art Update 1 and 2 for a pack, but not 3, it's between final sketches and finished. If we don't even see an Art Update #1, it means we're waiting on the full sketch list to be confirmed and it's still in editing, etc.
Finished Packs
Civilians (64p all-humanoid) by J.E. Shields is finished! (extra pieces by Damien Mammoliti)
I'm very glad to finally get this one done. This has been our most 'irregular' pack we've ever done. It's one of 2 packs done by J.E. Shields (this and Supers!) that weren't directly commissioned, but instead on a special royalty agreement. However, when the packs aren't finished, they can't sell to generate royalties, and after so much time has gone by, it's a hard issue to mediate. He of course has to pay his bills and looks at making the hard decisions of 'is this going to be worth doing?' on the other end, with Kickstarter especially, you're committed to the plan.
Its in a similar style to his super heroes, and will fit perfectly alongside Supers! to round out the normal side of life, while i can see many other genres and games making use of them as well because they're such classic people.
A few pieces didn't get past the cutting room, and we had Damien Mammoliti create 3x additional citizens to fill in the gaps. Its 61/64 pieces by James Shields, and 3/64 by Damien. He may not end up being credited on the packaging (and he's aware of this), but if you're curious who did them thats who it was.
Mankind Horde (31p) by Damien Mammoliti is finished!
And our backlog is now down to 3! (Grove Horde is nearly complete, then it's Wildlands Horde and Underground Horde, and the backlog is over.)
A perfect compliment, +31 regular humans, soldiers, halflings and other bits that may be helpful!
Based on the themes of the Mankind 62-p set, horde sets are designed to fill out and add more copies of common enemies and fodder that you'd want many copies of.
We've also done something we haven't done before in this set, and that's to make some pieces with a 'fudged' scale. It wasn't exactly our intention, but it seemed the best use of the short wide and giant wide pieces (notice the horses and carriages above). However, these pieces don't fit the normal 28mm heroic scale. I personally think they will be incredibly USEFUL, and with a 2x2 or 3" base, they'll fill the right space on a battle map, and be in every possible way an improvement over using a dice case or some other shaped scrap. It would still have been amazing if these were 'real size' however, or at least larger than they are.
It's an experiment, the jury is out and we'll see looking back how we feel. Similarly, we have a piece thats '2x knights' in one. It might be the sort of piece that in the future we fix and just have it be a second single knight. Time will tell.
I'm personally most excited to finally have a 'noble woman in a red dress' which I think has been sorely missed, and the feedback about the halflings in general has been overwhelmingly positive. Gotta have more little people!
Distribution via Studio 2
So, we got our first distribution order from Studio 2!
Our first phase of solicitation was for the 5x core packs only (Mankind, Wildlands, The Grove, Ancient Evils, Underground), and they sold a combined 800+ packs!
We're pretty excited, and it took some work to get assemblers on-hand just to strip and pack all these, but they shipped last week, and they'll ship from Studio 2 at the very end of the month, and you might see the FPM project in a lot more stores around the country.
If you know of a FLGS that wants Flat Plastic Miniatures (just imagine, someday you'll be able to go into a store and see 50+ different packs on the shelf and not have to wait for shipping at all!) let them know that they're "out there". From my understanding, they should call Alliance and ACD (the 2 largest national distributors, which lets assume 99.9% of FLGS use) and they'll in turn go to Studio2 and get it.
What should create the final leg of success for us is if Alliance or ACD notice a real demand for the product, and in turn pick up the lines themselves and rep it to their stores. That could turn an 800 pack distribution order into an 8000 pack order.
And why do we want this? Well, Laser Die-cutting, that's why.
Laser Die-Cutting, and the eventual "Version 2" of FPMs
One of the far far out stretch goals of this campaign was the Laser Die-cutting. This wasn't just something we wanted, we NEED it. It will remove all hurdles related to the cutting process, allow us to additionally laser die-cut the RPG Spell Effects, and most importantly to you, let us fit more pieces on the pack, at any shapes and sizes we wish.
This means, eventually, each of these packs will be 'rebuilt', and at that time, some pieces may move or change size, the "wasted" blank plastic on their edges might be trimmed up or reduced, etc. The wagons above could suddenly be 40% larger, and so on.
So, keep your eyes out for that.
Pre-Shipping FPM2 - Phase 1
Now, the part that everyone is actually waiting for. The Pre-Shipping of FPM2!
I know, I've said "soon" for a while, but the demands of my time have made it impossible to do it thus far. In part, that was due to the distribution order and other day-to-day operations at Arcknight. So, considering that's shipped, pre-shipping has moved into that slot, and will begin going out next week.
Which means I better get started on cutting bases. A LOT of bases =p
This is going to happen in Phases. Phase 1 is going to be as clean and simple as possible. It's people who have older items, and NO new items, at all. People who can be taken straight off the books.
Even if Phase 1 doesn't quite catch everyone, it doesn't matter, since these aren't being split at all, so they can't be screwed up.
With this criteria, we have 72 people in Phase 1. Some of these people aren't receiving physical items at all.
These items are "printable", meaning I have some stock in the warehouse, but that stock may be low or out. In some cases, I'll need 25 copies of something, and I'll only have 10 on hand. I'll have to put in a reorder with Philip (which I'd have to do soon anyway).
But I'll give you another update when Phase 1 is well underway.
Splitting Shipments - Phase 2
Many of you want to be pre-shipped, but you're not in Phase 1. Please just wait, and we'll talk about splitting shipments and such once Phase 1 is out the door.
I'm calling this "Phase 2", where you can print a LOT of stuff, but not all of your stuff. In most cases, this will be very easy to do, but we'll do it in steps to reduce confusion.
This way, I won't be answering people's Phase 2 questions in Phase 1.
Studio Foglio - Delayed Indefinitely
We haven't heard from these guys in a while. We have a contract to produce these miniatures, and we're happy to honor it. When we eventually get the art, we'll still create these files and make them available.
However, if you were in FPM2 and you purchased this pack, i suggest you switch out the item for something else. You may be waiting for some time.
If you're in the EU bulk batch, the Studio Foglio items will not delay the bulk shipment. If they're done before the 5 core sets, they'll be done. If they aren't done by then, they'll be cut and dealt with on a case by case basis.
Arcknight's new Heir
I had a baby boy. His name is Maxim Dean Wardrop (Dean is mother's Maiden name, I thought that would be cool). He was born April 4th.
Here's a picture;
And to keep things equal since we have a picture of Maxim, here's a picture of Eden being shipped to China.
