"kickstarter projects ?" Topic

Hi all

I am a one man band with a tiny range when it comes to figure making and honestly I have many doubts about continuing it. I am first a gamer and this certainly takes my time away. Alternatively I love the interaction with people and designing/ concepts and conversions! Its a bug!
I started AA as a pet project and continue to run it as one. My initial aim was to produce one set at a time, each self funding. So far its doing good, its not self funding as of yet, however I believe over time it will be. This does not help with bringing out a 'full' range quickly, my biggest failure is that I should of brought out the full range rather than piecemeal. It is what is is though and I have plans for a additional range very soon. The range will be less unique figures but full! Another cost lesson I learned:)

Anyhow, this all boils down to costs. My whole aim on the AA RUSK's range was to simply cover costs, however this is long term as opposed to short term. It prevents me from bringing out some releases as project funds are short. One idea, which seems to be gaining popularity is the kick starter concept. I provide concept design and aims and everyone else provides the funding. Seems a simple idea, however I wanted to see how people really thought about this before even contemplating running one.

The first one If any, I would like to run would be a 15mm weapons sprue. I'm quite happy to run any others ( alien wildlife, odd aliens etc) if people think it would be a good idea. I would run this purely from a cost covering exercise. A sort of commune for 15mm scifi :)

What do people think on this? Hell yeah here is a blank check or over my dead body. I was the latter until I realised you can offer incentives :)

thanks

Keith
AA

or I can just do preorders…

when a certain target is reached, Id start the process…

To be honest, Kickstarter can be used as pretty much a pre-order system.

I'd encourage you to give it a go. If it works, it works and if it doesn't you haven't really lost much apart from your time.

Your models are IMO very nice but you're right about the restrictive range being something of a disincentive to purchase for me anyway, as I'm doing platoon+ and want lots of options.

S&S models do something similar to the pre-order idea BTW – they run a 15+ club on guildwargamers. IE if they get 15 pre-orders for a vehicle then they make it. It's very similar to your pre-order idea.

Best of luck with whatever approach you take.

S&S have brought me some very nice models which I wanted, with the 15+ club.

I would back you on kickstarter, but then again, I'd have some requests. No one makes very good power armoured troopers for soviets yet, and I'm very curious about your design.

I'd realy like something in the style of Red Alert's Tesla Troopers, and was in fact thinking of asking someone to sculpt and cast those.

EvinW98

In regards to heavies drop me an email on my blog and I can show you the concept pics I have, ready for sculpting

Greg
The restrictive range is something I really kicked myself over. I should of worked on less unique figures for the generic squad and then I could fund more support. The next lot will be!

I quite like the 15 club concept. It would more likely be 100+ for infantry :)

For a weapons sprue kickstarter I would be interested. Aliens along with odd flora is also an option.

I'm still looking for good reasnable priced Triffid types. I certainly would fund a bundle of those!

As has been said it's worth a punt, only time lost. As long as people are aware that you are a oneman band and take that into concideration I think it would work.

I'm sure you would quickly get 100 figures covered by pre-order/kickstarter.

As Greg said, people like to get a platoon together in one hit…especially for 15mm. The scale lends itself to "job and finish" in terms of price and time to paint.

post a link to your blog cant seem to find it-- thanks

Google is your friend ;) First hit on Armies Army ;)

armiesarmy.blogspot.com

Well, that was not what I wrote!!!! I'll have to see if I have time later to try again. Darn bugs . . . .

Jeff

Ooops, ha ha. But know I know about Quatre Bras!

AA I definitely would back you up. i know the amount of hard work it takes to run a small company and the resources are scarce mostly all of the time.

I looked into kickstarter and it seemed that you had to be either located in the US or have a US bank account to be able to have a project funded (although its ok to back projects from outside the US) which stopped me dead in my tracks :(

That's true about kick-starter but indiegogo allows EU based projects (http://www.indiegogo.com/).

Kick-starter is also coming to europe this autumn I believe, if I've been told correctly.

Correct

it is coming this autumn. Thankfully, I used to live in Houston and kept my old US account going. Hoped it might turn up useful one day!

I'm going to give this a try. What have I got to lose…..:) Ill drop a separate post to see what weapon options people would like to see and then Ill calculate some costs, incentives etc and see how we do

Thanks

AA

Excellent news.

The weapons sound good.

I'd be interested in alien creatures, and alien aliens, depending upon what they look like. Everyone's ideas on these are quite different, but there are few options for alien fauna around.

Predators, herbivores, omnivores, mineral-ivores, etc. would all be useful.

I'd set the project's goal at raising enough funds to finish and cast a single range of figures- enough for, say, a platoon… IMO, weapon sprues and alien fauna would be better off as being stretch goals or extra incentives to commit more cash.

Weapon sprue is nice, but I would also like to see a power armour squad :)

Just to buck the trend, I wouldn't get a weapons sprue- too fiddly to convert figures. While it would be nice to have weapons scattered around on terrain, I can get more generic mileage out of 'boxes and crates'.

Great figures, though!