"Alien federation and alien rebels (help needed)" Topic

Hello,

I would need your help and advices for a project I have in mind for a while.*
The idea would be to make some sorts of 32 mm (Top of skull. See below for comparison pics)/1 :48 metal alien squads and alien rebels.

Each alien squad would be something like :
-a standard human male anatomy, a human female anatomy, a grunt/dwarf/smaller anatomy, a bigger anatomy and a crazy non-humanoid one.
-With each squad, there would be like two of three sprues of half a dozen of guns (please see John Bear Ross blog for some of them), at least a dozen of heads (tho I'd like more) and perhaps different hands or whole parts such as three joints legs. Well, you get the idea : you could almost make your own aliens. However, you can forget about « not predators » and that kind of things.
-I'm thinking about making something like four squads : front line troopers, heavy armor troopers, stealth armor troopers (think cyber/manga/super-hero armors) and perhaps big exo-armors tho the alien variations would probably show less on that one and many companies make big armors so I'm not sure and might think about some environment armors such as underwater armors or anything else.

For each squad, there would be a squad of rebels. Well, no uniforms but tons of heads too. And probably crazier alien anatomies.

Please see my blog for some test figures of standard human anatomies and a few alien heads :
link
link

Would you buy this ? Or support this via Kickstarter (when I'll have more to show) ? Does it suck (idea or test figures) ? What price would you like (please remember there would be lots of guns and elements for each mini) ? 6 USD ? Would you like to have the choice to get the same head for each mini to make alien sqauds from the same race/species or something else ? If « Kickstarted » , what incentives would you like ? Some limited edition rebels or heads for the brigades ? Unique heads for the cool backers ? Something else ?
If I use « Kickstarter », I would probably do one squad at a time so people don't wait eons and have the first squads in hand.

If you are a native english-speaker, would you help me for a bit of writing or editing such as Kickstarter levels (in case that happens) or other things ?

I realize that's a ton of questions but I know there are a lot of cool guys around. Thanks a lot in advance to anybody that will help. And « yes that does suck » is help too. ;)

* TMP link

Well, which ever way you go, you have great taste in guns! ;)

Best,
JBR

Disclaimer, I am a 15mm player and rarely buy 28/32mm figures these days.

I think the idea has merit since many people want to be able to field forces similar to the old Alien Legion comics where lots of different aliens are combined into the same units and have to deal with all of their various differences etc. While the realities of such a force are very impracticable (different types of food, air and clothing), the concept is so appealing that most forget about the reasons why this would not normally happen in a military. Heck, these are game miniatures, forget about reality for a while.

I personally like the heavy armor look more than the lighter clothing shown on the sample figures. I think the ones you did in 15mm for Rebel minis were close to perfect. In regards to the various hands and heads etc, I think that is a great idea. People may buy into the Kickstarter just to get parts they can use to convert other miniatures. I would suggest taking some time on deciding how to set up the molds for this so that the weapons and heads are separate from the bodies so that you can produce just those and sell them in packs for people looking for conversion options. Having them separate would allow you a lot more flexibility in case you find thee parts sell better than the whole. Some people also like to buy packs of all the same head style, so you might consider how to handle that in the way the molds are laid out as well.

My one concern is the concept of only one squad for the KS since I do not knwo if that will be enough to bring in a large number of backers. I think that if you can separate the parts in a manner that allows you to sell both squads and conversion packs (heads, hands, weapons etc) you would be able to gain a few more people and offer some different options.

Best of luck on the project!!!!

Jeff

Thank you for your advices Jeff.

More heads:

link

I woul WAY support this. I love alien heads, as I get bored painting humans. Your weapons are really cool. The bodies I think the to be beefed up with some armor. The concept is solid though.

I think this is a good idea, and the test greens would sell a lot of figures to post apoc/ sci fi players that want slim, animated figures that are not anime posed. Paint in sand tones/human heads and you have perfect figures for a Fallout/Max world, paint in bright colors with mixed heads and you have wake/alien legions/mass effect world. I think the key would be maximum versatility, so I would think instead of a space dwarf size guy, something that could be a small human or alien or a linebacker sized human or alien. I also think that they should all look similar in terms of clothing and weapons (I think the test sculpts look perfect) but should have sprue bits that can distinguish factions (may one group can be cyborg humans and aliens with mechanic/organic bits and the other pure, or different styling to accessories curvy vs sharp edged). I, personally would prefer the weapons on the slim side. Very cool idea, lots of ways you could go.

Also this should get cross-posted on the sci-fi discussion page

I'm all for "crazy alien anatomies" but not so much for dude-in-a-suit aliens, unless they are really spiffy and/or cheap as dirt. So if the exotic xenos become available separately and contrariwise aren't really bad and/or expensive then I probably will buy 'em and even pledge for 'em in KS.

That said, if you do a KS then you prolly need to bring in lots of nice-looking humanoid aliens as well, since the conventional wisdom of the biz looks to be that "crazy alien anatomies" don't sell -- throw in a couple that have conspicuously human female sexual characteristics to be absolutely sure of blooming sales (-;)

Other than that, people do seem to be expecting pretty sweet deals at KS these days alreadt so you need to be ready to offer really hot pledge levels and stretch goals to net bigtime. Which means you'll prolly not expect to actually make a lot of money from the KS apart from getting the minis cast.

In the near future, if the line picks up, you'll be wanting to consider setting up a game for the minis as well, another common wisdom being that a miniature line with an attached game sells better than a miniature line on its own. A much less attempted alterative would be to offer rules for them under a number of "generic" rulesets but then I guess it gets difficult to juggle endorsements and "I scratch your back if you scratch mine" -deals.