April 28, 2015 7 min read
In metal:
Baba Yaga (KST)
In spin-cast resin:
All the casts are really cool. Parker is so expressive, Keela is swinging into action, Ludmilla is her usual hieratic self, Elektra, well, she looks like a 40's movies star. But the one who steals the show is definitely Kiki. As is often the case, it's hard to fully translate how cool a mini is with just a photograph. But truly, Kiki Bulldozer is absolutely amazing. You can see here under all angles in the tutorial videos in this Update (see below), but there is so much detail on the sculpt that she's a little diorama all by herself!
The following resin minis are all almost done being cast:
What else:
The Cyberzombies prototypes have been approved, and casting is underway. The prototypes for the Jet-Pack Girls are being reviewed this week.
What's next:
The Artillery and the Bikes are next. They will be followed by the Trikes, the WereSheWolves and the Mechas. We will finish with the 54mm items.
Link to everything currently available: http://www.tggks.com/what-is-in-each-wave/
As mentioned previously, the shipping of Wave 3 has already begun. But, there is no Wave 3 per se. Wave 3 is in fact “everything that is remaining”. This means that as soon as we receive new cast models from the foundry and we can ship you your full Rewards Selection, we do that.
Now, you may recall that the plan from the beginning was that there would be no resin Heroines. But when the demand for them grew strong, we altered our plans and agreed to include them in the spin-cast resin casting process. The idea was to make all the Freebies, the Troops and Support first, and then finish with the added resin Heroines. But we've come to learn that production is a vile and treacherous beast that must be fed continuously. And so, many Heroines somehow cut in the production queue right off the bat. And they continues to this day: they again managed to slip in before the Support items. So somehow, it's made some of you happy, but delayed the shipping for others.
We are now in the final production stretch, and we are doing everything in our power to make things as fast as possible, without any compromise on quality. In fact, we're about to hop on a plane to meet with the foundries directly, and we are pretty sure this will give us and them even more insights on improving the production workflows.
But just because we are pushing hard to finish the production of the TGG as quickly as possible doesn't mean that we are cutting corners on quality and attention to details.
Mould-making may seem a pretty straightforward thing: slap a mini between two slabs of silicon or rubber, and presto, there's your mould! But things are actually more complex, especially when you get the crazy Raging Heroes team designing such complex minis as the TGG and then choose to do them in spin-cast resin.
For example, the splitting of miniatures in several parts can sometimes be quite tricky (you may remember the hand-poured resin Nepharya issue from the previous Update). And then, the foundry needs to find the correct way to create entry points for the material to flow into the mould and to position the pieces in the best way in order to optimise this flow. And this process is made much much more complex with resin spin-cast (which is the reason why nearly no one does it).
Here is a little behind-the-scene example of the day-to-day production issues that need resolving.
We were pretty excited to include Ilsa Wolfenstein in the list of available resin minis. We had reviewed the prototype cast, and were happy with it. So we gave the go ahead for production.
But when the casts arrived, we realised that there had been a misunderstanding somewhere, and that a gate (that is, the path that lets the resin flow into the mould to the cavity in which the miniature will be made) had been inappropriately placed. That is messing up a bunch of tiny details. But the complexity of the part was not leaving many options open. So, what we decided to do is to cut the problematic arm in two pieces, and have it recast separately and cleanly.
This is already in progress. As soon as we get the new arms, we will add them to the Ilsa casts that we've already received. So don't be surprised when you get Ilsa with a spare arm.
Of course, it's a bit of an extra cost for us to do this. But we don't want you to be disappointed with Ilsa Wolfenstein, who makes a crazy cool army leader miniature.
It's truly great to see the Toughest Girls of the Galaxy getting painted. Most of the times, it also brings a new perspective to each of them. Some of them which we thought we'd prefer with the helmeted head version suddenly become so beautiful and expressive we can no longer decide whether we prefer the naked head or the helmeted head. The weapons also get a whole new look. And all this give us new ideas for future releases, as well as for the profiles we are creating for the upcoming game.
We've been meaning to do this for quite some time now, and here a series of video tutorials on how to prepare your TGG miniatures before painting. The videos cover the preparation of a resin miniature, but you can do pretty much the same with a metal one.
You'll see how to clean it so that the paint adheres correctly, how to remove mould lines and other unpleasantries, how to fill tiny bubbles in resin casts, how to easily glue your mini, etc.
The six videos are shown below. If you prefer to watch all 6 together in a single run, click here.
1/6: Get them off that sprue!
2/6: Never fear the possible thin mould line.
3/6 Is that a tiny bubble, or are you happy to see me?
4/6: Better clean than sorry...
5/6: Glueing time - no sniffing allowed!
6/6: Back to basing...
As far as fulfilling this Kickstarter, our work is mostly done, and the foundries have completely taken over. We speak daily with the foundries on the remaining casts. When we get new shipments from the foundries, we sort, quality control and pack (for example, the troops all arrive packed separately, and so we need to combine them in bags of 5). We also prepare shipments ready to go, and of course review and reply to all your messages.
But your backing the TGG Kickstarter is more than about the minis and so, for those interested, we thought we'd also share what else is happening at the Raging Heroes offices.
As you may know, we very successfully completed the TGG2 Kickstarter, ending with $801,057 in only 15 days! We unlocked a lot of minis. If you are interested, there is still a little bit of time topledge with Paypal/credit card.
We took a few days off before getting back in the office, and currently, our biggest task is to recruit more people for the team.
First, right after the end of the TGG2 campaign, you may have noticed that there's been a lot less news on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram... That's because we said goodbye to our friend Bruno, who had partnered with us on our communications for over a year. He left for Montreal to fulfil his true destiny as a heavy metal rockstar.
He is currently touring in Canada and will be touring in Europe in May with his band Rusted (onReverbNation and on Facebook), an up-and-coming name of the New Wave Of Traditional Heavy Metal (nwothm) along with other Canadian bands like Striker or Skull Fist. If you have the chance to see them live, you are in for a great evening of rock’n roll. And don’t hesitate to buy him a beer after the show, Bruno is the nicest guy you can imagine. Here's the message he wrote us on the day he left:
Bruno, we all wish you the greatest possible rock’n roll life! Have fun and go rock the world!
While he'll probably pitch in from time to time, his departure means that we need to beef up our communications department. If you love the hobby, if you have the qualifications and experience, and if you are interested, drop us a note at jobs@ragingheroes.com.
The sculpting team is about to get much bigger too. We are spending the coming weeks recruiting and testing new 3D sculptors.
We are also working on the recruiting of a Sales and Marketing Manager and a Logistics Manager. Then we'll be flying to the USA to meet with our resin foundry and work together on production planning and scheduling. So as you can see the bulk of our work in the next few weeks will be mostly devoted to management and organisation.
We've already received some very cool comments on the freebies shipment we made a few weeks ago. But we'd love to hear from more of you. Did you get them? How do you like them? Do you have a favourite? Do you already know how you want to use them in-game? Let us know you feelings and your thoughts :)
Also, we are creating a Pinterest board dedicated to
So select your best images and send them to RagingHeroesTeam@gmail.com, and we'll soon start posting them :)
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