Secret Skeleton Miniatures
Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 12:22 pm
Hi, my name is Wes Herbst and I would like to use my introduction post to pitch my miniatures company (website pending).
I am an avid fan of Castles & Crusades who first found the game when 4E was announced. I had been disenchanted with 3.5 and the upcoming Pathfinder and as a result of reading about 4E, I went and bought a ton of 2E stuff. As I read back through the rules of 2E, I got to where I remembered why I changed to 3E. I hated the over complex micro-management of 3E as well as the focus on "builds."
I found Castles & Crusades quite by mistake.
I was at my local game store and I was looking through the "non-WotC" section (it is very small there) and I cam across the C&C Player's Handbook. I opened it up, began to read, and I remember saying, "Holy crap! This is exactly what I have been looking for!"
I bought every C&C book they had at that store. I spent $40, they only had the PHB and the MaT. Still, two core rulebooks for $40? Hells yes.
Anyhow, with my newfound want for something more traditional in my role-playing (I'm just last month 28, so I'm hardly a greybeard...yet) I began to refocus my games (I DM and only DM) to be about more storytelling and better attention to things like atmosphere and the like.
Long story short, I came across a website called Otherworld Miniatures that designs and sells really nice miniatures inspired by AD&D. I spent about a grand there one day, and when I got my miniatures they were fantastic in every way except for scale. Apparently, when he said 28mm scale on his website, the owner didn't really know what that meant, if anything.
I still love the miniatures, I am just crazy about continuity.
So my favorite miniature line of all time is Julie Guthrie's line of Grenadier miniatures now sold by MegaMinis. Most of the miniatures at OW were scaled just dandy with my vast amount of PC miniatures, and that was great. Many were not, however. Worse yet, my favorite adventures ever U 1-3 were mostly underpopulatable by Otherworld Miniatures.
So I stole OW's idea.
I started the company in October and called it Secret Skeleton Miniatures because the name sounded cool to me.
I hired Jo Brumby to sculpt a line of Sahuagin inspired by the artwork in U 1-3 and Jason Wiebe to sculpt 25mm Bullywugs.
I took a personal hand in the design making sure they were a combination of the 1977 AD&D Monster Manual, and functional yet cool. My theme for humanoids is going to be multiple figure packs with interchangeable arms.
I mentioned scale, so here is my logic on that. Most gamers use one-inch grids to represent 5 feet. This tells me that 5mm more or less equals one foot, right? So instead of saying that I produce miniatures of a particular scale I am just going to take pictures of the miniature next to a ruler. I sold off all my Reaper PC types for this reason as my Player Characters were all seven to eight feet tall and my gnolls were barely pushing 6'5".
So I am still awaiting about a dozen sculpts to be finished (it is quite time consuming to sculpt them, or so I hear) and when I have them in hand I will put up the website. Iron Wind Metals, formerly Ral Partha, will be my production and packaging company.
I really have no intention of ever getting rich doing this, I just mostly want to have fun with it and spread that good ol AD&D era love around.
I miss the old artwork. I think 3rd edition is where the game ceased to be Medieval and more...well...I do not rightly know what. He-Man? It does resemble He-Man...
My company will be run to the letter, I won't be looting my own coffers. I intend to pay full retail for any miniature I take for my personal collection. I do not intend to go out of business, I am sinking my own money into it with best hopes of at least breaking even...so I can use that money to make more miniatures.
I have plans to mostly do humanoids, though I am going to make a line of miniatures inspired by popular NPCs from the Greyhawk setting, of which I love.
C&C is pretty going to be with me from now on till forever. It speaks to me rather well. I just finished up my first campaign with it and it was the most cheerful 7 months of gaming I have ever had. We had two rule look ups in seven months. Instead of 7 months of rules look ups every two minutes when playing 3.5.
I would be interested in maybe doing some kind of collaboration with Troll Lord at somepoint. I do not craft the miniatures myself, but I know a few good men who do. For now, however, expect to see some of my goodies up and for sale around the turn of the year.
It has been a pleasure meeting you all.
I am an avid fan of Castles & Crusades who first found the game when 4E was announced. I had been disenchanted with 3.5 and the upcoming Pathfinder and as a result of reading about 4E, I went and bought a ton of 2E stuff. As I read back through the rules of 2E, I got to where I remembered why I changed to 3E. I hated the over complex micro-management of 3E as well as the focus on "builds."
I found Castles & Crusades quite by mistake.
I was at my local game store and I was looking through the "non-WotC" section (it is very small there) and I cam across the C&C Player's Handbook. I opened it up, began to read, and I remember saying, "Holy crap! This is exactly what I have been looking for!"
I bought every C&C book they had at that store. I spent $40, they only had the PHB and the MaT. Still, two core rulebooks for $40? Hells yes.
Anyhow, with my newfound want for something more traditional in my role-playing (I'm just last month 28, so I'm hardly a greybeard...yet) I began to refocus my games (I DM and only DM) to be about more storytelling and better attention to things like atmosphere and the like.
Long story short, I came across a website called Otherworld Miniatures that designs and sells really nice miniatures inspired by AD&D. I spent about a grand there one day, and when I got my miniatures they were fantastic in every way except for scale. Apparently, when he said 28mm scale on his website, the owner didn't really know what that meant, if anything.
I still love the miniatures, I am just crazy about continuity.
So my favorite miniature line of all time is Julie Guthrie's line of Grenadier miniatures now sold by MegaMinis. Most of the miniatures at OW were scaled just dandy with my vast amount of PC miniatures, and that was great. Many were not, however. Worse yet, my favorite adventures ever U 1-3 were mostly underpopulatable by Otherworld Miniatures.
So I stole OW's idea.
I started the company in October and called it Secret Skeleton Miniatures because the name sounded cool to me.
I hired Jo Brumby to sculpt a line of Sahuagin inspired by the artwork in U 1-3 and Jason Wiebe to sculpt 25mm Bullywugs.
I took a personal hand in the design making sure they were a combination of the 1977 AD&D Monster Manual, and functional yet cool. My theme for humanoids is going to be multiple figure packs with interchangeable arms.
I mentioned scale, so here is my logic on that. Most gamers use one-inch grids to represent 5 feet. This tells me that 5mm more or less equals one foot, right? So instead of saying that I produce miniatures of a particular scale I am just going to take pictures of the miniature next to a ruler. I sold off all my Reaper PC types for this reason as my Player Characters were all seven to eight feet tall and my gnolls were barely pushing 6'5".
So I am still awaiting about a dozen sculpts to be finished (it is quite time consuming to sculpt them, or so I hear) and when I have them in hand I will put up the website. Iron Wind Metals, formerly Ral Partha, will be my production and packaging company.
I really have no intention of ever getting rich doing this, I just mostly want to have fun with it and spread that good ol AD&D era love around.
I miss the old artwork. I think 3rd edition is where the game ceased to be Medieval and more...well...I do not rightly know what. He-Man? It does resemble He-Man...
My company will be run to the letter, I won't be looting my own coffers. I intend to pay full retail for any miniature I take for my personal collection. I do not intend to go out of business, I am sinking my own money into it with best hopes of at least breaking even...so I can use that money to make more miniatures.
I have plans to mostly do humanoids, though I am going to make a line of miniatures inspired by popular NPCs from the Greyhawk setting, of which I love.
C&C is pretty going to be with me from now on till forever. It speaks to me rather well. I just finished up my first campaign with it and it was the most cheerful 7 months of gaming I have ever had. We had two rule look ups in seven months. Instead of 7 months of rules look ups every two minutes when playing 3.5.
I would be interested in maybe doing some kind of collaboration with Troll Lord at somepoint. I do not craft the miniatures myself, but I know a few good men who do. For now, however, expect to see some of my goodies up and for sale around the turn of the year.
It has been a pleasure meeting you all.