Friday, December 7, 2012

Heading towards a bright future... Some details about the upcoming Kickstarter


Calling all loyal Wappellians!  And everbody else...

I thought I would share with you all some details about that upcoming Kickstarter you have heard me ramble on about!

As you have alredy heard, we want to do a series of painting DVD's.  We have come up with almost 2 dozen titles thus far, depending on stretch goals, etc.

As of right now, the miniature lines we will be using are Raging Heroes and Urban Mammoth.  They have some big kickstarters of their own coming up, and we will be working closely with them!

The DVD's will cover all my painting techniques... shaded basecoat (the very first DVD), Non metallic metals (NMM, SE-NMM, etc), Object source lighting, Freehand designs, and so on.

I will be doing color specific DVD's on Reds, yellows, blues, greens, blacks, greys and more!  They will have fin titles, such as Yellow Alert, Black Out, Green with Envy, etc.

There will be flesh tone DVD's, such as the Four Fleshtones of the Apocalypse, covering a certain quartet of mischevious gods!

For those of you who have seen that recent series of sculpted bases, those will be tackled as well.  At least a dozen different titles there.

Should things go well, I would even produce some sculpting DVD's as well as Terrain building.  You sense the theme here... I want to cover just about everything there is in the hobby!

As Kickstarter likes to see unusual items in your proposal, some of the things we are working on as extras for stretch goals are T-shirts, novelty dice (in my case, dice that roll nothing but '1' s!!!), and even my own artwork.  I have interspersed a few examples throughout this post...



The basic format of each DVD will be like this:  Roughly 100 minutes long, each episode will be divided into five 20 minute long chapters.  I will start with an introduction, describing materials and concepts, and then get into the painting!


We want to have some form of text on the screen (perhaps scrolling along the bottom) that describes what color(s) I am using, and even basic technique.  This could help non-English speakers, and even those who have trouble hearing.

I would like it if people could almost 'paint along' with the DVD's, so that is why we like this format.


Some of the stretch goals would include actual minis with the disk, as in the one featured on a given DVD.  Lower level goals would have an unpainted figure, but higher level goals would have a figure painted by me!

Since Raging Heroes has informed me that they might be doing an entire army line of one race of miniatures, I would like to do a 'how to' DVD set on that entire line.


Some of the highest level goals would include a 7 stage set of painted figures, so you can get an in person view of what each step looks like.


One of the uber strech goals we had in mind was a very limited (perhaps only 10-12 signed and numbered copies) harcover art book featuring my painted miniatures.  It would feature an army, like the Tomb Kings, with the back story and descriptions of how it was created, etc.


So, we are working up a final proposal to send to Kickstarter, hoping to have it in their hands in a week to 10 days.  I will keep you all updated on how this is going... I promise.

I would love for this project to be a success.  My entire family were teachers in one form or another, and I think this is my best format for reaching the most people.  I have been fortunate enough to help many other painters along on their hobby path over the years, but this could be the grandest method of all!!!





19 comments:

  1. I'd sign up for it, sounds like it will be an awesome KS, as long as the pledges aren't too expensive for my wallet. I really hope this project will happen. Good luck, Wappels.
    ~Chad

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    1. Thanks! :-) One of the biggest reasons we have not been able to start it up just yet is that we want to work out how much things will be to produce, so that we can set a decent price for people. Also, setting a range of subjects so that people can learn as much as possible without needing all 30 DVD's!! ;-)

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  2. Replies
    1. I am really hoping that people can have fun with these DVD's. I would spend 24 hours a day painting minis if I could, so these videos are supposed to motivate people to abandon everything else they are doing and just paint!!!!

      All a vital cog in the plan to take over the world.

      The brush is truly mightier than the sword...

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    2. With a mighty army of Wappellians, we shall march forth to ultimate victory. Gaming tables in every store, dice that only roll 6's, electronic projection devices for blast templates so that they don't land on your painted miniatures... the list goes on!

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  3. I'm so in that I might have actually developed agoraphobia o_0
    Oh well, more time for painting...

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    1. The light at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train, it is a magnifier light!!

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  4. This sounds like such a fantastic project, I really wish you all the best with making it successful! You've got one backer right here ;)

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    1. Many thanks! It has been all the incredible support and feedback here that has fueled the drive to make this not just another 'idea' for the nebulous future, but a hard core immersion in miniature painting for everyone who dares to join...

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  5. You definitely have a supporter right here, my friend. I can't wait to see what you have cooked up in total...and will definitely have to restrain myself from wanting to buy 30 dvds and more!!!

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    1. It was very scary to see that the "reduced" amount of DVD's reached that total!

      What is even more scary is that Raging Heroes and Urban Mammoth have kickstarters of their own coming, and we want to join forces.

      As they add to their ranges, it creates more figures for me to base new DVD subjects around.

      2013 is going to be an incredible year.

      If this goes the way we would hope, it could open up lots of possibilities that I figured were out of reach. Given advances in technology, it could become possible to sculpt and cast some minis of my own... and create future DVD's on those.

      Since teaching is in the Wappel DNA, I finally feel that I am living up to the family creed. :-)

      Beware though, as there could be some hilarity included on the DVD's. In fact, you should bet on it!

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  6. Soo excited! Just a question: are you planning to release only disc-only dvd or also a download-only version (like miniature mentor do for example)? I ask this because I live an ocean away and shipping from the US is not that simple :)

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    1. Initially, they will be DVD's. However, we have been speaking with some tech friends of ours about that very thing.

      They have told us about various ways to do the downloadable versions, and that is definitely something we will do once we have the ability!

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    1. Great! There can't be too many loyal Wappellians as part of this. :-)

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  8. I'm in as well!

    I strongly suggest to consider downloads of the DVD's as well. I live in Sweden and shipping from the US is expensive and takes time. If given the chance I will always opt for the download instead of the physical DVD. Selecting the download option, pay via PayPal and be able to watch the DVD 20 minutes later is a moment's decision for me and will always beat the much bigger task of ordering a DVD.

    If say Miniature Mentor only offered physical DVD's I would not today have as many of their tutorials as I actually do.

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    1. Since we still have to learn how to do that, I will have that option as a goal for the kickstarter.

      We have some tech folks who are assisting us in that area, so I will keep you informed on the progress as always!

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