July was a relatively quiet month where we did a lot of playtesting of Cyber Pet Quest and preparation for GenCon, as well as wrangle the logistical beast that is shipping and fulfillment for Lunar Rush and Omicron Protocol - Critical Condition Expansion. We are now 2 days away from GenCon 2023 starting, so if you're headed to GenCon, PLEASE come by Booth 2932 to say hi to us and check out the games!
The last week has been surreal... And since we haven’t written a blog post in a while, I thought I'd post this here to share.
Preparing for DunDraCon, GAMA, and JoCo cruise haven’t left me with much free time but I managed to squeeze in a couple hours of painting. Without further ado, here’s Lucky!
The blog has taken a back seat since the end of the Kickstarter campaign. The holidays were busy and we had a lot of logistics to figure out as we finalized our manufacturing plan and got started producing OP. Exciting times! One of the exciting developments is that we produced our first prototypes of the alt sculpt Bolt and Lucky miniatures.
Painting our models has been a great way for me to start learning NMM. The near-future urban setting has dictated the style of the models, which means the metallic bits are limited to a few small parts of the model, as opposed to many miniature lines out there that are composed of suits of armor, swords and shields, etc, which can be very daunting when you’re not quite sure what you’re doing. I’ve taken a few less successful stabs at painting NMM where I just bit off more than I could chew.
I’ve been trying to take my time to make our first run of metal models look as good as I can so we can take photographs and videos to build our Kickstarter page and attract people to our game over the next few months. It fits well with a long-time personal goal of mine: learn to paint non-metallic metals (NMM). On the other side of the coin is the mounting pressure to get it done already
It’s no secret that painting black on miniatures is hard. I learned a few tricks at GenCon, the two that stick with me are: highlights should be about 1/2 the size of normal highlights, and highlighting from black to grey often just ends up looking grey - it is best to tint your black highlights with another color like blue (cool) or brown (warm). Very few things in life are truly pitch black, tinting blacks can help differentiate materials on a model and reflect the world around the miniature.
I’ve had an airbrush for a while but I could never seem to get it to work for me. I read all about how to use my airbrush, how to clean it, what consistency to get the paint (milk). I did have some success, well ONE success: base-coating my palm fronds for my Guild Ball Fisherman’s goal. Even then the resulting mess and frustration was hardly worth the effort. But in the back of my mind I know I need to learn this skill if for no other reason than to improve my horrible zenithal priming method.
My current painting project is like no other in my experience. I am painting our first metal miniatures to use in photos and videos on our Kickstarter page. I’ve submitted models in competitions before but this is a unique sort of pressure, this is for all the marbles! I really want to push myself to do the best that I can. With that in mind I need to take an honest look at my strengths and - more importantly - my weaknesses.
It looks cool.
But honestly we’ve gotten feedback from players over the months suggesting that it’s hard to differentiate our named characters from the AI mobs that congregate on the board. They blend in too much with the crowd. This can have some bad repercussions in game, especially for new players.
I have finally gotten some painting in this week. I haven’t had a chance to work on any hobby stuff since I made my post on cleaning Shapeways models.
SHAPEWAYS "SMOOTHEST FINE DETAIL"
As first time game developers we are lucky to live in these times of bountiful information and helpful posts on how to bring a game to life. In our research we came across this very helpful article from Gate Keeper Games about how to get miniatures made. This led us down the path to Shapeways for our first prototype miniatures and the suggestion to use the material called "Frosted Ultra High Detail" which - at the time of this writing - they now call "Smoothest Fine Detail Plastic". With this material we are able to get prototypes made at 28mm scale for less than $10/model which is a fantastic deal for a pretty good level of detail.
But it is not perfect:
First blog post for Omicron Protocol, yay!
It's 5 days before KublaCon 2018 begins in Burlingame, CA, the "local con" for us and a convention I've been going to for 15 years now. I've been running game events for 5 years now, but never thought I would do it for my own game. Very trippy, exciting, and scary at the same time.
