We’ve made some huge progress on Wave 2 of the Community Miniatures! It’s been an exceptionally busy year so far, but I’m very glad we’ve been making some good strides – not as soon as I would have preferred, but still happy things are happening.

They’ve been painted! Yay! Thank you to John Morris (Mary, Audrey, Joan) and Jennie Ruskin (Ada) for these wonderful paint jobs.

These are not the final pics! I haven’t photographed them myself yet, these are the ones sent in by the painters, but I’ll have them all in hand tomorrow to do this.

I wanted to show you an update sooner rather than later though, as sometimes I blink and a strange amount of time has passed.

Don’t they look so wonderful!

The deal with Jeanne’s flag

What’s the deal? Well, I don’t have a full photo yet, but I will soon! She comes with an open hand, a printed flag, and a wire spear. The flag will be mirrored, so you can wrap it around the pole and secure it with a glue stick, making it double-sided. It can then be bent a bit to show it wiggling in the wind.

Thank you to Martin Whitmore for this flag artwork! Also Marty has finished the artwork for the Collector Cards…squeee! They’re so nice! The Collector Cards only come with the first 100 sold and they’re very nice – all hand numbered too.

So what are we waiting for?

*looks around shiftily*…… MEEEEE! Ok so I now have all the elements, it’s all just down to me now (Annie!).

Here are my next tasks:

• Figure the perfect size of Jeanne’s banner with printing and practical testing
• Order Jeanne’s banner from the printers
• Photograph each of the miniatures clearly
• Write up the character summary for each of the four ladies
• Design and proof the collector cards so they’re ready to be sent to the printers, including things like spellcheck and bleedcheck.
• Send the collector card files to the printers
• Edit the photographs of the miniatures and put together their packaging
• Send the packaging files to the printers
• Check the casts (most are here, the others won’t be long)
• Pack the minis with their nice printed packaging
• Collect the cards from the printers
• Hand Number 400 cards
• Pack all the pre orders
• Await your glorious approval when they arrive around the world.

One of the reasons the Community Minis take longer than other releases is all these extra steps, but well worth it, I believe, to make it extra special and “collector-y” as it’s about the whole process and not just the end mini (which, of course, is beautiful). If this was ALL I had to do, it wouldn’t be so major, but of course, I have to run the day-to-day of Bad Squiddo Games as well as our other projects and releases, so sometimes bits have to be juggled around.

Something I really enjoy about this project is it forces me to do what I like the best – sitting back and researching and highly considering the figure design. When you’re busy all the time, doing just ONE THING can feel like a waste, even though it isn’t; it’s just how our brains work and the nature of the times we’re in. So sitting and reading a book can sometimes feel “un-optimised” which is, of course, ridiculous, but the Community Minis Project gives me the “excuse” to do it. For example, it’s Saturday right now and I really don’t mind that I’m sat working on this. This sort of work is different to the “work work”, like taxes and paperwork, navigating updated shipping regulations, marketing, budgeting, stats, all those extra tasks that aren’t the “core” of what we want to do.

Hooray I have the things!

Yay the things! I started writing this on Friday and it’s Saturday now, so I DO have the painted minis, and as always – they’re even nicer in person. Excuse the DOUBLE ANNIE FACE, I am fighting against the algorithms more than ever and the maths robots seem to like my face, so if it helps the creations get seen by more, then so be it!

They’re beautiful, thank you so much Jennie and John. I was able to balance Jeanne’s spear in hand! You’ll see the bottom part is unpainted, that bit will be snipped off as the wire spears come in very long. Some strong clippers will do this, I don’t recommend standard hobby clippers as they can get dented by them!

I’m very happy with how the spear sits into her hand, and prefer this to a drilled hand option. I just have to be careful to not ruin John’s work when I put it all together! The glue may make the inside of her hand a bit shiny so I’ll put some matt varnish over that after.

Remember this mock-up of Danny Devito? I wasn’t [just] losing my mind! They are the real-life measurements of the pennant! Obviously Jeanne wasn’t the same shape and size as Danny Devito (though there is nothing to say she wasn’t…just sayin’) but its a good rough idea. I’m a visual person so just seeing the measurements didn’t make sense to me.

So, my next task is to print out a few different sizes of the pennant to find the one that works best. Based on this, I may tweak it up or down if it works better on the model. Once I decide on this, using my own printer and black-and-white paper, I’ll order the full-colour ones from the printing company. I’ll also muck about with different paper types and thickness too to get it just right.

You can pre order all of Wave 2 HERE and claim your free collector card!

That’s all for now!

Thanks again

Annie