Hooray, out they go to you all! This means that Ada Lovelace, Jeanne d’Arc, Audrey Hepburn and Mary Fields are now in the shop, available to order as standard, for those late to the party or prefer not to pre order. You can get them here. There are still collector’s versions of them all as well, so not too late for that!
You know you’ll get the special card if the listing says “Collector’s Edition”.
Look at them all! I hadn’t realised quite how many there were until I spent ALL OF SATURDAY packing them! Brilliant, thank you!
I’m really looking forward to the next part of this project!
Wave 3 will be after Salute. Salute is a massive trade show we…..trade at, on the 13th of April, so it’s currently full steam ahead preparing for it, and I’m taking a week off afterwards! THEN the designing of Mary Read, Anne Bonny and Olga of Kiev will begin.
Minis 1-10 will be available on the racks at Salute! Squeeee! And hopefully I’ll get some leaflets together to link to this blog and spread the good word!
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.
L-R: Audrey Hepburn, Jeanne d’Arc, Ada Lovelace, Mary Fields
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.
They won’t share a card, I just popped them on here to show them off, they won’t have a watermark either!
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!
Audrey Hepburn was a winner in the polls that I did not expect – but a strong winner at that! It’s a brilliant chance to inform more people about this lady’s achievements, far beyond the silver screen.
Early Years
Did you know that in WW2, Audrey aided the Dutch Resistance? Only a girl of 11 when the Germans invaded the Netherlands, she saw first-hand some of the atrocities and did what she could to help fight them. Dancing was her passion, and she would dance at “black evenings”, secret underground fundraisers where the windows were blacked out and audience silence was required. There is something rather poetic about dancing for peace.
“Mum was more than a steel-butterfly; she was a battle-hardened badass.”
– Luca Dotti, Hepburn’s son
In addition, she got involved in more of the resistance activities such as carrying messages and supplies around the underground network and to allied pilots who had been shot down. Most wargamers will be familiar with the Battle of Arnhem, did you know a young Audrey Hepburn was there? She rescued and brought home an English paratrooper, a crime with severe consequences if caught – which, luckily, they were not.
Audrey Hepburn rehearsing at the barre, circa 1950.Audrey Hepburn stars in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)Hepburn was a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador between 1988 and 1993.
Much like the S.O.E, Audrey’s bonus power with the resistance was her natural camouflage of being a girl. In the early days of the French Resistance (less so later in the war), the women were overlooked as any sort of threat, which meant they could operate in plain sight. Noor Inayat Khan, for example, was caught right in the act of sending a message back to the UK by an SS Officer and winged it by saying she was just trying to listen to some jazz. Small Audrey could also be seen as neither threatening nor suspicious as “just a kid” mucking about, and this saved her life on many occasions.
Later Years
We all know that Audrey Hepburn became a major international movie star, a massive achievement in its own right. Still, I wanted to make sure more people were aware of what she did afterwards, when she retired from the screen relatively early to pursue humanitarian work. She worked with UNICEF worldwide in over 20 countries to bring attention to the various plights, earning a series of awards for her relentless efforts.
“The ‘Third World’ is a term I don’t like very much, because we’re all one world. I want people to know that the largest part of humanity is suffering.”
–Audrey Hepburn, 1988
Which era of Audrey do we do?
So, which version of Audrey Hepburn becomes a 28mm Community Miniature? It’s such a difficult question! Having discussed this with the community over on Baggy’s Cave, we agreed on film star Audrey.
One of the Community Miniatures Project goals is for the minis to be instantly recognisable, and one of her most famous roles was in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Whilst this doesn’t show anything from the above writing, I feel it will be a much more popular miniature than other versions, and it sets off the talking point of “Did you know….”
Sometimes in a quest to show women’s achievements it can be easy to fall into the trap of brushing off the feminine; this is counterintuitive. Audrey looks stunning here, and it’s not a bad thing or anything to be ashamed of or avoid. She survived through great risks and got to become that Hollywood star through her own determination and resiliance.
I haven’t sketched anything for the sculptor for this one as it’s pretty much this iconic image, with cat of course! No cigarette holder as it would be impossible, but I reckon you could convert one if you wanted with a drill and a bit of paperclip. We’re adding the sunglasses though to make her even more recognisable.
This will make a nice contrast to some of the other miniatures, as you can fight in other ways than with a sword or gun – in Audrey’s case, some of it it was dancing.
-Words by Annie Norman
(Ps – I maaaay be working on a WW2 Audrey simultaneously as it would make for such a good gaming scenario, having her intercept messages and run around the board undetected. Shhhh.)
The cards were the last part to get sorted, and I am so glad I took a bit longer with them, same as Julie D’Aubigny’s face. I went with Print Co. in the end, my office neighbours! They kindly gave me a tour of all their facilities, and I was very excited by their mega corner punch. I even touched all the different types of paper like a connoisseur until I decided on what I deemed perfection. You’ll notice they are so nice and soft! On collecting, they will make a lovely deck.
REMEMBER the really cool Collector Cards are only included in the first 100 orders. There are still [at the time of writing] some left!
THANK YOU to everybody who has supported this project, primarily through all the slow bits when I’ve been juggling a bunch of other things. Now we have some momentum, I’m hoping it can really ramp up now, and the space between voting the figure and it being in your hands will be smaller.
I’m putting the following rambles in an FAQ form, enjoy!
Which minis have shipped?
The first six. Julie D’Aubigny, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Ching Shih, Black Agnes, Zenobia and Harriet Tubman. All shipped!
What about the next four?
Ada Lovelace, Audrey Hepburn, Joan D’Arc and Mary Fields are considered Wave 2. They were first aimed to be shipped in December, but it’s now looking like late January/February due to sculptor and caster timelines. As well as me, I still need to design the next three – but we have Alan Marsh booked in for December so I will have to have the designs ready by then! Eep!
Why has my Wave One pre-order not shipped?
It’s probably because you have Wave Two minis in it. If you’ve changed your mind and want the first wave before the second, pop me an email and we can sort it, you will need to pay a second load of shipping though (unless you pop a new order in and ask for them to be added into that)
I ordered from both waves at once, I’m happy to wait until Wave Two is shipped, but I am worried about the collector cards for my Wave One, will I still get them?
You will! You have a box in the office with your order number and I have picked your minis and cards.
How do I know when ordering if there are collector cards left?
I’ll make a note in the product description, so far we have cards left for all.
Nooo I missed the cards
It’s ok! The minis are still lovely and the full colour packaging with John Morris and Andrew Taylor’s painting on are also lovely. The cards are an extra bonus to help get the minis out there sooner.
Can I get these from retailers?
Yes! It’ll be a bit longer than other usual releases, and they won’t have the cards, but they will have the Community Minis. It’s taken a while to figure out the best way to do this as I want to support the retailers but not make it EVEN MORE confusing, so them having the “standard” version works best, as the cards won’t be all over the world like a Willy Wonka quest. So the first 100 sold DIRECT will be the only way to get the cards.
When are we voting for minis 11, 12 and 13?
Maybe over Christmas! The designs for 7, 8, 9 and 10 will be ready then, so we can use the Christmas break to think about the next bunch. I’m gonna change the voting AGAIN as well. I haven’t 100% decided yet but one aspect I am considering is limiting each person to ONE nomination.
Can I give you money for future minis?
I can’t stop you, but I am advising against it until the new year, as I want to be caught up so we can “relaunch” the project more streamlined and less confusing… I hope. If you have a subscription and are happy to keep it going, that’s super cool, but it’s also ok if you want to pause it. I hope this makes sense, it may feel counterintuitive but I want it to get back to being vote, then pay, rather than pay, then vote. It makes sense to me! I want us to vote for only one or two minis at a time too. TLDR: Wait and all will be clear!
I want some of these minis but haven’t contributed to any voting or pre-payment or anything, can I…. have some?
You can! They are for everyone! You can buy them through the shop as you would any other mini. I am hoping with the “relaunch” it will be less confusing. This has been very much a project of figuring it out as we go along, hence why I am extra chuffed you’ve been so supportive.
Thank you to everybody who voted! 790 votes in total, which is impressive for sure. Third and forth were shimmying back and forth a bit while the poll was open but first and second were pretty much winning from the get-go. I am surprised by some results, yet not by others.
Over a quarter (29%) voted for the first four, so winning by a good margin. Special mention to Jeanne Hatchet who was SO CLOSE.
So the winners are….. ADA LOVELACE, MARY FIELDS, AUDREY HEPBURN AND JEANNE D’ARC
The next stage will be figuring out how these miniatures will look. I’ll make threads one at a time for each, but feel free to post (Facebook group, comments here, or any other of the social media or email) any information or wishes you have for any of these four – ie if there’s a certain way you’d like to see them as a mini or some common misconception you need to scream.
You can’t please all the people all of the time.
Apologies if who you really wanted to see as a miniature wasn’t voted for, it is the nature of the beast. She isn’t gone forever though! You can nominate her in the next round, and the next round, and the next round….! They won’t automatically be added to future polls, but so long as you nominate them, they will be there.
This means you have more chances to convince everybody why your suggestion is excellent. You can keep posting about them, maybe sharing other information and pictures and things. The joy of the project is it’s a neat trick way we can all educate each other. What’s the worst that can happen – oh no we all know a bit more about interesting women from history oh no!
An embarrassing amendment
When I was catching up after the hiatus, I miscounted the totals and therefore how many we unlocked. It said we are currently unlocking number 14, but it is actually 12. So 11 are currently unlocked. I wasn’t going to say anything so as to not look silly/unprofessional but in fact, covering it up and funding those extra two myself would be THE silly/unprofessional way! The totals raised don’t cover the whole miniature in terms of sculpting, moulding and production, but it’s enough for us to subsidise the rest after each total – ie you do X amount and we do the rest. SO it’s not a “free” project for me, if that makes sense. So adding two more wouldn’t have been a good thing for the project – ie massively overstretching myself/Bad Squiddo!
So hopefully you can understand my humble apology, again for the teething of this as a project. It means there is currently just one more to unlock, but well on the way to the next after that.
Contrary to this though, I do have one extra miniature that will be free to anybody who added to the ko fi before a certain date. I need to sort the date, but pretty much up to now-ish. She will be available as an extra purchase for everyone after this too. More information soon!
Thank you for supporting this, and I appreciate it can be confusing as I keep sending you all across the internet, but we will get there. I’m super happy to be able to bring these next four to life, and have you all help me with the deep, dark research!
SPOILER: I actually already made a start on Ada Lovelace and Audrey Hepburn while the poll was still live, NERD!
As always, any questions, let me know, and this blog is the best way for a concise “what is happening.”
Community Miniatures Project 