I KNOW THIS IS A LOT OF WORDS, BUT IT IS IMPORTANT TO READ, THANK YOU!
Hello! The project is garnering more interest as the sculpts have been shown (though not here yet funnily enough, I need to properly edit the pics and write a new post for all those!) so I wanted to update on how it’s all going! Also to be useful for new people – hello!
- The project started off much bigger than I anticipated, and following a long pause where I wasn’t able to give it the attention it needed, we had unlocked THIRTEEN minis. Incredible!
- Because of the popularity though it’s changed how I initially approached it, which is ok as I expect this to grow, evolve, and adapt.
- I haven’t advertised that this is a thing for a while – though I couldn’t resist sharing those sculpt pics – as I don’t want it to get too much attention while it’s still teething! Oops!
- The nature of the project means I have to sink a lot of time into researching and designing each miniature. This I LOVE. This is what I live for, I love it! When it’s one or two a month it is very manageable, but when I was first hit with the popularity I was very daunted, as it’s a lot of time. I jokingly call The Community Miniatures Project my second job, as, although it’s still part of Bad Squiddo Games, I tend to work on it on weekends and evenings as it takes all the weekdays to do the standard Bad Squiddo tasks.
- What I am trying to do at the moment is… catch up! So we can get to a nice rhythm of them happening regularly alongside Bad Squiddo standard releases and Kickstarters, rather than taking anything away from those plans (WW2 French is the latest project btw) I am more than happy for this project to go on forever – there is so much we can do with it!
So what does this mean?
It’s all good! Basically, if you are a blogger or anything, I’m politely asking you to hold off posting about it yet (though when we’re ready, that would be immense) I still want it to be on the relative down low while we’re in “Early Access” which is what it would be if it was a videogame! No doubt there will be a few tweaks along the way, which is easier when there are fewer people. For example, I might switch platforms from Ko-Fi if it doesn’t do what I need, but I won’t know til the first batch of fulfillment.
Don’t give me any more money!*
What?! I know right! of course you can really. If you have a subscription that you’re happy to keep plodding on, I won’t send you off. *And of course buy things from the web shop!
Essentially I want to get caught up to the point that there’s only one or two minis ahead. It was originally supposed to be “choose mini, THEN crowdfund” for each one, but you all went wild – WHICH IS GOOD. I just want it to be less frantic.
So I know you’re desperate to support, and you will get the chance! If you want any of these minis, either the ones who win this poll or the ones heading off to the casters – they have already been paid for by the crowdfunder – so when they are cast, they will be in the shop and you can buy them as normal. The collective pot is for future minis.
“Hello I am new and have no idea what is going on, help!”
No problem! You’re best to have a look around this blog and the FAQs, it’s where I keep all the information for the project so it doesn’t get lost around social media. In a nutshell, we vote for a lady we’d like in 28mm, chuck in a fiver each til we’ve hit the target, and voila she is made. Payment is via Ko-Fi (usually, just hold off at the mo!) which than then be “cashed out” at any time, and turned into a shop voucher. This means if you’re overseas and want to wait til you get a bunch of minis, you can do, rather than having to pay shipping for each one separately.
“Hello, I have money in the Ko-Fi, when do I get my voucher?”
Whenever really! If you can hold off til the first 6 are in the shop it would be super as I’ll have some sort of system in place then. And if you want to “leave the money in” for longer and say grab a year’s worth at once, that’s cool too. if you’ve forgotten how much you’ve paid in, let me know and I’ll check for you (you will also have Paypal receipts). What I will do is once the first 6 are ready and in the shop (not long, I was going to wait until they were painted but might not this time, if you’re ok with that, so they can be in people’s hands sooner), I’ll message everybody, like with a KS, and let you know how much credit you have and a link to a blog post with the info.
Thank you so much!
I really appreciate you sticking with this, especially as I am making it up figuring it out as I go along. Once we’re vaguely caught up and have the first wave in people’s hands, I’ll be able to streamline it…. probably!
Also, I want to make sure you know how blown away I am by the popularity of this! I definitely don’t want to sound like it being too popular was a bad thing, I just want to make sure you all know what’s going on with it, and why it’s a bit all over the place at the moment. Another side effect is that I am researching every nominee (only briefly) so my own knowledge is going up even with those. I LOVE RESEARCHING. It’s the best bit of the job. I have a huge collection of books on women in history and getting a good stack out to cross reference brings out the biggest and best nerd in me.
Facebook, our group “Baggy’s Cave” is where the polls and suggestions take place. I know this is a big bummer for those without Facebook, but it is currently the biggest place to have a captive audience and a record of all the votes (ie so nobody bot spams or anything). Anything outside of the polls (you can send suggestions anywhere!) won’t be counted, to keep it as clear as possible.
What next?
I have another blog post to make on the minis we have just sent to the casters, squee!
Community Miniatures Project 