Kindred of the Abyss: 3D Printable Wargaming Miniatures

Alright Folks!

I know you're all keen to get your hands on some Kindred, I am certainly keen to get the files out to you, but as its our first time on backerkit, its our first experience with the backend of backerkit, and there are a few timings I wasnt aware of when we started here. They all make sense, but now I can give a proper timeline. We ALSO have some small announcements and things to show off - So thats very exciting too.

Step 1: Payment
Upon the completion of the campaign, roughly $10,000 of pledges were 'failed collections' - Basically whether it be banks, cards, funds, users or platform, someone somewhere said no. Since then, this number has been corrected down to $6300. This is because people have the opportunity to find alternate payment solutions, try other cards, use a prepaid visa etc etc - Whatever alternate solution they find. This is because the payment collections on backerkit are done via stripe, and from what we can see, some banks and financial institutions take umbrage with this, and decide they should be allowed to tell you where and how you can spend your money.
Backerkits guidance on this is to allow everyone TWO WEEKS to correct payment information, because after surveys have gone out, you will nolonger be able to correct your payment and your pledge will be cancelled.

This doesn't mesh particularly well with out in house schedule, and our workdays, so we are instead going to give slightly under two weeks. This means there are 7 days from now remaining to fix any payment issues you might have to secure your pledge.

Step 2: Survey
All campaigns have a survey, and after this window for payment correction closes, we will be launching ours. For most campaigns, this survey collects information about shipping, options on items where required etc. For our campaign, it is mostly a formality. The survey is your entry point into the pledge manager, and allows you to confirm the details of your pledge before proceeding. We do have a few questions for our Commercial License tiered holders who will need to fill out some details, and we also have ONE question related to, well, marketing. We'd love an honest answer to this, as it will help guide our game development after Sisters of the Old Blood.

Much like the payment phase, the survey we do need to allow people time to complete and return. There is a limited window to do this (Two Weeks) so MAKE SURE YOU COMPLETE YOUR SURVEY WHEN YOU RECIEVE IT
This will ensure no further delays to receiving your files.

Step 3: Pledge Manager
Somewhere between Step 2 and 3 (Honestly, its a bit nebulous to me if you get access through the survey or after the survey) - you will be directed to the Pledge manager. Here you can alter your pledge, collect new add ons (if you want) and people will be able to late back. Late backing is more expensive, as the campaign is now finished, but for those late to the party it will be possible to dive in here. At this stage, you will be able to download your files through the backerkit pledge manager. You can return here to access your files any time through your backerkit account.

Summary
So ultimately it will be approximately 3 weeks before you can all download your files, this will be slightly disappointing to some, but for most, entirely normal with crowdfunding campaigns. We will be better prepared and able to forecast and warn people about the post campaign delay for our next campaign. However, with this said, there is a silver lining;

In all likelihood the FIRST Stretch Goal Miniature/s will be available for download alongside the launch minis.

Jackson has commenced sculpting the first unit, we chose this one for specific reasons related to scheduling the rest of the work behind the scenes. Rumor engine style, we are including a tiny snippet of a WIP miniature, you can guess what it is...



SO THERE YOU HAVE IT
That pretty much covers all the launch details, but we promised a few small announcements, so here they are:

We have officially found the sculptor of our bust for the Kindred of the Abyss - Victor Aguilar del Bosque - Victor is an exceptionally gifted professional and award winning sculptor - If you're a fan of the Mini Painting Youtube crowd, you might recognize the name as the sculptor of some of the fantastic wood elves from Miniacs brush box and model campaign and also Squidmars Champions of Sona campaign. Murray, Jenn and Myself have ALL painted models sculpted by Victor, and we love his work. So we were extremely excited to hear he was happy to be onboard.

We have ALSO found our Cutaway artist - You see, in searching for artists in this genre, it became increasingly obvious that this was somewhat of a dying art form. The amazing artists who created the visual dictionaries, star wars fact files etc that kids like me grew up on have either passed on or are working at extremely high positions in major companies, IE: Lucasfilm. So we were so glad to have discovered Juuso Laasonen - Having grown up with the same inspirations, Juuso has become extremely skilled at creating cutaway art - in fact one of his earlier pieces you might be familiar with, i'd certainly seen it around the internet numerous times!


This particular piece was considered, paraphrasing here - "A fun sketch for myself that I was hesitant to post"

Juuso has worked on heaps of 40k Fanart, which was certainly one way we knew we were right for each other, but he has worked on a huge catalogue of work, from commissions, to sketches, to passion projects


Check out his art here



That is all for today, we will be back with an update next Monday, which should be the Survey links for you to start filling out!
Thanks - Dave

Thankyou all SO MUCH - I asked Alysha to doodle up a little Kindred to celebrate, and it captures our feelings well. This project means a lot to us, it is extremely humbling and exciting to see not only how much you want to support Tabletop Time to continue as a youtube channel, but also how enthused you are for our ideas, miniatures and upcoming world on its own merit.

It is easy to feel isolated, unsure and not know if what you're doing really is as cool as you think it is - But you've all proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you want to see the Kindred. 1876 Backers is HUGE - This is a success beyond our wildest imagining . We are alight with enthusiasm for what to come, and we wont let you down.

THE PLAN:

Over the next week, I will be setting up pledge manager, so we can begin the process of getting the initial file offering out to all backers. From there, Alysha will continue to to create art, while Jackson commences the first unit (We've chosen the Submersible Crab-walker as our first unit to complete) - I will continue to use my time on the project to manage it and guide the final concept art development and the direction of the sculpts, bust and cutaway art - which we can now confidently commission. Once all of this is underway, I can move on to working on the lore elements for the kindred as we put together our lore and art PDF. 

As sculpts begin to be completed, Jennifer, Murray and Myself will commence the process of developing some core paint schemes, in much the same was as Games Workshop represents its factions with several major in universe sub-factions. We will also choose one of these schemes to become the primary 'Studio Army' and paint that up, ensuring we have great units for product photography as well as example photos for our lore doc. 

At the same time as these goals are completed, we will be uploading them and making them available for download, we are optimistically hoping for roughly 1 stretch goal per month, however that will wax and wane slightly as Jacksons workload with Marcher fluctuates throughout the year. He is extremely busy, and we are grateful for his time on the project!

Our next update will be soon, covering the pledge manager, so stay tuned over the next week for that. Thankyou one more time for your support - This has been such a joy, and we are beyond excited to bring the Kindred to you in ALL their glory. 

ITS ALMOST OVER!

Thats right, the campaign is nearly done, its been an exciting ride - But really, it means the journey is just beginning. Thanks to all of your support, the Kindred are going to become a fully fledged faction, everything we need for our mystery game system. A lot of people have pondered what kind of game its going to be, with the main question being "Full Wargame" or "Skirmish Game" - We cant give away much yet, and a lot is subject to change, but the simplest answer, which will also explain the scope of units in this campaign is "Somewhere inbetween"

We strive to create a game with a little bit more complexity, uniqueness and depth within its units, more reminiscent of classic Warhammer, however at a scope and scale that is manageable to build, collect and importantly, play. In house, I (Dave) have been referring to it as "Platoon Scale" - The forces at work in our universe rarely muster in large armies, and are more focused as raiding warbands. The presence of vehicles alone should suggest this will not be a 6-10 model skirmish game.

We have just revealed our final bonus stretch goals - However, we consider all of these a blessing and a boon - We had optimistically planned on our original 55k final stretch goal as being 'everything we need to make what we want' - And now we are in a victory lap of making things we want, but we didn't necessarily need. Cutaway art, An Artist Bust, conversion parts for darker more religious toned bitz for using our models in other games - Its fun stuff that is as much for us as you - And every single one we hit is just an awesome bonus.

We've Been Busy
While for the duration of the campaign we are limited in our capacity to push forward with the project (The point of crowdfunding is to raise the funds to do just that) we have given Alysha the go ahead to start working on some art, and we wanted to share some Bingi with you today. What is a Bingi? What is a Bingus Boy? What is this goal we unlocked?

Exactly.

Its time to find out, while we share in development concept art, through to a completed work done by Alysha Lowery.

So heres the scoop - The Bingus Boys started as a joke, an in house comment when I (Dave) was riffing to Vaughn and Alysha about characters for the game and what we should name the faction. A fan of ranting about nonsense, I threw the name "The Bingus Boys" into the mix, as an absolute joke. (Thats right, the Kindred of the Abyss started their life in production as The Bingus Boys.) However the name stuck, people liked it, we laughed about it, and eventually it created its own kind of reality. We imagined what Bingus Boys could possibly be, could we include this production in house joke in the faction and not destroy the integrity of the project? Of course we could.




We conceptualized the idea of a duo, brothers in the Kindred, and imagined them being troublemakers, with Kindred shaking their fist shouting "THOSE DANG BINGUS BOYS" as they caused some new mayhem. Like a dirty foul underwater Dukes of Hazzard, the Bingus boys slowly developed an identity.






We wanted to create a dynamic of a weaselly Kindred Reaver, the older brother who manipulates his Malformed brother into all kinds of heinous tasks. The simpler brother being somewhat like Lenny from of mice and men, not knowing of his own strength and compromised of intelligence.



We went through multiple iterations, playing with this idea of Nascar drivers, hillbilly stereotypes, dodgy gamblers, truckers, moving through various incarnations and never landing on something solid. Ultimately, we decided the boys were just too silly to fit in the setting, as models, as gameplay pieces in the faction. So we decided to adapt them.






The Bingus boys of old still exist, we imagine their distraught neighbors shouting after them as kids and teenagers, getting up to mischief and misadventure, but those days are gone. Now the boys are reavers, leading a particularly savage raiding band of some renown, known as being some of the most wild and vicious Kindred out there. Gus, the big lad, wields a Harpoon cannon usually mounted on ships and submarines, whereas Ben, the cruel older brother, has a penchant for hunting targets from afar. The annoyed cries of Ben and Gus eventually contracting into Bengus, then Bingus, and with some nice art, great models and a paintjob, the Bingus Boyz will be wreaking havoc on your tabletops soon.

What a journey already!
When we created this project we charted our our hopes, and planned them in stretch goals. With the knowledge that "If we hit all the stretch goals, we would have everything we need to make the faction for our game as full and complete as we could hope"

Well, because of all of you, we're there. We cannot begin to thank everyone enough for backing and believing in our project, from those who just like the models, those who are backing to support us, and the few of you who are also backing in anticipation of something yet to come - You are all making this possible.

From the outset of this campaign, internally we've had a lot of discussions about Stretch Goals, we've seen campaigns such as Trench Crusade make a stand, no longer adding more and focusing on using money raised to develop themselves as a company. We've also seen projects stretch themselves over thin on overpromising goals that are difficult to deliver, in our excitement for a Space Bears Campaign, we almost did the same thing. Jazza is still writing a book, over a year later, and the final model, Arctos the Great Bear, is only now almost finished sculpting.

After much deliberation we have decided to go somewhere in the middle. We see this now as an opportunity to expand the Kindred conceptually, and make what we have more established and 'meatier'.

What we do not want to do is promise a slew of new miniatures for the range for Jackson to sculpt, that then forces his workload to extend late into the year - Why would this be a problem? It would delay the Sisters of the Old Blood - We do not want to lose momentum on the wider goal, developing factions for a game world and being able to steadily focus on and release them.

So the first bonus stretch goal is for us. Its for our inner child, pouring over Star Wars fact files in the late nineties and early 00s. Cutaway Art. We would be outsourcing art for both Kindred Vehicles, showing the engineering and internal workings of the machines. These artworks will be presented in diagrams and added to the lore supplement, expanding the world in a way we could only have dreamed of a month ago. As a personal passion project of mine (Dave) this faction having engineering themed technical drawings of their complex mechanical contraptions is a dream, and something I feel people interested in the art and world will really enjoy. Its an awesome goal, and it adds to the kindred in a really unique way without adding to a growing internal workload (as outsourced art). Consider this goal a personal celebration! If we hit it, its our pat on the back, our self indulgence, our little cherry on top we didn't expect!

Our second bonus stretch goal is also really exciting for us - We will be hiring a sculptor to create a bust of the kindred, if we meet the goal, we can put up a poll to backers to ask exactly which character or model type they would like to see depicted. This will be a high detail torso up sculpture by an experienced bust artist, and designed with painters in mind. This kind of character study will not only be an awesome model to paint, but it also offers something for the painter in mind, in a campaign that is otherwise focused a little more toward wargaming. As we mentioned, we want the Kindred to feel complete, fleshed out and explored, and making sure all bases of the hobby spectrum are covered is important to us. If we are lucky enough to close in on these goals, we do have a few more to announce, including more weapons for our own models, terrain and finally... a secret new unit for the Kindred. Yes, we aren't completely ruling out new units!

So thankyou once again, its been an amazing ride so far - There are two weeks left, who knows what we could achieve! We'd love to hear your thoughts on our new goals, did you also pour over visual fact files as a kid? Or are you a painter who loves a new bust to lavish with detail? Let us know in the comments!

We have officially added a Merchant Tier!




So how does this work? Well many campaigns of this nature often have a tier or add on to provide a digital license for people to 3D print and sell the miniatures through their own service, be it a local business, website or etsy store. 

Occasionally, especially for patreon companies with constantly evolving catalogues, these licenses cost annual or monthly fees to maintain. 

For the Kindred, we are offering a non-exclusive, non transferable license to sell 3D prints of only the models contained and delivered through this campaign. This means people who purchase this add on will be asked to provide information regarding their sales platform so we can keep a digital ledger of all of our licensed partners. 

So if you are enterprising, run a small or larger business and want to sell prints of the models from this campaign, this is absolutely the way to go. Just manage your pledge and add on this add on, and we will take it from there when the campaign ends. 

There are more terms and conditions in the add on description itself, so make sure you give them a read. Hopefully this is exciting news for many, and we look forward to having you glorious merchants on board!

Thankyou - Dave