Master Models for Expansion Heroes are Done & General Update!
We have an exciting update for everyone today, the master models for the Expansion Heroes are complete and work is underway on the molds! We anticipate the molds should be done in late July or early August which means we are are on track for physical production!
We decided to add art to the game cards, so that is slowing us down a bit but not terribly so. I will post an update in the coming weeks with an example of how they will look, it is quite an improvement and gives us an opportunity to show more of the world of Blood Throne visually. It also obviously just makes the product look more professional as well. We are about 50% of the way through that process, most of the art is already done we are just adjusting the layout of the cards to accommodate the new format. There are a lot of cards so the process is going steadily but it is a lot of work.
The only thing behind schedule currently are the rulebooks. As noted previously, the copy is all written, but the layout process and graphic design is taking longer than anticipated. As this is our first go at making a book we are learning on the fly we needed more graphic assets than anticipated so we are making them as we need them. However, the end result is going to be very good. As an example, the core game scenario instructions will have isometric maps with renders of the models and terrain which will look very nice. We also just finished up all of the color art for the core game rule book at the beginning of the month. That took longer than anticipated but the quality is worth it in my opinion. I will post an update showing off some of the art in the coming weeks. All that said, I anticipate this will delay us no more than a month or so, if that. And to be clear, in the timelines we originally posted I had built in a few months buffer to account for unexpected delays so I feel confident we can stick to our original timeline, perhaps off by a month or so. it is important to us to build trust and deliver on time so we are pushing hard to keep things on track. For the future we now know how to properly structure our workflow for the books to streamline the process and avoid delays.
As requested, we will be adding the option to purchase a neoprene version of the core game board in the next week on the pledge manager at Gamefound. Sorry for the delay on that but we had a bottleneck in the graphic design department and so it was put off for a bit. I am in the process of learning how to use Photoshop myself to help ease the workload. It has actually been a fun process to learn!
The pre-painted “sundrop” style option for the miniatures is in the works. We are communicating with our partners at Cuttlefish Colors to get the actual paint designed. As soon as we have a formula we feel will work and provide the quality we desire, we will add that to the pledge manager in Gamefound as an optional purchase for those interested.
I will have the retailer order form done this week, some of our retailer backers have been asking for that and patiently waiting so I wanted to be sure to get that done ASAP!
Lastly, I got the Blood Throne YouTube channel set up this week, once I am done populating it with content I will post the link. In order to get the podcasts on the channel as requested I need to convert them to video format so I will have to dust off my Premiere Pro skillset as I have not edited a video in ages, haha. The first episodes will largely just be audio with one or more images in the background but the plan is to have a video version of the show in addition to the podcast for those that prefer a visual format. Additionally I will post short videos explaining rules mechanics as well to help make getting started with the game as easy as possible.
And without further ado, here are the master models for the Expansion Heroes! As a quick reminder, the masters are very high detail resin models used to make the molds for the mass production models that will come in the box.
