Kickstarter: Pre-November Edition

So how do things look eh?

Tectonic Craft noting money is tight. Well, business may be a failure then. Blew through your initial stretch goals, have been selling on the internet despite not providing materials to backers and selling at conventions. Not too many avenues to go except the idiotic idea of doing a kickstarter to finish a kickstarter eh?

Dwimmermount continues to languish. I think it'll see print one day but it's on my WGAF list at the moment.

Steampunk Musha has joined it. While I was down for a lot of the stretch goals, that AFAIC, we'll never see, I know other people put 'REAL' money down on it and they are well and truly boned.

28mm Demons and Devils A package was packed on September 29th and well, it's October 28th. Either that package is lost or you know, it hasn't been mailed, which makes the mentioning of when it was packed... USELESS to the backers. No point in telling me when something is ready if you know, you're not actually going to ship it. More annoyed than anything at this point as again, I know the miniatures exist and have seen them up close and personal and I know the big Frog I bought separately at Gen Con exists as again, I have seen him, but the late shipping is not doing Center Stage Miniatures ANY favors at this point.

Imbrian Arts Miniatures is one getting so long in the tooth I've actually forgotten what is supposed to be due for those who did the miniatures for a year. I'll have to put together an Excel sheet just to see what I'm supposed to be getting.

Assimilation Alien Host: M'eh? This and Cthuhu are tied into the same publisher and dude has problems with his kids health care. You know what's coming first, but if you weren't late to begin with it would've already been done and won't be impacted. This is why I tell people stuff has a snowballing effect. "Oh, I'm only a month late because it was more work than I though. Crap, I have to move. Crap I have a chronic disease which is impacting my ability to work. Crap my car is dead." Once it starts pilling on you are well and truly boned.

Relic Knights: Now it'll be shipped, maybe, in December. How nice of them. If the quality is not outstanding I'll probably ship it back. I put up with that subpart crap on Sedition Wars and I won't do it again from Coolminiornot.

Cthulhu Mythos Foundry Style: Guy was talking about shipping out the resin models last month. Yeah, that apparently hasn't happened. Dude is talking about being out of sculpting clay? Oh... the time to know that was like, FOUR MONTHS AGO. Not now as you continue to push the project further and further back.

Drake the Dragon Wargame: Another one that's stayed on my m'eh list.

Fractured Dimensions: Supposedly in... January I want to say? Maybe February depending on how the sculpting for the KS exclusives go.

Project Name	Due Date	Date	Late Days	Late Months
Tectonic Craft Studios	6/1/2012	11/1/2013	-518	-17
Dwimmermount	8/1/2012	11/1/2013	-457	-15
Steampunk Musha	10/1/2012	11/1/2013	-396	-13
28mm Demons & Devils	3/1/2013	11/1/2013	-245	-8
Imbrian Arts Miniatures	3/1/2013	11/1/2013	-245	-8
Assimilation Alien Host	5/1/2013	11/1/2013	-184	-6
Relic Knights	5/1/2013	11/1/2013	-184	-6
Cthulhu Mythos Foundy Style	7/1/2013	11/1/2013	-123	-4
Drake The Dragon Wargame	7/1/2013	11/1/2013	-123	-4
Fractured Dimensions	8/1/2013	11/1/2013	-92	-3

My Kickstarter purchases have gone way down. Too many late projects. Multiple ones hitting the "hey, we can celebrate a year late and are working on that two year late point." Some companies, like Stonehaven, I'm still supporting, while others like Anti-Matter Games are also getting my dollars.

RPG companies? Unless it's by a company I know? No. At this point, I consider them too unreliable. I don't care what your system mastery of game X is or who you think you've got working for you. The industry is too small and incestuous with too many bonus features overdue already attached to some of these names for me to take it seriously. "Oh yes, we have writer X!" Hey, isn't writer X on project Z? And project Z is overdue? The excuses are starting to hit on some of those now as people are going "Well, it's nice that you're doing X, but why isn't Y done already?"

That is going to start hitting the miniature phase too as with all the access to people via public media, it's not easy going, "Well, I'm waiting on Sculptor A to finish that" and you as a buyer see Sculptor A doing a ton of stuff for other companies.

Anyway, that's my ranting about Kickstarter for the month of November. How's everyone else lists doing?

Kickstarter: The August Update

So where are the Kickstarters? Tectonic Craft Studios is over a year late. Dwimmermount is a year late. The book was supposed to be available at Gen Con but hey, that ain't happening. Steampunk Musha... I don't want to say I've given up on it but... 28mm Demons & Devils is supposed to be well and truly on the way. Imbrian Arts has sent some stuff out but I've yet to see any of it. Assimilation Alien Host hasn't seen out the backer's survey yet unless I completely missed it. Relic Knights isn't going to hit for several more months from what I understand. A Gallery of Rogues is due soon.

And we have two new entries. The Cthulhu Mythos Foundry Style and Drake the Dragon Wargame.

 A few other things have made their way over though including Wicked Fantasy by John Wick and the second wave of the Mantic figures. Good deals in both instances. Midgard Tales showed up. Nice physical construction on that book.

Project Name	Due Date	Date	Late Days	Late Months
Tectonic Craft Studios	6/1/2012	8/2/2013	-427	-14
Dwimmermount	8/1/2012	8/2/2013	-366	-12
Steampunk Musha	10/1/2012	8/2/2013	-305	-10
28mm Demons & Devils	3/1/2013	8/2/2013	-154	-5
Imbrian Arts Miniatures	3/1/2013	8/2/2013	-154	-5
Assimilation Alien Host	5/1/2013	8/2/2013	-93	-3
Relic Knights	5/1/2013	8/2/2013	-93	-3
A Gallery of Rogues	6/1/2013	8/2/2013	-62	-2
Cthulhu Mythos Foundry Style	7/1/2013	8/2/2013	-32	-1
Drake The Dragon Wargame	7/1/2013	8/2/2013	-32	-1

May 2013 Kickstarter Updates

Yeah, I'm a few days early but its the weekend. There are still some Kickstarters I want to back. There are a ton I haven't backed. There is a lot of doubt in my mind, as to how useful Kickstarters are to the end user. There are some where the freebies can be tempting enough to make one have an impulse buy, such as the Dwarven Forge terrain one going on now. There are others that appeal to me due to their unique nature like the Kensai one or the East Asian Village one. Funds being what they are though...

I've only supported two since my last report. I received my tax refund from the state. Last year I didn't as it went straight to parking tickets. They also charged me to use my money in that manner. Thank you Chicago! And then people wonder why the city population is shrinking eh? I went in for Drake and Dungeon Crawler.  My love of monstrous miniatures will be my downfall. Especially as I'm still waiting on so many to hit the shore.

28mm Demons & Devils: Late. Communication has been good. Turns out one of the perks, King of Dragons, aka Tiamat, was well underpriced and is one of the pieces that's going to cause this to be even later. Ah well.

1650s Rulebook:  Due last October. Communication has been terrible. I know I'd never back anything these guys do again even though the figures are awesome. I'd just order them after they were cast from some third party website or live without them.

Assimilation Alien Host: Not late yet but man, with all the drama going on involving Trollcast, Red Box Games and other bits, like Ed moving, I would be very surprised if this came in May.

Imbrian Arts: Remember when I mentioned drama with the above kickstarter? Imbrian was part of it. They were supposed to have several figures already sent out to certain level backers and well, that hasn't happened due to the Trollcast issue. We've seen some of the metals coming out and they do look fantastic so I'm hopeful with this one.

Reaper Bones: I signed up for a higher custom level pledge and Reaper responded by putting the complex orders at the end of the list because, you know, complex! In addition, I also signed up for a year of metal and Reaper hasn't actually put out any figures in months. Curious to see where that one winds up. You know, for example, an extension of the 'Year of Metal'. I suspect we'll get an 'official' answer on that one soon as the Reaper folks were busy with their convention.

Red Box Games: Tre is a fantastic sculptor. I'm glad he tried out a new method of delivering the goods. This one though is pretty much a disaster. Going on... seven months late.

Relic Knights: They already got ahead of this one and announced... yeah, late. Massively late. If I didn't back for some exclusives I'd have asked for a refund right away. I am weary of incompetence at these higher levels. This wasn't some small job, it pulled in $900,000+.

Tectonic Craft Studios: Dan is a nice guy. I met him at Adepticon. This is still a disaster. It will be almost one year late. I'd buy stuff from him again that was fitting a need or purpose, but man, actually funding another Kickstarter or anything like that? Not going to happen.   

Dwimmermount: Does anything need to be said about this one? Mind you, the communication has been great. Tavis has been in front of this one the whole time. While I probably won't back anymore Kickstarters, I will continue to watch and buy items that meet my interest.

It Came From The Stars: The book is on the way. I count no chickens before they are hatched as we still haven't got the final PDF. Another one that's going on a year late. Another one I put in for stuff for a year and well, they really haven't done much in that time period so a wasted perk even with the extension.

Midgard Tales: Something like vie months late going on probably six or seven? M'eh. I never liked the patron angle from Open Design because your paying a little premium to be part of the design process and really, I just want the goods so I'll always weight in the future unless it's some fantastic deal.

Pathfinder Online: So in January they met their funding goals and they still haven't been able to get people the freeibes even? You know, the PDF of already existing material? This one will be interesting to watch as it moves on.

Steampunk Musha: Wow. Failure all over this one.  I understand people get sick. I understand people have real life issues. But this is another one that's supposed to be from a game company. A game company that's allowed their 'official' website to go black.  One that mind you, has been putting out other material. This one went without an 'official' update for three months and we've head some improbably things like, "I thought the site was being updated!" even as they talk about how its an important project and will see the light of day! I gotta tell you, if it's an important project, you wouldn't "think" it's being updated because you would keep yourself in the loop in an actual professional manner and not have to have people bothering you on different social sites. Ugh. I have a lot of doubts about this one due to the unprofessional manner in which the game company has kept up to date on things. While Dwimmermount has its numerous issues, Tavis kept everyone in the loop. In the age of instant communications, a three month black out is unacceptable. These guys and my money? Never again.

So to me, it doesn't appear there is a huge difference if you're doing miniatures or role playing books. Running a successful on time Kickstarter appears to be something very difficult and something only a handful of companies have done in the past. I'm looking forward to seeing how Kickstarter continues to evolve as a means of funding as well as taking responsibility for the different aspects of a Kickstarter.

Does Not Thinking Prismatc Art Collection Has a Purpose Make Me Racist?

I've backed several kickstarter projects. I'm always interested in seeing what's happening. So when I saw mention of Prismatic Art Collection by several people whose opinions I respect, I checked it out.

Hmmm.... it rubs me the wrong way. Mind you its already funded and it looks like there will be some great art that comes out of it but...

"In geek culture, there are plenty of Lukes, but not enough Landos or Leias. "

I'm not saying its an incorrect assumption. However, is it necessary to tackle both racism and sexism in one product? Maybe hitting one then the other with the appropriate group of artist might be the way?

Even more off to me though, is that when you look at the list of illustrators, while there are a lot of de womens, I'm not seeing a lot of diversity in other avenues. Sure, I see some that have the traditional Oriental Adventure styling art there with that Eastern Dragon sample and other bits but really, Samurai and other elements of the east are missing in geek culture? Uh... no. Let me be clear here, there are a lot of solid artist on that list. For example, Amy Houser. Kick ass artist. My concern isn't with the talent present.

But when you've got people who are not native to the culture telling you that there needs to be more of it, I raise an eyebrow.

And it could just be that I didn't page through each and every artist bio. It could be that 99.9% of the rest of the individuals aren't white.

But me? I get... annoyed when white people tell me how they're expanding the horizons. I remember some hub about DC comics and their portrayal of women and minorities. I recall some Internet backlash. I also don't recall anything being really done about it. Hell, I believe some of those heated titles are some of the best sellers. Still, it's something that I've discussed with blog masters like the lord of the Crom blog site who loves him some Red Sonja when talking about many of the visuals for Jirel, one of the first woman warriors of fantasy. She usually winds up in the cheese cake variety despite her armor and weapons as described. But it sells right? Ugh.

I remember 3rd edition had some buzz about trying to integrate more ethnicity into the character portraits and because it failed they took revenge on the fighter. Heaven forbid that say take Shango, whose an African god that's even made comic appearances (yeah Firestorm!) and make him part of the core pantheon. Perhaps even make the dreaded African Throwing Knives into something in the Player's Handbook as an Exotic Weapon? Perhaps a licensed Imaro setting? Nah, we'll just kill the fighter. That'll show 'em.

Comics and art about minorities and minorities as illustrated aren't going to solve the problem if the minorities themselves aren't the ones doing the production. I live in Chicago. If you want a city contract, regardless of ethnicity, creed, or ethos, you better have some pull and you better be ready to pull out all the stops. If that means calling racism into question then that's what happens. But it's keeping people working.

Anyone can draw minorities and women. If you want such art, and now maybe it doesn't meet this kick starter designers goals of what is already out there but I'd start with stuff like Imaro by Charles Saunders and with some of the links he has on Facebook, go from there.

Minority creators are more important than minority artwork.

Or am I out of my element here?

On another note, is it just Internet buzz? I had Aeshiba, Greek Africa, way back in the 80's. It was one of Gary Gygax's Greek Africa bits that was generic fantasy. I also had those Dragon magazines that had kits and monsters for 2nd edition. Hell, I own Nyambe.

But see, when you talk about stuff like Nyambe and all the 'good' of the setting, and it is a good setting, it's not such a seller that it could be supported. Last time I looked I don't even remember seeing a Pathfinder version. Is it more Internet noise? Where are the buyers?

Ditto for fantasy. Night Shade Books reprinted the first two books of Imaro and Charles went the Lulu route for the last two and some others besides. Good stuff but so different than the earlier material... it went from sword and sorcery to epic... anyway, I've already talked about those books on this blog so I'll refrain.

And I apologize for my terrible artwork but it's been about ten... maybe fifteen years since I took up a pencil in anything resembling art style and I have no Photoshop or other decent software to do the touch ups that this needs but I'm just saying, anyone can draw anything.

Meet AZUBUIKE or at 20000 Names would say, "An African name, meaning "he has much strength," from Ibo azu "many; very much," (a)bu "be, happen," and íke "strength." (Anthropological Report on the Ibo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria: English-Ibo, Ibo-English Dictionary, Thomas, 1914).
Azubuike Oliseh, a Nigerian soccer player. (Wiki) "