My thought was that with someone close by a face to face meeting would be possible and it would be easier to communicate and recieve exactly what you want in a miniature. Ease of access to existing SFU artwork etc.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Thursday, March 25, 2010 - 08:26 pm: Edit

SVC said "Bumped into a game company that might be able to do prime directive figures." I sure hope so, that would be awesome.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, March 26, 2010 - 11:28 am: Edit

They cannot, it turns out.

Well, they could, but as they hire all the functions (sculpting, molding, casting) from outside their company, there would be no point in them being involved.

They did give me a couple of email addresses for sculptors but warned that both of them have six-twelve month backlogs of work and could not do anything anytime soon.

I have too many things to do, or I'd try to hunt down the local sculptor who was going to do them four years ago.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Friday, March 26, 2010 - 11:37 am: Edit

Darn, denied again.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Tuesday, June 01, 2010 - 04:27 pm: Edit

I know these are not "official" figures for Prime Directive, and it seems they weren't liked very much by anyone, but for reference purposes I have uploaded photos of my TFG Federation Marines on my photobucket page here: http://s992.photobucket.com/albums/af41/shantke/Prime%20Directive/

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Tuesday, June 01, 2010 - 05:19 pm: Edit

Haven't seen any of those in years. Neat!

By Marshall N. Bishop (Lordbishop) on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 06:56 pm: Edit

If you ask me it would be cheaper for both parties to come out with a paper model sets that are sold as pdfs online, for interiors of ships, crews, and more.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Thursday, March 17, 2011 - 02:57 am: Edit

SJ Games used to have a product line called CARDBOARD HEROES,

As I recall they did not sell well.

Maybe print-on-demand might make it feasible, except for the number of Steve-hours it would consume.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Thursday, March 17, 2011 - 11:14 am: Edit

A reminder, the Deck plans for the G1 PF, link: http://store.starfleetstore.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=S&Product_Code=8201&Category_Code=GPD
Has cardboard heroes for the Klingon crew.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, March 17, 2011 - 12:46 pm: Edit

For what it's worth SJGames e23 site has a number of "Card Board Heroes" type .pdfs that you can print your own with.

http://e23.sjgames.com/search.html?type=Miniatures%20-%20Figure%20Set

Including Cardboard Heroes

http://e23.sjgames.com/search.html?gsys=Cardboard%20Heroes

Most are Fantasy figures, but there are others.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, March 17, 2011 - 01:33 pm: Edit

I have my doubts if a PDF set of cardboard heroes would sell enough to pay for the artist. If we assume $10 for a set of 27 characters, it would have to become the best selling e23 product we ever had to break even on the artist cost.

Print on demand is tricky because we don't have in-house color printing. Printing out-of-house is about $1 per page, and I'd assume from the G thing that 27 people fit on a page.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Thursday, March 17, 2011 - 05:24 pm: Edit

What about re-using existing art? Dale's Klingons that appeared for the G1 deck plans set, or the marines being used for the SFM:A game, might be a good start.

At least enough to see if the idea has any interest.

By Marshall N. Bishop (Lordbishop) on Thursday, March 17, 2011 - 05:43 pm: Edit

If you need to fill space in a captain's log you could always put a page in there. Or if you create your own monthly product for Prime Directive you could always add them. Then as time passes people will need to buy back issues to obtain the minitures they need, Until you come out whith some sort of compilation product.

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Thursday, March 17, 2011 - 06:14 pm: Edit

Guys, the issue is making the art pay for itself. Paying for a bit of art in a CL isn't going to make the CL sell better (sadly). The character PDFs from other companies are not selling well on e23 (at least they don't seem to make the best-selling lists, even the ones that are minus SJG products).

Let's say that we ridiculously underpaid an artist and got him to create 27 characters for $5 each. We'd have to sell 135 PDF copies at $10 each to break even. Our very best selling e23 product has sold 118 copies -- if we looked at RPG products, then we haven't cracked 50 yet.

We have to stay in business to keep bringing you new "stuff," so that product is a no-go, unless our RPGs suddenly take off.

By Marshall N. Bishop (Lordbishop) on Thursday, March 17, 2011 - 06:48 pm: Edit

by my math it cost you $135 for the artist. Why would you have to sell 135 copies to get your money back on a dowloadable product? I am not trying to insult you. I am just trying to understand where the rest of the money is going.

By Reid Hupach (Gwbison) on Thursday, March 17, 2011 - 08:19 pm: Edit

Also if you are thinking Scale most ship plans Ive seen are set for 15mm plus all the old traveller stuff is 15mm, so my suggestion when it comes to Minis is the more things something fits the better they will sell, why make huge hard to game with 25 or 28 mm figs,15 are easier to fit on the deckplans, easier to transport for convention play and less expensive, a three way win

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Thursday, March 17, 2011 - 08:32 pm: Edit

Oops -- my math has obviously been corrupted by losing a decimal point!

Looking at Avalon's "figures," they sell "characters" for about a dollar. They sell single digits of these (the most sold that I saw were 8 of one set).

At a dollar, we'd need to sell 135 of them. If we, by some miracle, could sell them for $10, then obviously we'd need to sell 14 to make a profit.

However, our artists are far better paid than $5 per figure.

In addition, SVC would have to check all the art to make sure nothing sneaked in that we don't have a license for. All it would take is one bat'leth, and we'd be out of business. He or Joel would have to do the layout. And if there were any text, I'd have to do proofing.

(sigh) We'd still have to sell more of the art than we've sold of the best-selling (on e23) RPG book to break even on what we paid the artist. I'd want to see much, much higher sales of GURPS PD before I tried to push this concept.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, March 18, 2011 - 01:41 pm: Edit

Reusing existing art: The only suitable art is the gunboat crew and we're already selling color hard copies of those.

Using art from captain's log: There is no art in Captain's Log that's suitable, and there is no budget to add more art.

By Marshall N. Bishop (Lordbishop) on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 - 05:14 pm: Edit

I agree that making miniutures would not be a good idea unless primderective takes off. But I have one more question. Would it be possible to incorporate into your budget for a P.D. supplement a page of charcters to scan and print. You already have to pay for art. So why not give us art that we can use?

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 - 05:47 pm: Edit

Marshall, not unless PD takes off in a major way. Art costs money and we don't tend to buy new art unless it is going to pay for itself. As SVC and I explain above, there's no budget to add more art to Captain's Log.

The art we buy serves a purpose -- illustrating a story, usually. That sort of art isn't necessarily going to be what you want.

PD supplements/magazines will have to wait until I retire and move to Amarillo. The Steves just don't have time to take on more projects.

Sorry about that. I wish we lived in a perfect world and I were independently wealthy. Then I could perhaps subsidize some interesting projects.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 - 10:24 pm: Edit

Here's a crazy idea.

1. Ask Dale or Loren what they'll do one suitable character for. I am guessing no more than $25, but maybe we can get a deal.

2. Allow people to "fund' the art for a character of their choice, or just one at random. The result is more paychecks for the artists.

3. All of the art produced this way goes into the clip art pool to be used here and there. One "there" would be a page of characters. We could create the page, put it on e23, and send a freebie to anyone who "funded" a character.

I have another idea here I have to get Leanna to approve before I mention it. Jean, please remind me to ask.

And another idea, perhaps Dale and Loren have previously done some piece of art that they could "extract" one character from, and would do that for a nominal cost. I can think of some of Loren's art that was used in the threads story, and his orion girl.

By Reid Hupach (Gwbison) on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 - 11:06 pm: Edit

Ill take a whole harem of Orion Girls

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 - 11:39 pm: Edit

Well, if I'm going to be rolling out more art I'd like to do the coloring book.

SVC: I know you need that GCV ASAP.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, March 31, 2011 - 10:22 am: Edit

If you are clever, Loren, you can make art do double duty. Sponsored character art could be reduced to outlines and blown up to coloring book size.

By Marshall N. Bishop (Lordbishop) on Thursday, March 31, 2011 - 02:44 pm: Edit

Sponsoring art sounds like a good idea to me.