Backlogs and Backwhales

It's time for an update on all things Mierce, Miercenaries! Today I'll be talking about backlogs, backwhales, beastmen, and brute-beasts...

Backlogs

The sales of our older painted miniatures has allowed me to fully concentrate on the production backlog; pushing offers and promotions is all very well, but I have to make the miniatures thus sold!

Bah. I just split the infinitive.

Anyway: I am churning away at the ograx of Baalor, still (not helped by two printers dying on me, one completely, the other needing a screen change), and I have produced a lot of them over the last couple of months. I now don't even have to think about which components go with which ograx. If I stop to think about how many different ograx components I now recognise immediately - thirty different warriors, five or six parts each - I realise this is both a good and a bad thing. Those hundred and fifty parts have definitely pushed important things out of my brain. Maybe. I can't remember which important things now.

I digress. if you haven't got your ograx yet, rest assured that it won't be long now. Most of you with a backlog still have shipment items and so forth from the old kickstarter days, so I'm shipping them from those, and combining them with other stuff where I can.

Clear as Night and Day

The ograx are night prints on the mega 8Ks; with the webstore order decks pretty much clear (meaning, there's no waiting for Grey Wulf resin orders), and the 100 Warlords orders done and dusted*, I can concentrate the day mega 8K prints and both night and day mighty 8K prints to deal with the backlog.

*If you're waiting on yours still, it's because I'm adding backlog things to your order

I'm working on the jutgār battle host right now, which includes various nobles, the jutsweords, the jutgār, the jutboḡa, the cnoll beetles and the midden beetles. The nobles are done and I'm already half way through the infantry, with just flips (mirrored versions of each warrior) to do, and that should take me a week or so. Two weeks at the most. The mega 8Ks will take care of the beetles as day prints. This means that before the end of April I should be able to start sending the first Jute hosts out. Huzzah!

After the Jutes, I'm going to do the backlog production in this order:

Day Prints

• Érainn fiannagh battle host
• Atalantes khalkotes battle host (the first one, with the korikolossi)
• The remainder of the hydrar battle hosts
• then it's onto the newer battle hosts; I hope to catch up to these - so that production occurs the same month as the digital release - within six months or so

Night Prints

• The remainder of the Fomoraic mallax battle host
• The brutal beasts. I'll be printing these simultaneously - meaning, each printer will have a different brutal beast unit each night, thus ensuring I get a good mix of them. This is because most of you have a few different units of brutal beasts rather than just one!

Backwhales

Fridays are special nights because I get to print very long prints - such as the backwhale, the last components for which were printed this very (last) Friday. Some of these Friday night prints are twenty-four hour or longer prints, so it makes sense to get these sorted over a weekend. Anyway; the backwhale master prints should be into rubber in the next week or so (I've got to clean them up, fill gaps etc., using my hobby bone), and I'm going to do the corpse dragon on the Fridays after that - although some of its components don't have to be printed on a Friday, so that should be quicker.

Note the clamshell body!

I know there's been a big delay on all of these guys, and all your patience is greatly appreciated - but I am getting there, I promise!

Sorting out the production backlog is giving me a great deal of satisfaction, I have to say; it was never intended to get so out of hand, but suffice to say I'm getting a handle on it.

Perfection is a Function of Time

Time for a little insight into the life of a boutique miniatures manufacturer.

Every so often, a bad print or a bad cast slips out of production and wends its merry way to you guys out there, at which point we understandably get an irate e-mail. Then we send replacements, of course, and I'm always, always diplomatic and hopefully very understanding in my replies. I'm a consumer too, you know?

So far so normal.

I'm not normally passive-aggressive; generally speaking, not a lot bothers me [these days]. If I get an irate e-mail, and there's no need for me to reply, I don't. Letting someone else have the last word is quite therapeutic sometimes!

Occasionally, very occasionally, maybe once in a blue moon, I get an image of a supposed misprint/cast that can only be described as... well, how it should be. Me being diplomatic by nature*, I still send replacements, but the devil within thinks "Look, dickwad. This is a hobby. No print or cast will ever be 100% perfect. Just get some bloody sandpaper or some green stuff and use your brain and your hobby elbow."

(that's the printable version, anyway).

So I'd like to remind you guys out there of two things, if I may be so passive-aggressive.

Firstly, we never intend to produce anything badly, so don't take it personally if we do. We are a very small manufacturer of hand-made miniatures (and yes, I do class 3d printering to be hand-making miniatures, because if it weren't, you'd get your stuff a lot quicker). We strive to produce something near perfect, but it never can be, because perfection is a function of time, and time is ever slipping away.

Secondly, this is a hobby. We do expect you, the hobbyist, to clean up mould lines (print lines to an extent), clip off mould feeds or remaining print supports, sand print bobbles, fill in print dimples, and cure other imperfections with green stuff and a bit of hobby nous. If you don't expect to do any of that when you get a miniature in the post, you're in the wrong hobby.

Having said all that, I'm not in the business of refusing to replace any part you are not happy with, so don't be shy about needing replacements... but maybe the above will make you think a little before pressing that send button.

*I've only been diplomatic in the last fifteen years or so. Diplomacy seems to be a function of time, too.

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaa

May should be a good month - because we've got a trouser load of gabrax for you! Rafael Callegari has already shaken off the Ysian blues and is deep into creating beastmen and larger beastmen for our next digital battle host.

Now these guys are not strictly goat-beastmen (except for Brunchaath); the gabrax are mostly sheep-men with a bit of goat, unlike the gul-gabrax, who are true goat-men. That means these guys are a little fluffier and a little less nasty-looking than the gul-gabrax, a bit runtier, a bit more comical even.

Even so, one thing I always try to do with the beastmen is ensure they don't have goat trousers on; a fully human torso with goat/sheep legs looks daft, so I try to ensure they are somewhat woolly up the torso and on the arms. Hopefully you can see that on these guys...

Next month's host will include:

• Herdspear Brunchaath

• Herdax Brunchaath
• Herdstone with Captive Pin Up
• Baagath's Herd, Great Cleaver Gabrax Unit
• Baamath's Herd, Herdspear Slan-Gabrax Unit
• Baabath's Herd, Herdax Slan-Gabrax Unit
• Graach's Herd, Gabrox Unit

They should warm yer cockles! Rumours of a free soundtrack to bleat along to are untrue.

Brute-Beasts

So, remember I was talking about a new monster tier at some point? Well, progress has been made on the first monsters for this tier - the Brute-Beasts for the Ysians!

The champion of the unit, Grom, and the running guy, are done; the third one should be done fairly soon, so I'm hoping to launch this before the end of the month. But we shall see... I'll show you more on these next time.

Until then, laterz!