Making to Order

This week's ramble comes to you from sunny Mansfield, a small place in northern Nottinghamshire that is equal parts coal and equal parts tree. So, just tree, I guess...

New Euryalia

Rafael Callegari is hard at work on the Warlords; after finishing Penda, I've given him the task of the new Euryalia - see below - the new Ophios (thanks to his sterling work on the cawrdraig) and Alexandra. After that he'll most likely do Cadwaladr and Ingjald, too.

The new, human-sized version of Euryalia absolutely looks the part - she's absolutely terrifying, as well as somewhat alluring. The perfect balance, I think: she looks like she'd kill you after she'd had her way with you!

The two remaining warlords, Kraan and Eorcenbehrt, will be sculpted by Cleyton Amorim thanks to his amazing work on Rikkaard and the Jute humans last year. We're very much looking forward to seeing his work on these guys and in the future!

Futurism

Speaking of that, let's have a brief run down on what you can expect in the next few months, at least in terms of sculpts.

Once the Warlords are finished, which should be sometime in April (ready for production in April/May - they shouldn't take too long to do, being 90% human sized) I'll be tasking Rafael Callegari with the reiver horse (along with the new Kaarstan and Maari), which are the last remaining ‘big’ set of sculpts from all the various kickstarters of long ago. They should be done by May. He's also working on Garwald and his corpse dragon, and I will probably get him to complete that after the reiver horse, so you're looking at June for him. After that he'll probably do the rogue-drunes.

After Kraan and Eorcenbehrt, Cleyton Amorim will be sculpting the ghūlas and gryreghūlas for the Jutes, and I'll probably give him the nihtbats too.

Ivan Flaman is finishing up Gogamagogg, and once that's done he'll be doing the gabrox and the new oghurüc; I will probably get him to do the new brutes, too.

After all of that, only the ḡeoguth remain - so I am very confident we'll have all the sculpts, if not the production, done for all the old kickstarter projects by the autumn.

Making to Order

In terms of production of the kickstarter orders, they will only begin once the sculpts are done, fairly obviously, and we do have a lot to produce so it will be towards the back end of the year before all the kickstarter orders are done and dusted. Obviously it's been a very long wait for some of you, for which, as always, I can only apologise - but as I always say, we do get there in the end...

If you weren't already aware, we had to shift to a ‘make to order’ business last year simply because we didn't/don't have enough wherewithal (in human or material terms) to make orders and make stock. This does impact the time it takes to get orders out to you, especially because of the backlog; current production is a balance between getting new orders completed in a short enough time so that people don't get too annoyed with us and trying to get the Grey Wulf backlog done.

Needless to say, promotions - which are essential to our cashflow - add to what we have to do, but if there's a choice between getting no orders in and doing a promotion I'll always do a promotion. Those wulfas at the door need feeding, after all, especially that mangy beast we call Starmergeddon. But that's a moan for another day.

Suffice to say - we are getting through the backlog, slowly, and the boys are managing to keep up with current orders... mostly. As always, if you want to get in touch and berate me about where your order is, please feel free to do so!

I'll leave you with two images: the Vras war tower beastie (in rubber next week)...

...and our lovely studio paintjob by George Bocking of Fornjötr the giant, er, giant...