One A Day - Day 2
Like many gamers I know, we we’re all introduced to tabletop gaming by Games Workshop. What ever your opinion on their miniatures, games, business model and practices without them, I probably wouldn’t be interested in tabletop gaming today.
Why start this article titled ‘MDF Rich, Cash Poor’ with a nod to Games Workshop? Well that’s fairly straight forward; and it’s not because I’ve spent a fortune on miniatures from Games Workshop, but precisely the opposite, I can’t afford to pay the prices Games Workshop are asking here in Australia.
Whilst my introduction to the hobby and my love of miniatures was founded on Warhammer Fantasy 4th edition, I’m one of those gamers with such a wide and diverse interest that the thought of paying $40 for a character model just seems outrageous.
What I lack in cash and my moral objection to paying “Australian” Games Workshop prices, I more than make up for in my possession of MDF. Given that my model kits have value to someone else, and perhaps they have miniatures sitting around they don’t need or want, why not organise a trade?
Over the years I’ve posted on the various Buy/Swap/Sell groups on Facebook looking for trades, for all sorts of things. “I’m looking for XYZ and I’ll give you a great trade value in MDF products from my shop.” Simple. And Effective.
The last round of trades I did was for some Space Marine models. After really enjoying painting the marines from the Indomitus boxset I was keen to add more models to the force and potentially, over time, rebuild the Imperial Fist army I sold years ago.
Up went the call on Facebook … “Will trade MDF terrain for Space marines”.
It wasn’t long before the messages started arriving with offers. Usually they went something like, “Hey Viv, I’ve got a box of blah blah, I want xyz from the shop, deal?”, “Deal”. I’m pretty generous with my trades, I can always cut more terrain right!
Then one message came in, it was a little different then all the others. “Hey Viv, I’ve got the marines from the Wake the Dead boxset plus [loads of other things],that I don’t need but you don’t have any terrain I’m interested in. I want some Zone Mortalis walls, can you make them?”. At this point I was already swimming in trades and had lots of miniatures to add to my Imperial Fists, but the greed hit me, the plastic crack addiction, my nose was itching so I said, “Sure! It will take some time, I’m talking months. If you’re happy with that then I’m happy to trade.”
I’ve been asked before about making wall sections for Zone Mortalis and Necromunda but I was never really sure what that meant. For me Necromunda was played on super dense, multi-level, refinery type boards. Not being an active 40k player or heavily invested in Games Workshop games that whole revamp of the Necromunda game had just passed me by.
As with every range, it starts with some research so I opened up Google and starting searching for “zone mortalis terrain”, “necromunda terrain” etc etc. All the typical things you’d do if you were looking to buy something. It didn’t take long before I knew what this guys was after and after a little more research and a few messages to people I knew the shapes and sizes of the components I’d need to design.
When I’m excited about something I can get involved pretty quickly, and with this project I really jumped into it for the first few weeks … and then slowly but surely, as predictable as snow in the winter (if you live somewhere where it snows in the winter time, it doesn’t were I live) the project started to drag.
Time for me, as I’m sure it does for everyone, just seems to disappear. Combined with my ADHD pulling me in all direction across 50 different things and my absolute lack of a memory, weeks started passing where I did little work on this project at all.
I did keep in constant contact with U-Wen, advising him where I was up to and what was happening. For someone who had handed me hundreds of dollars of miniatures he was entirely cool and very relaxes, even after the project started to span into months.
As I continued to share Work-In-Progress pictures and send queries about dimensions the project really started coming together.
“Hey dude, merry Christmas! I’ve been painting my boards ready for the first batch of these – again no rush, it’s Christmas time, but just wanted you to know I’m keen and will definitely provide product shots once they’re ready to go”.
Six months after I started this project, I get the above message via Messenger. I cannot say how incredible thankful I am to not just U-Wen but everyone I deal with. I’ve been so incredibly fortune to have worked with people that understand that “things just take time” sometimes and I just hope, for those that couldn’t work on “Viv Time”, that I’ve not pissed off to many people over the years!
Eventually the project was finished and the first few components of what might become many was ready to wrap up, enter product and complete the trade. The last things to do was give the range a name … the absolute WORST part of designing MDF model kits. What the hell do I call these things?!
After having a chat with ex-Knights of Dice designer, Scott Reid (now running his own studio – Tired World Studio), I cobbled together the name Titan Halls. I wanted something that sounded strong, chunky, heroic but at the same time vaguely representative of what they were … pieces to make hallways.
Even though I am saddened by how long it took me to complete this project, I am happy with the end result. There are more pieces I want to add to this set, but as at the time of writing it hasn’t really sold very well so I’m not sure how keen I am to invest more time in it …. perhaps that lack of sales is due to my shocking marketing skills, something we will discuss next time, in the next “One A Day” article.