Posted by Choidivision on 29th September 2018

Amazons are great fun to play and deceptively strong, but the choice of miniatures for these teams is relatively limited. And so for the past couple of months, I’ve been working on creating one. I’ve focused on creating a diverse and interesting team which offers something different to what’s already available. Not only are there 16 unique players, but also a range of different physiques. I’ve been working with a concept artist, B. Mure and sculptor Tom Lishman ( Godtear, Dark Souls: The Board Game, Horizon Zero Dawn: The Board Game ) and have nearly completed the sculpts for the full team. I’ve gone for a steampunk-esque style as I think it fits well with the Amazon team while being a unique take, but I still want people to recognise them as fantasy football players, so there is a nod to early American football uniforms as well.

I’m planning on launching a Kickstarter campaign in October, so everyone has a chance to get their hands on the team. Master and production moulds are complete for the four blitzers and four of the linewomen, and the first run has been sent to Tom Hayward to start painting. Stretch goals will include Amazon star players, a human expansion (Ogre, two more catchers), Human star players, a coach and fan. It’s been a fun project to work on so far. Here’s what the process looks like:

Ideas and Concepts

I’m a fan of B’s fantasy style, so I was always going to approach them. They turned my ideas into excellent artwork capturing the look and feel I was aiming to achieve.

Once concept art was complete for a couple of the miniatures I sent them to Tom so he could start work on the sculpts. I wanted to get a couple of miniatures through the process, so I have a good idea of how long each stage takes. I also wanted to see what did and didn’t work once the concept art was made from a 2D drawing to a 3D sculpt. Working with digital sculpts makes it easy for Tom to make adjustments. You can see from some of the images that we made subtle changes.

Once a couple of the digital sculptures were finished I sent them off to Printmakr (http://steamforged.com/printmakr/) to produce hi-resolution digital prints. Each print can take 7-8 hours.

The 3D prints should just how much detail is possible with digital sculptures and gave me an opportunity to compare the miniatures with other manufacturers. Few changes were made at this point, but I did ask time to adjust the width of the tab as it was slightly too wide to fit into a slot base.

Readying for Production

Once eight of the first sixteen sculpts were complete I began the process of producing moulds. Printmakr were able to deliver ten prints in a much shorter amount of time than I expected. As each mould will contain four unique sculpts I sent eight of the 3D prints to Griffin Moulds. Within a week a master mould was produced, and the results from the first spin were submitted to me for approval.

Once approved, Griffin Moulds have the green light to create production moulds.

Current Status

Production moulds have been created for the first eight miniatures, and I’ve set a set to Tom Hayward (ECBBL) to paint, with the aim of having a team on display at the Eurobowl. Tom Lishman is completing the remaining sculpts for the main team and B. is working on artwork for the Star players. Both have been a joy to work with. I’m preparing the Kickstarter campaign and am waiting on the graphic design to be completed before sharing a preview, which should be ready in the next week or two.

Like most Kickstarter campaigns, there will be multiple tiers and discount prices for early backers. You won’t have to wait long! I’m open to suggestions for other stretch goals. What would you like to see? Reroll counters? Dice?

I’ll be posting updates here in the run-up to launching the Kickstarter campaign, and you’ll see new images on my Instagram account. The Project is now live: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exit23games/zenobian-zeniths-fantasy-football-team

Instagram Account: https://www.instagram.com/exit23gamesltd/

B. Mure (concept artist): https://www.bmurecreative.co.uk

Tom Lishman (sculptor): https://www.artstation.com/tlishman

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