The Empire Strikes Back - 40 Years

I would like to thank the one man who made Star Wars great on this 40th anniversary!
Gary Kurtz!

What? Who? Not George Lucas? Bullshit!

Although GL created a great margarita recipe by blending a lot of ingredients, Kurtz is the man who selected the quality of those ingredients, added his own seasoning, salted the rim of the glass, and added the lime wedge to finish it off.

Don't believe it? Watch the trilogy again and notice the striking change in tone between Episode V and Episode VI. I can distinctly recall sitting in the theater opening day of RofJ and seeing the weird cartoon characters in Jabba's palace, the belching frog thing sitting outside, and the torture scene with mechanical robots(!) and thinking to myself, "This is stupid! It's not Star Wars." And I couldn't figure out why it was so different until later . . . .

If that makes me a "toxic fan", fine. I say it's bullshit!
I still love the original two movies, not so much that goofy wrap-up with another Death Star and those damned Ewoks! I do admire Rogue One, and Solo for their contributions, plus the new TV things are cool like Clone Wars and Mandalorian. The rest of it I have zero interest for. But it all goes way further back for me.

Reminiscing

General Cinema NorthPark Mall - Dallas TX

So, it's May 21st 1980 in Texas. In the scorching heat, my best bud Michael, who I met in the 4th grade three years earlier, and myself are lined up to get tickets for the first showing on opening day of The Empire Strikes Back.

Michael (L) and me (R) - 1978

When we arrived, the line was already wrapped around the corner of the building. In those days the movie would only premiere on one or two screens in a city since each print of film could cost $250,000. We were seeing it on 70mm film for the very first time. So an hour and a half later we made our way to the box office, bought our tickets and then returned to the line to wait for the doors to open.

By this time we're cooked. Anticipation, fan chatter in line, and having to stand in the Texas heat, was all a part of the experience. One person standing in line in front of us was reading a paperback copy of the adaptation of the film. In those days, merchandise was released ahead of the movie like now, but spoilers had not yet become a thing.

So the line starts to move, everyone cheers, and we file into the theater. The rush of cool air-conditioning is a welcome relief! There are no assigned seats and no stadium tiers, it's every fan for themselves to get the best view of the screen.

With our seats secured and our eyes glued to the curtain, yes, in those days a curtain opened in front of the screen, we waited. The lights finally dimmed and a roar went up from the crowd. The 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm logos appeared and the fanfare blared, then fell to silence as the familiar words appeared:

A long time ago in a galaxy far,
far away . . . .

You could feel the heartbeat of everyone in the room.

Another roar from the audience went up as the the Star Wars title once again appeared and the familiar music transported us to that distant galaxy. The text was new, what had happened to our heroes since last we saw them? All that was washed away as the experience continued to unfold.

Every time I see this film it takes me right back to that place and time, on a hot Texas day hanging with my best bud, doing Star Wars stuff. If you had told me when I left the theater that day, I could watch that movie anytime, anywhere, at the click of a button:
I would have said, "Bullshit!"

I am a Texan after all . . . .

--Patrick--
The Sculptdude

Why We Bought a House and Tore It Down

Because many of you have asked how it's going with the property here is a brief overview.

In February of 2017 we began looking at options to move to in order to separate our business from the house. Bombshell Miniatures is five years old now and it has taken over about half of our home. While at first the commute was terrific in a work-at-home situation, as the product lines, production areas, and shipping/receiving areas have grown, we can no longer escape "being at work."

At first we looked at property in the mid-west, like Missouri, having a better proximity to attend shows and conventions, with an ideal climate. Later we determined this wasn't as practical and decided to stay in Texas near to family.

The houses in our area are in a seller's market with the current influx of businesses moving to the region. We have twenty years of equity in our current home and are very close to paying off the mortgage loan amount. This would allow us to buy another property outright and develop it to suit our needs.

LeeAnn Kearney - Realtor

So, in August with the help of our awesome realty agent LeeAnn Kearney, we finally found a suitable site at a price that was about 30% of the current value of our existing home. We purchased that property with the intent of renovating the existing house if it was possible. The property is a corner lot 12 minutes south of Greenville, TX and is a full acre with fantastic neighbors, a beautiful open view, and lots of space for development.

Throughout the entire month of September, Vicky and I set to task to do the demolition and determine what would need renovating. We knew there were structural issues with the added sunroom as well as some other areas that had flooded at the front of the house after a walk-through and a professional home inspection.


  

After tearing out the sheetrock and carpet to see the extent of the issues, it uncovered a lot more work than just a cosmetic remodel would fix.

• There was cigarette smoke damage and odor throughout the house
• There were live termites under the flooring in the sunroom and laundry room
• There was water damage and rot to most of the studs along the front and side walls
• No internal plumbing or drainage was properly run
• Attic piping to the hot water heater had leaked and caused damage
• Mold was present in all of the outside walls, studs and insulation
• The foundation had sunk below the grade of the drainage swell at the front
• The ceiling joists where the sunroom attached were not properly supported

So, after we tore enough of it out to determine the extent of the issues, we decided to complete the demolition and replace the house with a new modular/manufactured home. It would be a completely new building, all built to code, complete with a manufacturers warranty. Vicky and I visited Recreational Resort Cottages in Rockwall, TX to select a suitable floor plan and choose all of the options on the interior/exterior. This is the model we chose.

We hired SML Demolition in Greenville to remove the house structure as well as break up the foundation concrete and remove all of that. They have been fantastic guys to work with and have done a terrific job clearing the site for our new home. They managed to deconstruct the structure and salvage/recycle a lot of the materials.

  

We are expecting to receive shipment of the new house the first week of December and will be posting updates to our photo albums on Facebook as we prepare to move in. During this time, construction continues on the 1200 sq ft production facility and studio for Bombshell Miniatures. You can see all of the pics on the progress in the albums here.

Bombshell Acres

Bombshell Factory

--Patrick

Star Trek: Beyond

Star Trek: Beyond

*Spoiler-free review*

I’ve seen just about every Star Trek film on opening day since 1979 when I was 12. I can safely say that Star Trek: Beyond was probably the most satisfying Trek experience for me to date. It should have been called Star Trek: Beyond Adventure, because that’s what it’s all about. Although most Trek incarnations can get quite cerebral and heavy-handed as a morality play at times, this doesn’t let itself get bogged down in any of that. This latest installment of the franchise seems to be what TOS wanted to be from the beginning, immersed in it’s pulp sci-fi roots of pure space adventure.

Now, to be honest, I’ve always leaned a little more towards the Star Wars side of the fandom, but still grew up watching The Original Series frequently, and later through all iterations of the subsequent television series. I do not count myself as a dyed-in-the-wool “Trekker” in the purest sense, but I do know quite a bit of lore, etc.

The disdain for the reboot franchise notwithstanding, it’s pretty much what I want out of a Trek film. Simon Pegg certainly has a firm grasp on all of these characters and the script handles all of them in their truest forms. The subtle nod to TOS material is deft and off-handed, exactly the way it should be. My favorite thing about it was each and every member of the crew had a critical role to play in the story which reinforced that overall theme.

Justin Lin (several Fast & Furious flicks) certainly knows how to handle breakneck action,  which rarely lets up. The performances are spot on again and all of the new cast really makes these ingrained characters their own. The only thing I miss is Chris Pine pushing the Shatner-esque delivery a little more. It’s there in a few places, but I can understand it shouldn’t be over the top.

I can’t even begin to start on the visuals which are stunning beyond belief. The production design of the sets, epic vistas of space battles, and alien planets are just as detailed as the new magnificent layered and textured Starfleet mission uniforms. Everywhere you look is something new to discover. The visual style established in J.J. Abrams’  introductory installment is prevalent, but not distracting.

I thoroughly enjoyed it as an action flick and found it much more satisfying as an all new, original tale than the previous derivative installment. See it on the big screen the first chance you get.

Star Wars REBELS

I freely admit that it took several seasons to warm up to the Clone Wars series on Cartoon Network. It wasn't because I actually watched the series. It was because I saw the trailer for the premier episode movie. Evidently they packaged what were the initial three episodes to the series and released them as a limited engagement presentation theatrically to kick off the series. It is also on Blu-ray now. I have a copy.

I was really put off by the promos and trailers for the series due to the featured storyline of rescuing a baby Hutt slug critter that proceeded to belch and fart his way through every other scene in the promo. I was about as put off by this as I was by JarJar and wrote it off as something not-Star Wars.

However.

Some friends at the time were pitching a Star Wars RPG and we were planning to play in the Clone Wars era. Hence, we decided to watch a couple of episodes for inspiration. I will give anything three episodes to hook me. If I don't get it by then, it's a waste of time.

After a reluctant screening I was hooked. Not only were the episodes more reminiscent of the tone of the original film (ie. Ep IV) but it took it even one step further. The episodes were designed around a three-part story arc pattern that ended with mini-cliffhangers. This was the embodiment of the Saturday morning serials like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon in an updated format. I was totally in and became a huge fan of the series touting it as better than the prequel films (ie, Ep I-III).

Until.

Lucasfilm sold Star Wars to Disney. Clone Wars was cancelled and the new series REBELS was announced. I watched every promo and followed the development closely assured that with the same team as the previous series, REBELS would be just as awesome.

So far the results have been hit and miss. One of the things I miss is the textures on the models. In Clone Wars all of the characters and scenery were mapped with a hand-painted look that showed textures as if the colors were applied with a brush. This is missing in REBELS, all of the characters and setting are slick and clean, which is very unlike a Star Wars aesthetic. The second thing I miss are the three-part stories with the cliffhangers. It's still a bit too early to tell if this will show up or not.

Around 1978, after the original film had been running for a while, I would catch a screening of it at a nearby cinemaplex for only a dollar! This one was big because it had FOUR screens to show movies! Afterwards I would walk a few doors down in the same strip center and peruse the local mom'n'pop bookstore. I would buy stacks of Amazing Stories and Analog and even (gasp!) Heavy Metal!

Imagine how excited I was to get a copy of The Art of Star Wars with all of the cool concept art and photos of the miniature models. I spent hours of my youth pouring over the images in the book until eventually the pages fell out. That book has been a great inspiration and the concept art that Ralph McQuarrie produced for the film expanded the possibilities of what could be seen, way beyond the capabilities of filmmaking at the time.

So over 35 years have passed and the nostalgia is running deep! With the scheduled release of Episode VII next year and this new animated series, I'm starting to get that old-timey feeling again. The show producers have clearly stated they have drawn on McQuarries designs to influence the look of the show and that make it even more exciting for me.

I really dig the assortment and variety of the characters they have chosen for the crew of the Ghost. It certainly is reminiscent of the early character designs from the first drafts of the screenplay for the first movie.

Ralph McQuarrie art

REBELS Characters

I do think the character names could be more original and I am not a fan of the kid, Ezra, who is an Aladdin stand-in, minus the monkey. He seems to be the "audience" character and is continually discovering things during the story that he would know about if he lived in that setting. So I call lame on that.

Also, the action is played for laughs, which worked in Firefly, but only because there was still an edge to the danger. The danger in this series seems really nerfed compared to Clone Wars but I'm hoping that once the Inquisitor character shows up, things will get more serious.

Here's hoping.
Well, here's to a new hope . . . .

My Memoirs of Kickstarter

Ordinarily I don't write editorials and this blog is really about the miniatures hobby and my professional work within it. But, as you can see from this post date and the previous one, there has been a six-month gap between my posting here and the diversion I engaged in to fund my idealized projects. Over that time period the physical and emotional strain of working on the projects has caused my professional work to suffer, drained our savings, and damaged many of my personal and professional relationships. I am extremely grateful to all of our supports and enthusiasts who have contributed to these projects and participated in making them a reality. The main focus of this op-ed is mainly an observation of the community at large. The temperature of the community has seemed to have changed since the launch of our first project.

THE IDEA

I love being a freelance sculptor and ever since I was of grade-school age I dreamt of being some sort of a professional artist making a living from things I have crafted. It has taken me thirty-five years since then but now this is how I make my living, just like any other trained professional from electricians, to plumbers, to doctors, to mechanics. It is service oriented like the previous occupations listed but it is more like a lawyer who drafts a contract for a client or a carpenter who builds a fence on your property, there is a tangible item as a result, the sculpt. While these other professionals have a much larger service base, lots of people need or want their services, my area of expertise is very niche and luxury-based. The items I produce are for entertainment and the smaller market within that is tabletop gaming. There are only a handful of people in this industry who do what I do, and an even smaller amount who do it well. But at the same time, the audience for my work is also very small by comparison. Providing these services to clients is one thing. Making and selling produced goods is another.

The things I am about to share are my opinions and observations about crowdfunding, specifically from the angle of the tabletop gaming category of Kickstarter and the community that surrounds it. I have launched four 'successful' Kickstarter projects in order to fund my own line of female character figures, a special release kit, a vehicle release resin garage kit, and a tabletop battle game with supporting line of miniatures called COUNTERBLAST. And while most of these previous Kickstarter projects funded, the final project did not and was relaunched in order to make a more attractive project to backers.

THE PROJECT

I started developing the idea for the game many years ago. I had pitched the concept to another miniatures company in 2006 and even sold them several of the concept models for them to produce. Since nothing materialized with the game part, I stashed the concept until another opportunity presented itself. When Kickstarter became poplar as a opportunity to fund indy gaming projects, it seemed the ideal venue to present my game idea. So, over the course of time, we launched the other projects intending each to be stepping stones along the path to build the game project. We put together some initial pieces and ran demos at many different venues including GenCon. Reactions and feedback were always positive and we got lots of encouragement from the start that it was fresh take on the genre, even though it was retro in flavor.

Our first version of the COUNTERBLAST funding project was assessed at a $60,000 goal. Now, while this may seem high it takes into account many things behind the scenes that have to happen to launch. Rational thinking told us that we had 1100 backers on the Babes project, so if half of them returned to back this that would be around 550. If the “sweet spot” of items offered was in the $100 range, as most other game projects, that would be $55K making it very close to that funding goal. We were out of pocket for concept art, advertising, and professional services fees but had to take into account the addition of all of the projected costs that manufacturing the items would need, like cover & interior art for the book, printing, molding, casting, and shipping. The professional services included rates for our writers to make the game material and sculpting fees for all of the models shown on the project.

We launched the initial COUNTERBLAST project for thirty days where over the course of a week it met it’s apex and then stalled, failing to attract any additional backers over several days. We discussed the cause of this at length. We had a critical window for delivery so each day that the project sat there unable to attract any more backers, we lost valuable production time. Do we spend more money on banner ads? How can we get the word out to even more potential backers without it looking like spam? I was even accused of usurping free advertising on one Facebook group and subsequently I removed my posts there.

The more we watched the trend, the less likely it looked like it was going to fund at all. Do we just leave the project as is and hope for the best? Is that fair to the backers who have pledged early to let it languish for three more weeks only to have the funding fail at the end? So, looking at the recommendations from our backers and assessing what we could feasibly do, we addressed these three areas:

• We offered an initial rulebook as a PDF and not in print
• The Faction Core sets were too small and not a good enough “deal”
• Not enough “freebies” were offered

THE CANCELLATION

So, after rebuilding the project from the graphics on up, I took it upon myself to cancel the first project in order to relaunch and reduce as little downtime as possible. Our existing backers seemed amiable for the most part, however I was completely taken with shock at some of the vitriol that was posted about canceling the first version of the project.

These were taken from a prominent gaming forum:

“I like the ruleset, but have just lost the enthusiasm for this project that I had before it launched. Unfortunately Drake and Dreadball have all my monies now. Good luck with the relaunch though!”

Another Forum poster added this.

“What I don't get is why you pulled out of a campaign with 30k of 60k funded and 28 days to go. No, you don't get my backing again. That project was in all likelihood going to fund, and if it didn't you could try again. Instead, you pulled out without giving it a chance. What am I supposed to expect, that you thought you couldn't raise another 30 grand in 28 days? If you're not willing to commit to the project, you can get my money via retail, not up front with me shouldering your risk. There are more deserving projects on Kickstarter.”

Part of my response was this:

That may be the case. But can you explain how the merit of the material has changed simply because we want to restructure the funding project to add value to it? Has the writing or rules changed somehow? Is the sculpting of less quality now? Have the art or designs changed? It evidently hasn’t because you feel willing to purchase it retail afterwards.

I all likelihood it was not going to fund and looking at the Expected Projection tab on Kicktraq for a project does not predict what a project will do, only what the potential would be if every day was exactly the same as the actual completed days. To prove this, you can watch a project's Expected Projection drop every day the "Pledges per Day" and "Backers per Day" drops. This provides a completely skewed expectation in many backers’ estimations of a project because as the next graph shows, there is a distinct opening and closing rush to most every project.

THE RELAUNCH

So, we relaunched the project with a $15K goal and most of the existing backers migrated over to the new one. This allowed us to fund the project quite early, within the first day, and then offer new items as additional funds were pledged.

What was pretty clear after the first week of the 'new and improved' project was this was going to be all of the activity the project was going to get. It also confirmed that the first version would not have funded at all, anyway.

This particular pattern in the above graph of the revised project does not seem to be unusual. Looking at similarly structured projects to ours and comparing their pledge trends to ours it seems similar, too. It takes into account the psychology of many backers in the community. Why there is now a trend towards abandoning most projects in the final third of the funding period is very confusing to me. And this is not a psychological study, merely an observation.

This has happened on other projects that were similar in scope to ours, Pulp City: Extreme Edition and Empire of the Dead: REQUIEM. In a recent conversation with Dark Sword Miniatures owner Jim Ludwig, we discussed these trends at length. Is it that the projects run for such an extended period that there is not enough growth to offset the backers who will inevitably drop out? Would the answer be to run shorter projects? I can’t say. In running a shorter project you limit the exposure of the funding period and many who would want to back it may miss it, but then there is no sense of urgency to prompt backers to pledge early that the shorter project may offer.

So, in essence we netted about half of what we really needed in order to make the project viable. This statement is not intended to imply we will not deliver the rewards. We will still produce all of the items and fulfill all of the backer rewards on time, or as close to it as possible, as we have done on our other projects. But what would have allowed a bigger margin to develop more new models and get more art for the book are just not there.

How were we able to offer the same amount of stuff with less money? If I had to hire another sculptor to produce 25 models for a project like this it would come to well over $12K or more just for models alone. Plus all of the really cool interior art we had budgeted for the rulebook out of that $60K initial funding goal got cut. Our writers didn't get paid for any of the work they did. Also I have basically donated all of the existing sculpts to the project and will not get paid for the ones that funded that have not been sculpted yet.  It would be the equivalent of your boss coming to you and saying, “Hey, we have this new project we want you to work on. We can’t afford to pay for the work on it so we’ll need for you to work for free one week a month for the next three months.”

Well - this is fun, right? You love your job so that's it's own reward, right? Please see paragraph two, above. I'm sure many other professionals love their jobs, too, but will their lovin' pay their bills?

THE LESSONS

There are some really important things we learned on this project, as on the ones before. These impacted the look of the product shown in the project and hurt the excitement we could have generated to cultivate more backers to want the game:

• Our customers had been neglected since the Babes project so the backer level was less than expected
• Talking head video, backers want to see creators
• We had no book art nor card mockups to show
• Our models were not painted
• A very limited amount of concept art was produced
• We had no gameplay video at the launch, as it’s to fund a GAME!

Going forward, these are certainly things we will address. Our main focus now is fulfilling our backer's rewards while cultivating and growing our community of Bombardiers. The game has yet to be released to the wider market and the next few months will be extremely important to raise awareness and show how cool it is which will hopefully generate even more interest.

Will I return to Kickstarter to fund future projects? I don’t know. But in a conversation with writer and game blogger Tom Haswell (Second Class Elitist) from the League of Extraordinary Gamers, he mentioned something that we had already discussed here at the Bomb Factory. From a Kickstarter project with limited freebies and a non-40K clone to boot, 300+ people bought *our game* with the intention of playing *our game.* (300+ backers because some of the higher pledges are group or club pledges)  That's not a bad start out of the gate.  Given a small, invested player base a really tight product with great post-production values, and they'll play it with their friends.  Who will then buy models to play with more friends.

Patrick
~The Sculptdude



.

Motto for the Information Generation!

Thanks to the technological revolution, geek is now hip. More and more adopters of technology are staring to shift from the attitude that geek is, well... geeky. High school athletes and sports fans now dress in costume and paint their faces to attend gladiatorial events much at the fans and attendees at San Diego Comic Con. The cultures are merging and so we need a statement for the information generation that reflects the times.

In ancient Rome the mindset of this culture was:
"Wine, Women and Song"

In the hippie generation this was updated to reflect the times. The motto was immortalized in its own song by Ian Dury in 1977 :
"Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll"

But in the information age this now even seems a bit dated. So I propose an all new motto for the culture of internet, cel phones, streaming media and late night MMORPGers:

"PR0N, DEW and MP3s!"



I need to work up something to put on Zazzle for this . . . .
http://www.zazzle.com/pr0n_dew_mp3s_tshirt-235304726956801720

Con Recovery

I have survived yet another ReaperCon!

The week long ordeal couldn't have come at a more inopportune time with us being only a couple of weeks away from going to press on Warlord: Savage North and my pending sculpting deadlines.

But the entire experience was utterly incredible. Once again Vicky and I were welcomed as one of the Reaper Miniatures' extended family and given rock star treatment. The hotel they put us up in was fantastic even though they kept turning off the AC so our room was scorching hot when we returned in the evenings.

Vicky made a massive amount of awesome cake for the attendees which was gone by the second day of the show.

Ron printed sample copies of the book for attendees to preview throughout the course of the show. All of the feedback was extremely positive and everyone was excited about the new work. I took several new sculpts in various stages of completion and got lots of great compliments from everyone, particularly the other notable guest sculptors. The play-testers and designers even invited me to participate in a session of Crisis Point, Reaper's new super hero battle game that I have sculpted several pieces for. We both had a fantastic time the whole week.

One of the most exciting parts of the entire event for me was getting the opportunity to preview a small sample of my ultra cool and top secret project for the Reaper game line. It is a sci-fi battle game based on some of the alien characters I sculpted for their Chronoscope figure line last year. After passing around my little printed mock-up of the setting, I got a great amount of enthusiasm and excitement about the material from the Warlord development group as well as the owners and potential members of the design team. We will be putting the project on the schedule for publication and I'll be posting more about its development soon.

Utterly exhausted, I am now back at the studio to finish up the current batch of new sculpts and will be completing the rest of the work for the book. I'll be posting again soon with some new pictures of the figures and samples of what we're working on as soon as I'm able.

Sculpting for September

This full-time sculpting gig is great! I've really been able to get to work on some projects that have been brewing in the back of my mind while going through the whole film project process. Now that all of that is finished I can finally get back to my first original passion of sculpting.

I just finished two sculpts for IMPACT! Miniatures based on a couple of pieces of art they licensed from Matt Dixon. Those are off and away in the post - hopefully they will arrive safe 'n' sound.

In addition to that, I turned in an all new torso for the Spider Queen sculpt to Reaper Miniatures along with four other figures for their new Chronoscope line which they have posted on their site.

I'm currently working on six other pieces with the infernal "green stuff' and will post those as soon as I can. Also, I will be moving the content from the old MorganKeith Studios website to here since I will be continuing painting and sculpting in miniature. Vicky has now branched out into cake design and she will have her own web space with all of that stuff as soon as I can get the code finished.

More soon.

P -

The Bug

Hmmm. I'm thinking about sculpting something again.

But just for myself this time.

The last six months have been terribly disorienting with the uncertainty of employment, income and having to start all over in a career I have no real interest in pursing. That aside, the culmination of my creative endeavors over the last decade have all ended up at the same place. So, I have been fighting back a real nagging sensation of apathy.

Then I sat back and assessed the direction I'd like to guide my next creative aspirations. I took a little time off from projects and focused primarily on leisure pursuits until something began to itch in my brain. It's still there. I won't have a lot of time to work on it with my day-job schedule now. I certainly will no longer be able to accept any freelance commissions while currently employed where I am. That is not to say that I would turn down any legitimate, full-time, employment in a creative capacity, that is always my preferred alternative.

In the meantime, I will post what odds and ends I cobble together as I make them. Any other news about my previous projects Bloodwine and Ernor will always be updated on their respective sites once there is something new to report.

See you soon. You've been warned.