|
Post by historygamer2 on May 20, 2007 6:05:49 GMT -5
Hello oversoul, brynbrenainn, beatricebrenainn and shaungamer,
I would like to ask if you all would be agreeable to running an open and honest thread on the overall paper figure subject? The goal would be to to resolve or overcome some of the existing paper communities dilema's and try to unite it in it's common interests. By combining the brain power of the most capable and experienced contributors to this hobby located here, I feel something good could appear.
I look forward to your response.
Best regards, Historygamer2
FYI- I am not attempting to steal your forum and will not redirect anyone elsewhere. I have only become a member (openly) to ask you folks (specifically) to discuss this idea in an available open forum (ie yours) with all of your hobby and retail experience. If you do not wish to begin this thread I will understand.
|
|
|
Post by oversoul on May 20, 2007 6:27:01 GMT -5
I am fine with you starting any thread related to paper gaming. I am curious to know what you see as dilemmas and how you feel thet could resolved.
|
|
|
Post by brynbrenainn on May 20, 2007 13:26:33 GMT -5
I too am a bit confused as to what needs to be discussed 'open and honestly'. But I and my lady welcome you to the forum as well.
|
|
|
Post by historygamer2 on May 21, 2007 19:20:38 GMT -5
Thank you for letting me give this a try!
I hope Shaungamer is onboard with this as well.
My first questions involve the figures themselves. Without some input/concensus in these areas, one cannot start to discuss the whole concept logically. Call it basic groundwork I guess.
Do we need any more new figure designers or are people happy with the currently available types either free or for sale?
Is there a point in promoting paper miniatures or trying to get others to use them?
Are paper miniatures useless unless a game is produced to use them with?
How many people in the world would you estimate actually print and use paper miniatures?
Is there a real (worthwhile) retail market for selling paper figures or pdf's of them? I ask this specifically because I remember before paperworlds shut down, Oversoul games was going on a sales/retail basis. After a short time, I read you decided to return to free use.
I hope this is not too daunting a list.
Thanks again, Historygamer2
|
|
|
Post by brynbrenainn on May 22, 2007 3:14:05 GMT -5
Thank you for letting me give this a try! Yer welcome! I hope Shaungamer is onboard with this as well. My first questions involve the figures themselves. Without some input/concensus in these areas, one cannot start to discuss the whole concept logically. Call it basic groundwork I guess. Go aheadDo we need any more new figure designers or are people happy with the currently available types either free or for sale? There is always a need for diversity. Someone might want SciFi soldiers with big heads, others might want energetic diminutive warriors on oversized poultry... As long as the artist/s involved ar having a good time there can never be too many doing minis and scenery and what not.Is there a point in promoting paper miniatures or trying to get others to use them? That is a matter of oppinion. A personal oppinion of the artists involved. My oppinion is this: I like to do 'my stuff' and I get a boost from hearing others liking it. Therefore it is to my benefit if alot of people uses my stuff.
And as a general view on 2D vs 3D; Metal and plastic minis needs full 3D scenery to get a good overall look on the gametable. By the same logic 2D and 2,5D minis should have scenery in paper to get that flat feeling of paper minis.Are paper miniatures useless unless a game is produced to use them with? Of course not.How many people in the world would you estimate actually print and use paper miniatures? I have no idea.Is there a real (worthwhile) retail market for selling paper figures or pdf's of them? I ask this specifically because I remember before paperworlds shut down, Oversoul games was going on a sales/retail basis. After a short time, I read you decided to return to free use. Our main reason for not starting to sell our products is simple: We want our 'customers' to be happy with what they get. That would mean that we would swamp ourselves in customer feedback if we were to demand money. As it is now, we can do what we want, and people have to accept our way without the 'customers right to demand quality for money'. Others reason differently. There are many that sell there stuff. I can only speak for myself - and to some extent Bobby and Shaun....I hope this is not too daunting a list. Nope!Thanks again, Historygamer2 /B
|
|
|
Post by FNH on May 22, 2007 6:32:25 GMT -5
If Games Workshop allowed people to produce Paper Mini's of thier products you would see a massive boom in 40K paper minis across the world. It would probably only end, once all of the world's colour printer cartidges were used up.
|
|
|
Post by brynbrenainn on May 22, 2007 9:33:27 GMT -5
If Games Workshop allowed people to produce Paper Mini's of thier products you would see a massive boom in 40K paper minis across the world. It would probably only end, once all of the world's colour printer cartidges were used up. ;D Well... The way I see it, we carter to different markets. The 'real' Games Workshop customer is the modeller, the guy willing to shell up loads of money on 3D minis to paint and collect. The way I see it, they (GW) make it hard on the new gamer who wants 'That Honky Big Army With Bells And Wistles On It' but lack the artistic patience to achive it... Those gamers tend to find substitutes. And they tend to see paper minis as just - substitutes. wich they are not. So in a roundabout way I am back at my square one: Use 3D with 3D and 2D with 2D. They are two different roads to take in the hobby of gaming. On that note: Run out and get the latest issue of White Dwarf. GW's new scenery is super great looking! Had I still been a painter and collector I would be salivating and screeming for a higher allowance from my wife.... ;D
|
|
|
Post by squirmydad on May 22, 2007 15:16:54 GMT -5
Hi HG2, I recieved your email and I see Claudio has started a similar discussion over at paperworlds. So in the interest of open and honest communications my answers are here; paperworlds.papermakeit.com/index.php?topic=84.0To answer one of your questions from here, "Do we need more designers?" Yes. Variety is always good and artists tend to inspire each other.
|
|
|
Post by oversoul on May 22, 2007 19:12:03 GMT -5
Need and want are two different things. I do not feel we need any games. I feel people want entertainment. Need to me implies a finale, so if you need something and get it you are done. Want is more open ended. So as far as paper goes I feel people will always need/want them. So I do not think there even can be an end but if there was I would definately be against it.
Variety and creativity is a wonderful thing! What we do here at Oversoul Games may be played and enjoyed by a few, but it probably inspires lots more would be artists to start creating paper minis. And when I see those new minis I am inpsired to create more new minis!
I definately feel there is a point to promoting them! PJ and I are completely on the same page here. Paper is looked at as a substitute for other minis. When you look at paper minis for what they truly are, yuo see they are their own branch of wargaming dating back centuries. That is one of main goals with paper minis, to bring it into its own right in mainstream wargaming, on the same level with other minis! VIVA LA PAPEL!!
I think most storylines can be use paper minis just as effectively as other minis.
How many people print and us paper minis? With the downloadable game market steadily building strength. I can say the number is growing with it. Exactly what I cannot say but I bet its proportional. If we keep promoting them they will win the revolution one day!
The sales are there. The problem for us is the time was not there to focus on such an endeavor.
Now I said the sales are their but the problem is the mindset is still give the consumer a "substitute" So they try to hit a market that is already covered. Hence why our miniatures are cartoony. When was they last time you saw a 3D mini of a cartoon character that looked decent? Your mind just expects certain things for certain mediums. Paper minis is meant for silly cartoons and manga. If more artists focused on those targets they would boom proportionally to the downloadable market.
I think that covers it!
|
|
|
Post by historygamer2 on May 23, 2007 5:34:45 GMT -5
Okay, so we need more figure artists and it would be useful to promote.
I still question the paper pdf sale success, as I constantly see the prices being slashed. I have however seen quite a few various members post their reviews on some, so they are purchasing. I also have an issue with the idea of buying something and still having nothing. Everyone may now have a printer but print ink is expensive and to buy an unfinished product just does not appeal to me. The cost seems unproportional as well.
So the next questions would be -
Metal vs paper, Mega minis (NOT a sales pitch, example only) sells packs of 20 figs for $20. That's $1 a fig. Are paper minis (print ink cost) really cheaper than that?
Is everyone willing to pay for access to a product (pdf file) but not get a finished item?
Do any retailers sell and ship a printed version of the product? If so, are they cost effective?
Is printing figures at home cost effective vs buying metal figures (reg vs overinflated GW prices)?
What about terrain, buildings and scenery (ink use cost)?
Has anyone ever done a start to finished cost and assembly time analysis of paper figures?
PDF's in general - I do not like them. I cannot modify the art and you cannot see what they are as thumbnails, you must call up/load each and every one individually. I am I missing something? What do you think about using them (pdf's) for paper minis?
Squirmydad, Thanks for joining in and letting the folks at papermakeit know about this forum but I am only going to post/read/comment/interact here for now.
|
|
|
Post by mahotsukai on May 23, 2007 15:59:35 GMT -5
Everyone may now have a printer but print ink is expensive and to buy an unfinished product just does not appeal to me. The cost seems unproportional as well.
So the next questions would be -
Metal vs paper, Mega minis (NOT a sales pitch, example only) sells packs of 20 figs for $20. That's $1 a fig. Are paper minis (print ink cost) really cheaper than that?
That is, $1 a fig plus the cost of the glue to put them together, and the cost of the paint to paint them. Unlike ink that only needs 4 colours to create the vast range of colours that we see, paint comes in many and varied colours. I don’t know the going rate where you are for paints but they must be several dollars each. It would really challenge most artists to restrict themselves to the basic ink pallet of 4 colours.
Is everyone willing to pay for access to a product (pdf file) but not get a finished item?
Well most of us have been buying unfinished (unpainted) metal miniatures for the last 35 years with no problems.
Is printing figures at home cost effective vs buying metal figures (reg vs overinflated GW prices)?
Metal miniatures still have to be painted, so as someone who does both I would say definitely yes. Cost effective in time and money.
What about terrain, buildings and scenery (ink use cost)?
You still need terrain for use with metal miniatures and they must be purchased/constructed also.
Has anyone ever done a start to finished cost and assembly time analysis of paper figures?
Has anyone ever done a start to finished cost and assembly time analysis of metal figures? I have some figures that I bought 30 years ago still unpainted. Lol
Consider. I want 300 figures for an army.
In metal I have to buy 300 figures, I then have to paint 300 figures. I then have to base 300 figures.
In paper (assuming that I am creating the miniatures from my own artwork) I create 30 coloured miniatures on one page, print page 10 times. I then cut out the miniatures and base them. If I am clever I create the miniatures in base size blocks to make basing easier.
PDF's in general - I do not like them. I cannot modify the art and you cannot see what they are as thumbnails, you must call up/load each and every one individually. I am I missing something? What do you think about using them (pdf's) for paper minis?
I don’t know what OS you are using, but I can see thumbnails of PDFs on my computer.
Basically as I see it we have a chalk and cheese situation here with metal miniatures you get a figure and have to colour it, and with paper you get the colour and have to make it into a miniature.
Larry
|
|
|
Post by oversoul on May 23, 2007 19:28:24 GMT -5
I agree with Mahotsukai 100% here!! ;D
Alright here is a comparision of me in metal and paper.
The unit consists of 20 figures. In metal my initial cost is about $3 a mini for a total of $60 now as to all the paint and glue I will estimate another $10 since I am using small amounts of paint and glue from various containers. Now at my peak when I was a paintslapper I could churn out 1 mini with about a total of 2 hours of work. So I am looking at a total cost of $70 and 40 hours of work for one unit.
The same unit in paper. Has an initial cost of $5 for the pdf file. Now my printer uses $15 cartridges one black, one color. I can print about 12-15 mini pages with them before using up the color and about 20-25 before the black is gone. The standard is more or less 20 minis to a page. So 12/15 is 1.25 and 20/15 is .75 So it costs me $2 to print a page of 20 minis, so that is $.10 per mini.
It takes me about 10 minutes to construct a paper mini from start to finish, not counting glue curing time. So that is a total of $2 and 3.33 hours for paper.
Pdfs are a nice medium and I think they will always be there I personally would love to see more products like Ebbels ucm creator especial one that can export to pdf.
|
|
|
Post by brynbrenainn on May 23, 2007 23:38:19 GMT -5
Pdfs are a nice medium and I think they will always be there I personally would love to see more products like Ebbels ucm creator especial one that can export to pdf. A quick reply: You can choose to print to .pdf in the dropdown list of possible printers in print mode. UCMviewer can also export to .bmp and that file can be easily modified and resaved in any paintprogram. /B the .ucm advocator
|
|
|
Post by shaungamer on May 24, 2007 22:47:21 GMT -5
Sorry I am late to this conversation HG2!
Do we need any more new figure designers ? I would have to say yes! I embarked on a project to try and create two GW 40k clone armies. It took me 3 months to create most of the Figures and a couple of Vehicles for one army. I never completed it, and in retrospect, the results were less than satisfactory. The Second army didn't get past a few figures.
Ideally I believe figure modifiers would be more useful than figure designers. My original work really isn't that good, but I get heaps of praise for any modifications I do of other peoples' work. Checkout the "Den of the Orcish Raiders characters". These are modifications of a bunch of sketches Oversoul sent me. He graciously let me put my own copyright on them, even though they are a derivative work. Copyright will always be an issue, especially if there is any money involved!
Is there a point in promoting paper miniatures or trying to get others to use them? I believe that paper miniatures are worth promoting, but not for everything. My original intention of 40k armies was flawed. No matter what I say or how good the final product is, in that instance they are nothing but a substitute. And I think promoting substitutes is a losing battle. However . . . I think that making miniatures for "Historical" game rules can be effective. Purely because most of those rules don't have a specific miniature range created for them. There are some exceptions (Flames of War comes to mind) but in general these rules sets can be used with anything you have at hand. Where paper figures really shine is in original works. I can remember when the only "Stargate" miniatures available anywhere, were paper. And as mentioned elsewhere, I have yet to find a 3D (metal or plastic) figure of a pygmy riding an ostrich!!
Are paper miniatures useless unless a game is produced to use them with? The comments I made on the previous question apply here. It is pointless to create miniatures if they can't be used in some game some how. Pigs with Rayguns may look cool, but unless you have a ruleset to use them . . . .
How many people in the world would you estimate actually print and use paper miniatures? 9. That is going by the number of battlescene photos I have seen posted on the net. I can almost list all their names too!! No doubt there are quite a few more, but paper figures don't show up well in photos unless they are staged so it is hard to go by that sort of evidence. There are a lot of paper Model manufacturers who supply wargaming Scenery and figures, but these tend to be 3D rather than figure flats.
Is there a real (worthwhile) retail market for selling paper figures or pdf's of them? Not yet! But I think there will be. The current paper figures I see for sale do not utilize the strengths of the medium. One-Monk (Jim) is the only guy so far, who seems to be on the right track, but I worry about the quantity he will have to produce. I think Oversoul-games were also on the right track, but you have seen their reasons for pulling out.
Metal vs paper, Mega minis (NOT a sales pitch, example only) sells packs of 20 figs for $20. That's $1 a fig. Are paper minis (print ink cost) really cheaper than that? As explained elsewhere, overall cost of 3D (metal or plastic) figure in time and cost tends to be greater. It took me 6 months of glueing, painting and modding to gain six necromunda gangs of about 8 figures each. A team effort from 6 of us created all the terrain in the same time frame. It took me one afternoon, by myself (4 hours) to create four pygmy tribes of over 24 figures each and all the terrain to go with them. I know people go "FOUR HOURS!!!" but this includes everything.
Is everyone willing to pay for access to a product (pdf file) but not get a finished item? I don't think everyone is, but there are definitely some who do.
Do any retailers sell and ship a printed version of the product? If so, are they cost effective? In the English language locations of the world . . NO. But in Japan and some European countries you can get pre-printed figures. However Japan is now leading towards 3D paper models and Europe is heading more towards "Board" wargaming than true wargaming.
Is printing figures at home cost effective vs buying metal figures (reg vs overinflated GW prices)? Definitely!
What about terrain, buildings and scenery (ink use cost)? Definitely!
Has anyone ever done a start to finished cost and assembly time analysis of paper figures? No I haven't, But experience suggests it would be better than normal 3D figures.
PDF's in general - I do not like them. I cannot modify the art and you cannot see what they are as thumbnails, you must call up/load each and every one individually. I am I missing something? What do you think about using them (pdf's) for paper minis? I think PDF's are great for security conscious producers. If you want to keep control of your Interlectural property they work great. However you can also make PDFs security free (All mine were) and therefore modifyable. (is that a word?) If you pay the price for a full version of acrobat writer, you can also designate thumbnails for your pdfs, however you normally just get a reduced image of the first page for your thumbnail.
These are just opinions and I may be wrong in my thoughts, but hopefully they will give another perspective.
|
|
|
Post by squirmydad on May 25, 2007 15:00:01 GMT -5
Okay, so we need more figure artists and it would be useful to promote.
Yes. It never hurts anyways.
I still question the paper pdf sale success, as I constantly see the prices being slashed. I have however seen quite a few various members post their reviews on some, so they are purchasing. I also have an issue with the idea of buying something and still having nothing. Everyone may now have a printer but print ink is expensive and to buy an unfinished product just does not appeal to me. The cost seems unproportional as well.
Hmm, longer answer required. I don't see the prices being constantly slashed, except on things that have become 'shopworn' so to speak, such as items that are over a year old so their peak sales time has passed. The price slashing is often used as a promotional tactic for the next new item coming along.
With a pdf purchse you do get something- a data file. Granted, you then have to print, cut, fold, glue trim and base the models yourself. From my POV I don't see how places like Renderosity.com stay in business, why would I buy I a 3D model that I can't play with?
I think I see some of your point in pdf vs. metal minis though. For instance; you can purchase some metal ACW troops, dump them out of the bag and start gaming with them right away. Sure they look silly with their bare metal and their bent bayonets, but they are a tangible product. With paper pdf's you have some processing to do first. However, I can spend say $15usd to get several packs of 15mm troops and a gatling gun so I can field a small squad in metal....or I can spend $15usd to get a pdf file of the same figures, and make an entire army. The paper army will store easier too.
Next part - time. I have timed myself in my army creations. At my painting peak I was able to do an extremely good paint job on a squad of five GW space orks in one hour. Okay, they all had the same sort of paint job, used the same color palette (only seven colors), the same washes and highlights, and I mounted them and primed them and cleaned flash off of them before I started. Later I gave them nice bases and put on several coats of sealant.
As an experiment a couple of years ago I printed out several pages of ACW figures for a game and timed how long it would take to cut, fold, glue, and edge them. I averaged five minutes per figure/twelve an hour, with good bases. Paerworking is also less strenous on my hands and fingers; I don't think I can hold a small brush steady for an hour now.
So the next questions would be -
Metal vs paper, Mega minis (NOT a sales pitch, example only) sells packs of 20 figs for $20. That's $1 a fig. Are paper minis (print ink cost) really cheaper than that?
Yes.
Is everyone willing to pay for access to a product (pdf file) but not get a finished item?
Not yet, but the market is growing.
Is printing figures at home cost effective vs buying metal figures (reg vs overinflated GW prices)?
Yes.
What about terrain, buildings and scenery (ink use cost)?
I use to build terrain and terrain boards as a commercial sideline; paper is cheaper and faster. I make my terrain boards with full sheet sticky labels on black foamcore these days, very fast, very easy.
PDF's in general - I do not like them. I cannot modify the art and you cannot see what they are as thumbnails, you must call up/load each and every one individually. I am I missing something? What do you think about using them (pdf's) for paper minis? ?? I haven't had any problems opening pdf's in paint programs, what are you using? The only snag I run into is when I get the dpi settings wrong.
Shaun - change your number to 10 instead of 9; wwgallery.pcinfoman.com/index.php?cat=10201 Rocket sloops rule!
|
|