Long overdue update.
9 months ago – Fri, Apr 05, 2024 at 12:56:42 PM

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry about taking so long to post this update. The truth is I've been a little bit overwhelmed for the last few months, but that is not an excuse not to keep you all in the loop about the development of the project. This is not what I said I would do and I understand how this can cause distress to some of you, so I'm really sorry about that. I will try my best to do better from now on. And without further ado, let's get into it!

Tutorial production (Volumes 2 and 3)

We are almost done here. I only need to receive a few corrections for a few tutorials, as well as the community chosen tutorials, and we will be all set in terms of content. I'm still missing a few of the extra steps we unlocked for some of the tutorials, which in some cases are taking significantly longer to produce than I anticipated, but I think in most cases the wait has been really worth it because the tutorials are turning out more interesting than I initially anticipated too, so overall it's a good quality tradeoff.

Here are some fresh images from different tutorials, mainly from Volume 2:

As you can see, Sergey Popovichenko wasn't happy with his initial tutorial he made, so he decided to re-do the whole thing using better quality figures. It took a bit of extra time, but the result looks amazing and he shows a couple of interesting tricks that I think will be great additions to everyone's painting arsenals!

Henry's terminator squad ended up looking amazing as expected, and Jaime's monochrome tutorial turned into two different versions so you can add a bit more variety to the final result without going too crazy.

Tutorial layout

This is 80-90% of my work at the moment. It is taking significantly longer than I expected. This is because I'm taking a lot of time to carefully edit the text of the tutorials so it is as easy to understand as possible for anyone, which sometimes requires a lot of back and forth to really make the text work with each photo.

Also, I'm trying to find different ways of focusing on the most important aspects of each tutorial, I want to avoid as much as possible just listing a collection of instructions (paint x red, paint y brown, paint z black and you are done) and instead truly convey the most important aspects of each tutorial. Sometimes it may be the technique being used, sometimes the colour choices, or any number of other things.

This requires that I take a lot of time to carefully design each tutorial, and then some back and forth with the authors (who have all been amazing so far in this regard!) so we can make sure each tutorial teaches exactly what they wanted in the way they wanted to teach it, while making it as easy to follow and understand as possible.

Here are some of the latest examples:

Volume 1

We have finally closed a deal with Acrylicos Vallejo to produce the book using their paint range, which as far as I've been able to find out is one of the most if not the most accessible paint brands across the world. This is only very recent so we are a little bit delayed in the creation of the tutorials, but I think the end result will be so much better because of it. There will be more exciting news on this front soon, but I don't have all the details yet so I can't tell you about it at the moment.

The miniatures

I received samples from the factory after modification for plastic production, and I'm not happy at all about some of the changes they decided to make. I have asked for revisions so that the models have the quality I was initially promised and quoted, as well as contacted other factories in Europe so I can make sure the final product will be the highest possible quality. No compromises here, but this may mean we suffer a small delay on this front.

What does this all mean?

The combination of some content taking longer to produce than I expected, and it taking me more time than I anticipated to do some of the layout and editing along with everything else I've explained means the project is a little bit delayed. The honest truth is I think I accounted for most things that could delay the project, except for myself taking so long to get each article to the quality standard I want to present in the final product. I have a lot of experience managing the work of others, but not my own, and I'm finding that out the hard way.

At this point we are about 60-65% done, and my current plan is to give you a final estimate to completion once Volume 2 (the most advanced at the moment) and Volume 1 (the trickiest to get absolutely right) are 95% done so I can be really really confident that we will meet the estimate.

I know these are not the news most of you probably wanted to hear, but I can assure you that I and everyone else involved are pouring our hearts and doing our absolute best so that the final product is the highest possible quality we can achieve, so I truly think the final result will be worth the extra wait.

This is all for today, I will bring more news about everything as soon as I can. As always, thank you so much for your patience and support!

Helio

Community chosen tutorials - phase 2; Digital version
11 months ago – Mon, Jan 22, 2024 at 03:26:05 AM

Hello everyone!

Another short, sweet, and important update coming up. In this one I will cover the results of the last update, present the new survey to choose the models for the last few tutorials, and propose a digital version of the books that I'm considering to see what you think. I hope we can make it work!

First off, thank you so much to everyone who's found a quick minute to participate.  We have about a thousand responses which I think it's great! I've been monitoring the survey I prepared for the last update and once results stopped trickling in, I closed it and prepared the next one so that you can choose the specific models we will use for the additional tutorials.

If you want to go straight to the survey, no worries! You can scroll right to the end of the update and skip everything else :)

The results

Volume 1

Kris won by a decent margin! Now we need to choose between the helmet or bare head options, and the chieftain (sword and axe) or warlock (staff and empty hand) arm options.

Volumes 2 and 3

Volume 2 had a super close finish between the Blessed Sisters and the Human Empire, with the Blessed Sisters just a couple of votes up. Volume 3 had the same results but the Blessed Sisters had a more significant advantage, so we will go with the Human Empire for Volume 2 to have more variety and avoid repeats (we already have a tutorial on a Battle Sister on Volume 2 anyways!), and the Blessed Sisters for Volume 3.

Now we need to decide the specific models for each of these two tutorials, so I've put together a list with the most relevant figures, including pretty much all the basic infantry and a few special units from each of the factions. To be honest these are all pretty cool and make me feel like starting a new army, but I think it's not a good idea at least until I finish these books for you!

The digital version

Many of you have asked about this a number of times and I've always promised to look into it. Now I have, and here's my thoughts on the matter and what I've come up with to address those issues:

I strongly dislike PDF versions of books. They pretty much force you into using a computer to use them, since almost any other screen will be too small, and navigating the pages is always inconvenient to say the least. If you plan to use them as a reference while you paint, you'll need to change the settings of your device so that the screen doesn't turn off automatically; and they don't take advantage of the capabilities of the device such as being able to filter tutorials by difficulty, type of model, the paints you have; nor provide equivalent paints from different brands, be updated with new content or FAQs, include accessibility options, or any other helpful things you'd be able to get going with a truly digital version.

To address all that, I have come up with a different idea. What if we made an app that you'd be able to use across all your different devices, and would automatically adapt the amount of information it shows to conform to the size of your screen? We can make it a web based app so it's always compatible with all your operating systems and the content will always stay updated. Whether I find any typos or mistakes, include any additional tips or tricks, add new photos, create new tutorials... you'd have instant access to all of that from the same place, without an additional cost.

I have a ton of ideas for new tutorials we can include, new ways to teach miniature painting, and new amazing authors we can work with to bring you the best tips and tricks from the industry, but I need some help from you to make it all work.

First off, we need to think about how to structure the content. In printed books it makes a lot of sense to bundle a number of tutorials together to save on printing and transport costs, but in digital form we would be free to offer separate tutorials so you can get exactly what you want at a lower price instead of a big bundle which may not be entirely interesting for you.

We can also offer think about it like a subscription, with new monthly content at a reduced price, we can provide you discount codes to activate the content you already have from the printed books, we can maybe even include or link video content and other convenient features as needed.

There's a couple of issues though: it's not particularly cheap, and it can take some time to develop it. This means I first need to know whether this sounds interesting to you or not, whether you'd prefer one-off purchases or a subscription, and what would be a sensible pricing for the whole thing.

Please keep in mind one thing though: I am not about to charge you twice for the same thing. It's never been about the money for me, especially with this project, so whether we end up going the subscription route, the one-off purchase, or anything else in between, I will make sure to offer everyone who supported the Kickstarter for a printed book the highest discount I can possibly afford.

Last but not least, the timeline for this would be relatively far off. I won't start any work on this front until AFTER the books are ready to hit the printer, and that's still not due for at least a couple of months. Then we'd have to develop the thing, adapt all the content, and so on, so realistically it won't happen before next fall at the earliest.

I've included a few questions about all this in the survey below, where you'll be able to choose the models for the community tutorials, and let me know your thoughts on the digital version I've proposed above.

The survey

https://forms.gle/djq5MTQ7PJNSi5tm9

Thank you so much for your incredible support, your kind words of encouragement, your amazing patience with me, and the time you took to read my ramblings above. I hope they will prove interesting and we will end up producing something that will make painting miniatures easier and more accessible for everyone.

Community chosen tutorials - phase 1
12 months ago – Sun, Dec 31, 2023 at 05:39:18 AM

Hello everyone!

This update will be quick, but also really important, please read until the end. As you may imagine, we haven't made a lot of progress over the last few days due to most folks taking some time to enjoy the holidays with their family and loved ones.

Nonetheless I wanted to take a quick moment to wish you all a Happy New Year, and I really hope you enjoyed the Christmas festivities if you celebrate them, or any other chance you may have had to enjoy some time off with people you love.

Now to the actionable bit! Your amazing support unlocked not one, not two, but three additional tutorials, one for each of the books, to be chosen collectively by you. Let's get the ball rolling on that front.

Since the selection of figures from which we will be choosing is fairly wide, we will do this in two phases. First you will choose the faction, and once we have settled on the faction, you will choose the specific type of model from within that faction.

Volume 1

This tutorial will be written by David Arroba and Jaime de Garnica, and you can choose between one of our three figures, Adama, Kris, and Reo. In phase one you will choose the model, and in phase two you will choose which combination of arms and heads we should use.

It will be tailored to the highest level we will teach in Volume 1, to serve as an inspirational piece to which you can slowly work up if you are just starting with miniature painting.

Volumes 2 and 3

These tutorials will be written by David Arroba and Kendon Oates respectively, and you can choose from One Page Rules incredible range of figures.

To stay true to the nature of the books, we will be keeping to smaller to medium infantry models, so please keep that in mind when choosing the faction, you may find a really large monster from a specific faction very interesting but it is unlikely we will end up doing something like that, so try and choose a faction with some smaller models that you like.

The form itself

Please answer it as soon as possible, it only takes a few seconds anyways :) I'd like to start phase two in 7-10 days from now, which I feel should be enough time for everyone who wants to take part to take a look at the models and pick their favourites.

https://forms.gle/hmLUjCVbrtaAkF1ZA

The models

If you are not familiar with the choices presented, you can find our models (Adama, Kris and Reo) in the campaign page, and you can find the models from One Page Rules right here:

OPR Fantasy factions

OPR Sci-fi factions

Below is an image selection of some of those factions so you can take a quick look, but you are not limited to these. I just didn't want to include all of them to avoid the update being extra long and feeling unorganised.

And that's all for now! I will bring you more news as we move forward into phase two and then towards creating these tutorials and putting them together for the books.

Cheers and thank you ever so much for your incredible support!

Much delayed update!
about 1 year ago – Fri, Dec 22, 2023 at 03:20:29 AM

Hello everyone!

First off, I would like to offer you all my apologies. The last couple of months have been a little bit rough on a personal level and while I have been working on developing the books, I haven't updated you as I've should. I'm sorry, that ends today and it won't happen again.

We've got a few things to talk about, so let's get to it!

Tutorial production (Volumes 2 and 3)

Most base tutorials for volumes 2 and 3 have already been produced by the respective artists, we are only missing 9 out of 48 and most of those are very advanced, only missing the write ups or a few details to wrap them up.

The extra pages stretch goals have turned into squad photos for most of the tutorials, as well as extra bits such as alternative weapons, faces, or extra details for almost every tutorial, and those bits are now in production by the respective artists, with many of them already completed. We are missing 22 out of 48 (including the 9 above) and I expect to receive most of those by early January.

Below you can see some of the results of tutorials I hadn't shown you here yet, a couple of which I've received very recently (top image is from Volume 2, bottom image is from Volume 3):

Tutorial layout

I'm workin on this as I receive more and more tutorials, so far I have completed 8 out of 48 but this is progressing adequately fast. I'll show you some a few samples on my next update!

Volume 1

I've taken some time with David Arroba and a few other folks to deeply reflect on the development of this book. We want to make it as accessible as possible for everyone, so we have decided to produce an introductory paint set to accompany the book, working together with one of the most prominent paint manufacturers (not ready to announce which one yet, as it's still not on paper, I hope I can tell you all very soon!) so we can provide you with the smoothest possible learning experience.

The tutorials in this book will be produced using those paints exclusively, and if you so choose you will be able to purchase the set and rest assured that you have everything you need to tackle the book without needing to run to the store or order additional paints as you go, while keeping it as affordable as possible. Don't worry though! If you prefer to use other paints, it will be easy enough to match the colours to other brands. You won't necessarily need the specific colours, it's just a way we've thought of to make the experience easier for folks with little to no experience on the subject.

Additionally, we are a little bit delayed with the development of the miniatures. They are already sculpted, but I've recently received the adjustments made by the factory to produce them in plastic and I don't like them, so I'm working with the guys over at the manufacturing company to make sure the final product is nothing short of amazing.

Since we will be using these miniatures and the paint set to produce the tutorials of this book, we haven't been able to start yet, but some of the theoretical chapters are already in the works by the master David Arroba, so we should be able to wrap it up quickly once we have all of the above ready.

Pledge manager

I've received suggestions to include a few things that may be useful for beginner to intermediate painters in the pledge manager, so I've worked out some deals with a few folks to offer you a couple of things you may want to get with your books. We'll have a pair of high quality brushes from Davinci, a larger set with the best selection of brushes for speedpainting by Artis Opus, and a wet palette from Mindwork Games, which we will be able to offer to everyone at advantageous prices I think. I hope we will be able to include the paint set for Volume 1 as well, but it depends on the timing by the paint company.

This will hopefully all be ready sometime in January, I'll keep you in the loop.

Fulfillment

I've had a few meetings already, some of them fairly promising, but I feel like there's still room for improvement and I could get more advantageous terms for you all. I will continue to work on this front and keep you updated!

And that's all for now!

Next week we will talk about the three tutorials you need to choose, one for each of the books, and I'll provide you with access to a form to get that going and once that's done I can send the info to each artist so they can get the ball rolling on that front.

Thank you so much for your incredible patience and support. Happy Holidays for you and your loved ones, and see you in the next update!

What an incredible finish to the campaign! Thank you so much!
about 1 year ago – Sun, Oct 15, 2023 at 03:49:12 PM