OK, Jamie. Well, you're here on the podcast
to talk about yourself initially and then we're going to talk
about this very exciting Kickstarter that's been highly
anticipated by many who follow you on Facebook for a number of
years now. So before we get there mate,
let's talk about yourself and and about your company.
Yeah, definitely. So I've been wargaming since I
was about nine years old. I started with Lord of the Rings
Fellowship of the Ring when that came out in cinema, and I always
wanted to work in Wargaming. And when I was growing up, I
always wanted to work for Games Workshop because I love Lord of
the Rings. I loved Warhammer Fantasy 40 KA
little bit. And I guess about eight years
ago I started working in Wargaming for a company called
Rubicon Models. I don't know if you've heard of
them. They make 28 N scale plastic
tanks. Yeah, not out of them, mate.
No. Oh, they're they're really,
really cool. They make World War 2 tanks, and
in the last couple of years they've been doing Cold War
stuff as well. Really enjoyed working there
because I got into like Bolt Action and World War 2 War
gaming after I left there. I've done like bits of freelance
work for different war gaming companies, but for the last
nearly six years, it was six years in October.
I've worked for a company called Amar by Mook MNS who produced
paints and weathering products and all that sort of thing.
And in the background to that I've been trying to make my own
little war gaming company and produce my own figures.
I started with some 28 Nile scale World War 2 Polish
figures, but then I released those on Kickstart.
It was a lot of fun and I wanted to do more figures since and I
got really nostalgic during lockdown for like square bases
and the 6th edition one on a fantasy and metal fantasy
figures. Figures that are like super
heavy and bulky and have that like old school aesthetic.
And that's when I started the Dwarfs that I'm about to
release. I was like browsing Facebook one
day and saw a sculptor in Spain called Sergio Alonzo Leon.
He was sculpting models that kind of remind me of the models
from when I was younger. And I was like, oh, I've got to
try and do something. And luckily I wrote to him and
he was up for sculpting some dwarfs for me.
Nice, man. That's great.
Excellent. Yeah, they're they're fantastic.
I I immediately was attracted to them because they reminded me of
the old Perry Old Hammer 3rd edition dwarf models.
I think he even replicated some of the aesthetics and designs of
those earlier figures, like the Imperial Dwarves for example.
Like I started the hobby in 6th edition Wuhan Fantasy with the
the Orcs versus the Empire as the box set, but I always really
loved the metal miniatures from before that period.
But I couldn't afford them as a kid somehow.
I'm older, I've kind of got a little bit of money and it's a
bit dangerous because now I can Commission schools and go a bit
crazy. So like, obviously we took
inspiration from like the Perry range of dwarfs, which were
awesome. The Marauder miniatures range of
dwarfs I always liked like Norse mythology as well.
So some of the dwarfs have like a Norse feel to them, like a
Viking kind of feel, but a little bit.
They they don't take themselves too seriously.
They're not like it's that old school aesthetic where fantasy
was a bit a bit jokey and not so grim.
Dark if that makes sense. That's what we've tried to
capture and we've done two different types of dwarf for the
Kickstarter. We've done like N style dwarfs
and then we've done, I've been calling him feudal dwarfs, so
like Knights and Archers, like classic medieval * dwarfs.
And then we've done a couple of random ones, like we've done
like a miner. I've done one that I've kind of
called like in my head. He's like a foreign dignitary at
the core of the dwarf king and he's kind of got Polish attire
on. So he's got like a curved Sabre
and he's got like the the Polish colt and the Polish hat from the
Renaissance period. Just because I had this idea
that maybe in the future if the Kickstarter was really
successful, then people really liked Slim.
We could branch out and do dwarfs with themes from all over
the world and or different elements of fantasy and tie them
into one range. Which I think like one of the
cool things about fantasy is you can kind of just do anything and
mix stuff together and make interesting figures that
hopefully people like to paint. Yep, for sure, mate.
Yeah. I think your range of dwarves
are going to be released on Kickstarter.
Now this is going to happen. It's currently now, Saturday the
11th of May, but it'll be for you tomorrow, I suppose it's
it's, it's evening now when we're recording this, so maybe
tomorrow morning it it it it launches.
Is that right? Yeah, it's, it's half, it's just
past half 10 now and it will launch tomorrow morning at
10:00. Right.
OK, I'm. A little bit excited, little
bit. I don't think I'll be sleeping
much tonight. No, mate, I don't think so.
Yeah, I think you'll be very much quite nervous or not
nervous, but just just, just, yeah, slightly anxious about
everything. And that must be a I've never
run a Kickstarter, so I can just imagine the the level of, well,
not maybe not stress, but just like you just don't know how
it's going to go. And you know how successful, you
just pray it's going to be successful and a lot of people
jump onto it and start supporting you on it.
It's it's it's definitely different to my last Kickstart,
which was like historical figures.
So doing fantasy is completely new.
And you mentioned that we started sculpting these in 2020.
Well, Sergio started sculpting him in 2020.
I just sent over this is what I would like, please.
And long lists of. I would like him to look like
this and to be armed with this weapon and to be in this pose.
And Sergio somehow turn those into actual nice figures.
But we had a little bit of bad luck along the way, which
delayed it a bit. So I'm I'm half excited that we
finally got to the point where I can go to Kickstarter tomorrow
and also very, very nervous about how the response is going
to be once the kick start is actually live because you kind
of you don't know how many people are going to back, are
you going to be successful? But I hope that we've done
everything that we can do to this point to try and spread the
word about them. I managed to get some really
nice paint jobs, which you've probably seen on Facebook and
Instagram by a guy called Interstellar Simeon who's in New
Zealand. His painting style has really
the the figures looked great, sculpted and cast.
I think his painting style has really took on to the next level
because it's kind of reminiscent of the old school style of
painting, but we've kind of like modern techniques and a modern
twist, if that makes sense. Yep, I just.
I just started following him back.
I didn't realize he was following me on Instagram.
So Interstellar, I'm now following you back.
Yeah, he's really a great painter.
I didn't realize he's from New Zealand, a very, really talented
painter. So I'm glad that your dwarves
are in the hands of someone who's as talented as
Interstellar and he's doing us absolute superb job on those.
So well done to him. And yeah, like I said, it's just
taken to the next level, absolutely.
Yeah, there's there's a part of me that obviously I want them to
fund because I want to be able to sell them and stock them and
get them into the hands of gamers.
But also, I'm really excited to see him paint the other SO
yourself because he hasn't done yet, just to get them in my own
collection and get them on the tabletop as well.
Yes, they're they're a range of dwarves that you know.
Looking at the various different types of dwarves that Sergio has
sculpted and beautifully so they can be used for role-playing.
They could be used for your games of Whammer Fantasy Battle.
You could rank them up on the square bases, and you could
easily fit them into third edition, 4th edition, 5th
edition, 6th edition Armies, and so on.
So there's there's a great range of different types of sculpts
and different, you know, adventurers or heroes or just
rank and file guys. But they all have their sort of
individual flair and character to them.
And they're beautifully detailed but not overly detailed.
And I like that about these monitor models as well.
They have a simplicity to them. They have lots of big long beads
and, you know, big gloves and big hand weapons.
They're nice, iconic emblems or something on top of their Helms.
They have the the sort of chivalry look, and they have
other other models that look very reminiscent of the drunken
dwarves, for example, with their big beer steins and that kind of
thing. So yeah, there's there's a
great, wonderful array of different types of models where
people could use them for various different things, but I
could definitely see them used in role-playing games and board
games. Yeah, like that.
Yeah. Interstellar Simeon took some
great pictures of them with his Hero Quest set up and they look
really good in Hero Quest They do.
Personally I had in mind more time because I really love more
time. I loved it when I was a kid,
like dwarven treasure hunters, but there are a couple of
figures in there that there's a couple of Wizards.
So I just have Frost Grave in mind as well because I've I've
really wanted to try Frost Grave for a while.
So I thought, you know, I could do a more time war band.
I can do a Frost Grave war band. They can fit in with my 6
edition dwarfs. Yep.
I think yeah, no, I think there's there's, yeah, there's
there's lots of different avenues we can take these
dwarves and if anything that is beautiful to collect and paint
for a For a painter out there who's just interested in
dwarves, I'm a I'm a I'm a huge dwarf fan.
And yeah, like I said I was just, I was just straight away
just drawn to the style of Sergio's sculpts.
I think they're just they heart back, like you say back to the
earlier days of when dwarves were done by Michael and Alan
Perry and then later by Ali Morris and those kind of ranges
from Citadel and Marauder miniatures.
So they have that kind of aesthetic values which I really
resonate with a lot, but done in a very sort of modern style.
Now they're all hand designed, they're not 3D sculpted, these
are designed with green stuff by Sergio's hands and they're just
beautiful. They've got lots of character,
lots of wonderful little details in there, even though they they
look on the surface nice and simplistic, which I love about
them. They're all single piece models,
but they have little little intrinsic details in there which
capture their spirit I think which is lovely that Sergio
captured in those models. Yeah, we've tried to make
everyone have a little bit of a character and a little bit of
almost a back story when you look at them.
One of the things we found hard was we've done a few nights and
we wanted them all to have like an animal on top of their
helmet, trying to clean with animals that feel dwarvish.
So like, one of them's got a ball.
One of them that I really like has a hedgehog, and then he has
a Mace, which kind of matches the hedgehog, which I kind of
like that. We went all out with the the
dwarf king. So he's got a lion on his
helmet, he's got a crown with a lion on top, and then the lion's
got his own little crown on top of that.
So I just feel like super dwarfish.
They're just crowns on crowns on crowns.
And obviously it's just it's really, really cool to be able
to go to someone like Sergio and go, I really want to make a
dwarf. I want to make him look old
school and he's into it as well because he loves dwarfs and he
loves old school Warhammer fantasy.
So he was like, oh, what? What about if we do this?
We've we've got to figure out a wizard that kind of looks like
Merlin with the with the big hat and a little walking stick and a
little crystal ball. Like some of those ideas that he
came up with for the range when I was like, how can we make a
wizard but make it a bit tongue in cheek and make it a bit fun?
And Sergio was like, oh, let's try this.
And then it it works way better than what I probably would have
gone for. Because it's kind of nice that
because he's into Warhammer Fantasy, he's into old school
miniatures, he's into that kind of aesthetic.
It's really nice to bounce ideas off each other.
Yep, no, I think Sergio is the the perfect person to undertake
this project and then you've got the perfect painter also to to
visualize this in colour. So it's a wonderful project.
Now obviously the the, the scale of these miniatures suit
perfectly with the older existing ranges of third
edition, 4th edition, 5th edition.
So they fit on 20 mil Slaughter Square bases perfectly and they
all sort of rank up and that kind of thing which is nice.
And also they are coming in metal and I I I presume you have
a resin range also available for people in the Kickstarter, is
that right? Actually initially we planned to
do resin and metal, but due to cost we've decided to just stick
with only metal for this range. I kind of like metal because it
it feels old school. I really like when you pick up a
movement tray and it's really heavy with the figures on top.
There's just something nice about it.
Yeah, when you're carrying a carry case and your army is a
bit of a workout. At the same time, I've always,
I've really enjoyed just ranks and ranks of metal.
I've been really lucky actually, because the cast is, I live in
just outside Birmingham and the cast is in Birmingham.
So I've been really lucky in the sense that I've been able to get
cast quite quickly and they're really high quality and I'm
really proud of them. And I can't wait for people to
to see them in real life and put their own spin on how to paint
them. Because right now we've had the
obviously the majority of the range has been painted by
Interstellar Simeon. I don't know if you saw we
shared a paint job by Angelo Dicello.
He recently sent him one of the characters and Angelo instantly
for it looks like a dwarf from Warhammer Quest.
He gave it a paint job and it was really cool to see it
painted. Not how I imagined it in my
head, yeah, but still looking absolutely awesome.
Yeah, he base. He base it off one of Dave
Gallagher's artworks of the White Dwarf, and he did a
beautiful job on it. I I must admit.
Yeah, he's really, really nice, very another talented guy out
there. So it's great to see so many
people coming together that you've met or connected with
that really enjoy and love your products and then really want
to, you know, showcase those in the best light possible with
these amazing paint jobs. Now, of course, we're talking a
lot about these things and it's a very visual medium, obviously,
these miniatures and the paint jobs that we're talking about.
So to see them before the Kickstarter, if you want to get
a glimpse of what these miniatures look like, would
Facebook be the best place to go to check them out, Jamie.
Yeah, mostly. Most of the images are uploaded
to Facebook. I've kept a few back that I'll
share during the Kickstarter. There's some on my Instagram
page with not quite as many. It's kind of playing catch up,
and obviously on the Kickstarter itself there'll be tons of
images, including scale comparisons, some images of them
on the table top, some images of the greens before they get
casted, just in case you're interested in seeing, and
obviously the paint drops. Yes, that's how I discovered you
through infamous JT on Facebook and on Instagram as well.
I'll leave links for people in the the description and show
notes for the podcast. So then go straight down there.
They can click on those links, they can be redirected to those
sites so they can actually see and visualize the miniatures
straight away. And hopefully by the time they
listen to this, then the Kicks Kickstarter will have launched
and they can go straight away to the Kickstarter page, which I'll
leave a link in there for as well.
And then they can be. Then they can decide, oh how how
many of these models can I get for my money and have them
delivered in beautiful cast metal?
Now the metal they're they're using, is it sort of like a hard
metal or soft metal? It's a hard metal.
It's the first time I've worked with this caster and I was
really impressed by how just how sturdy the metal is.
Like, it's not easy to, you know, sometimes when you order a
metal blister pack and the swords are bent and you've got
to bend them back, that's not really an issue with this metal.
And they did mention to me that it has a very, a very, very low
almost lead free alloy, which is also good.
If you're concerned about those sort of things like there's
going to be no lead rot or anything like that and there's
not that much clean up on them. Obviously, you've got a little
bit of a mold line here and there like you expect, but the
the casts are really clean. I'm really proud of them, to be
honest. Yeah mate, that's great.
They saw them with a cast in white metal, so that that's a
nice sturdy metal, which is what you want.
So that's really. What should be a dwarf should be
inside? Absolutely.
That's right. They're rock hard mate.
That's all their beer they'd been drinking I think so now
that that's a really wonderful range.
I'm really happy just for you mate to see this actually out as
a Kickstarter because it was kind of yeah, this is these are
the greens Sergio designing for us and it sort of just like I
said went from 2020 now in 2024. So it's a it's a long term
project, yeah, but obviously you need obviously funds to fund
this and it's not a not a not a cheap endeavour to do something
like this to have someone sculpt the models for you and then you
know organizers for a Kickstarter and everything.
So it's been a long journey, but now it's been.
Now it's been realized, mate. Yeah, I mean we, we estimated
when we began 2020 that it would take us maybe two years.
We had a bit of bad luck, without going into too much
detail, that. When they initially arrived in
the UK, quite a few of them were damaged by customs and they had
to get sent back to Spain to be repaired.
And in that time one of the original casters I was using was
not only the casting. So then I had to find a new
caster and I also like I got hit with like a massive VAT bell by
customs, which was really, really harsh when it's possible
they broke the miniatures, we're not sure if it was customs or
post. So to to them get hit, so they
had to be sent back to Spain and repaired.
Then they came back to the UK and we got them cast.
And then it's really been, it's almost been a little bit of a
blessing in disguise because I think the hype around the old
world and what I'm a fantasy at the moment has kind of driven a
lot of traffic to them on the Internet.
Yeah, so maybe it was meant to be that way.
It was just, you know, perfect timing.
Now people are interested in fantasy again, People are
interested in square bases. One thing I'll mention is all
the paint jobs by instead of Simeon are on circle bases, but
every sculpt does fit on a 20 mil square, because that was
really important for me because to me, 20 mil squares, that's
the perfect base for rank and foe.
Yeah, that's. A good That's a good good topic
too. The bases, Will they actually be
supplied with bases for the for the?
Miniatures. So they won't come with bases,
because when I asked on Facebook, some people were like,
I want them on 25 mil circles. Some people were like I want
them on 25 mil squares. Some people were like I want
them on 20 mil squares. And some people like the the
kind of lit bases, the 30 mil ones for like skirmish games
like Malophile and War Machine. What I'm going to do is I am
going to stock bases on my web store so that when people
actually after the Kickstarter, once they've pledged and paid
and they tell me exactly what they want, if they want to, they
can add a pack of bases of their choice for maybe just a couple
of quid, do you know what I mean?
So in that way you choose the exact basis you want because
it's kind of annoying when you get a if I have to build the
pack of the cost of the bases into the park and then not the
bases you want, it's a bit of a waste on your side.
That's right. Yep.
No, that's a good idea mate. That's a good idea, Jamie.
I think that's a great idea and people get what they want and
then they can base them how they how they want.
So that's a very nice idea in in the kick startups.
So, so we've gone through all of that.
We've gone through the and now there's A and then the the
entire range. How many models are going to be
presented on Kickstarter for people to purchase?
So there's going to be 41 miniatures in total.
One of them is a pony, one of them is a dog.
I do like to try and get an animal in every range, yeah.
And that the rest of the dwarfs, obviously, yeah, they're in,
they're in. List the packs of three for the
most part, except for the pony who's in a pack of two, just
because the the pony metal really does weigh quite a lot.
So you get the pony and the hand there in that pack and there
will be different pledge levels. So there'll be like a pick and
mix pledge level where you can just pledge.
If you want 4 blisters, you pledge for four blisters and
that's it. It's at a discount on the
Kickstarter. There's like a starter warband
which is 14 models, and then there's like a one of everything
played, which is at an even bigger discount.
One thing I wanted to do on Kickstarter, which is maybe not
normal or like a bit different to most Kickstarters, is there
aren't any stretch goals. What I really wanted to do was
go. We've done 41 models, people
have been waiting for them for a long time.
We're going to release all 41, but as a thank you we're going
to give discounts of between 7 and 15% depending on how much
you buy. And by not having those stretch
goals, it means that I can have like a clear target of exactly
how much I need to raise and we can just get them into people's
hands quicker because they've already been master moulded in
metal. Some of them have been
production moulded in metal already and there's a handful of
packs that still need to be production molded and then
quality control checks and then it's just fulfilment, so it
should touch wood, be quite a quick fulfilment process.
Because we haven't had stretch goals, we're not delaying time
schools in more models and making more molds.
We've already started the process.
OK, that's great mate. Well, I think that's a good
idea. I think that's a good way to
approach it. And like I said, a lot of people
have been waiting for a long time.
I know Jerry from on Tabletop has been chomping at the bit to
have these models in his hands. So I know Jerry would be very,
very happy to see this he gave. Me, the idea when I was talking
earlier about some of the Knights, One of the Knights has
a squirrel on his helmet and that's because Jerry's profile
pitch is always a squirrel. He's right.
One day. He popped up one day and I
thought, oh, that's a great animal to to go on a little
dwarf's helmet. So cheers for that, Jerry.
Well I'm, I'm happy that Jerry's you know, Totem animal has been
embedded in one of those dwarves.
So he'll that'll be his favorite character.
No don't no doubt. And his games of whatever he's
playing. So that's excellent.
That's great. So yeah, like Jamie said like
I'm really happy it's it's coming to full fruition for you
and then you know it's going to be a launch tomorrow.
You're not going to get a lot of the sleep, but I'm sure people
will appreciate that this is now an official thing, a physical
thing that has been produced. I can see the miniatures, they
can see it's been they've been cast, it's a it's a real thing
if they go to your Facebook group or you go to Instagram.
I'm just looking at a a scale comparison.
So people just worried about the the size of these miniatures,
because, you know, because a lot of modern miniatures are sort of
upscaled compared to the older figures.
But you have the classic Warhammer Quest dwarf alongside
one of your dwarves, which kind of is in inspiration of that
white dwarf I guess. And then you have one of the
plastic Hira quest Chaos Warriors.
So you get a nice sort of very look at different sort of scales
of different periods, and your dwarves sort of blend in and
match in perfectly height, wires and size to those old classic
models. Yeah, on the Kickstarter we'll
have some more scale comparisons as well with some more modern
Games Workshop skeletons, Some Frost Grave miniatures.
There's a metal necromancer. I can never say his name, I
think it's Kemla or Kremla. I don't know if you remember him
from 6th. Edition The Heinrich Kemla.
Yes, there's a we've got a scale comparison with him because he's
quite a good representation of a human figure from that period.
So people would be able to hopefully look at them and have
a good idea of how they'll scale up with their existing
collections. Yes, I'm looking at that right
now. So it's got yeah figures from
various different manufacturers like modern GW through to you
know independent you know model companies your models in there
and then highlight Heinrich Kamila is right at the end
there. So that's cool.
Yeah that's a that's a great looking another another great
example of size size comparison and scale.
So people should go and check that out.
If they if they, if they're kind of worried about because it's
it's one of the concerns I suppose most people have.
You know, are these miniatures going to fit in with my old
school miniatures? And the answer to that is yes,
they definitely are. Yeah, I mean with this we wanted
to do everything old school. That's why we went to kind of a
traditional sculptor as well, to get that old school feel where
things aren't quite perfect but they have a lot of salt.
If that makes sense. Because I do like digital
schools, but sometimes they can be so perfect that they kind of
lack the old school feel a little bit.
So we kind of I wanted an old school sculptor.
I wanted them casting that, or I wanted them to match my old
school figures. I wanted them to be the models
that I couldn't afford when I was a kid and I'm pocket money.
No mate, that's great. I'm really happy for you like I
said and I'm just going to wish you all the all the very best
and I hope you make a million bucks out of it mate.
So try try to get a little bit of sleep before tomorrow and at
tomorrow it's 10 AM GMT, European GMT time is that when
it launches the? Kickstarter 10 AM GMT.
All right. OK mate, so.
About 11 hours from now. 11 hours.
You got time to get some 40 winks in there between then and
now or now and then. So look mate, I hope, hope
everything goes well for you. I'll be following the campaign
along. I don't think I can afford to
pledge on anything, unfortunately, but I'll be.
I'll be trying to help promote the Kickstart as much as I can
for you through the podcast as it's going to be released today.
So people have a bit of a heads up and they can, they can know
about it, they get notified, and then hopefully that'll drag a
few more people, a few more eyes onto the Kickstarter for you.
And then they can sort of think about whether they're going to
pledge or not. How long is the Kickstarter
going to go for? So it's going to go for 28 days,
4 weeks. Oh wow, OK, they've got plenty
of time then, so it's to save their pennies or to sell stuff
they don't need and to refund it for this project.
So I really wanted. To Yeah, no excuse guys.
I really wanted to give as many people the opportunity to pledge
and take advantage of the discount as possible.
So that's kind of why we've gone for a bit of a longer campaign.
Because one thing that I should probably mention is the
Kickstarter is EU friendly, which is exclusively for the
Kickstarter. Normally orders placed through
my web store because I'm not that registered, they're not EU
friendly and there might be customs charges.
But for the Kickstarter, they're going to be dispatched from
within the EU and the you need like customs or VAT charges will
be covered by by me, I guess by infamous JT, just to make them a
little bit more accessible to gamers in Europe.
Because that was one of the biggest kind of feedbacks we've
had since 2020. Is, am I going to have to pay a
fortune in customs? Am I going to have to pay a
fortune in VAT? So luckily for the Kickstarter,
at least they are EU friendly. Excellent.
OK, that's really good to hear.
And that, yeah, that's always a concern, isn't it?
With Kickstarter, you know, how much do I need to pay when it
gets here? You know, that's the that's the
other concern. So you've answered that, which
which would be a relief to many of dwarf lovers out there who
are eager to get these models into their hands and to support
you on Kickstarter. So Jamie, so look mate, thank
you very much for coming on The Chronic and a podcast.
And like I said, I'll leave links for everything that people
need to know about the Kickstarter and about your
infamous JT pages on Facebook and Instagram and a website if
there is one. Because it's not only dwarves
you do you do other other models as well.
Historical ranges and and which are really nice actually.
I love the paint jobs on those models also.
So yeah, you got a wealth of great products there that I
think people should check out if they haven't seen it already.
Thanks so much for having me and for all the support and the
shares. I really appreciate it.
No problem, Jamie. All the.
Best mate. And yeah, let's see those
dwarves in people's hands and get them painted on the table,
mate. Let's do it.
OK mate. Take care.
Thank you. Cheers.
Bye.