Delayed Low Life Miniatures

[CashWiley]

Too bad he went through EFS rather than just contracting Jason, et al himself. Although from the sounds of it, Jason is back to full-time sculpting and Sandra Garrity is coming onboard, so that's cool.

[Beagle]

To put things into context, Stonehaven recently delivered 50 new sculpts from their kickstarter which started 4 months after Low Life.

[MonkeySloth]

To be a bit fair, as I agree that this is taking forever, these things have to be a huge pain to sculpt and I bet there's a huge learning curve on how to tackle them as they're so strange and different.

[Beagle]

To be a bit fair, as I agree that this is taking forever, these things have to be a huge pain to sculpt and I bet there's a huge learning curve on how to tackle them as they're so strange and different.

I agree there are some challenging models in there but even so.

 

I run so hot and cold about this kickstarter. Most of the time I've persuaded myself that it's fine and there are good reasons for the delays, everyone's frustrated and the minis will arrive eventually. And then I get worked up because I put so much money in to this, two of the guys who contributed to my pledge have given up on the project and I've bought out their pledges, and I'm also fed up with excuses.

 

Let me give you a scenario's and see if you can guess the outcome. Take yourself if you will to an office in London a few days from now.......woooooo....wooooo..woooooooo - wavy images-

 

Boss: So Mr. Beagle, what you're telling me is that the project I assigned you is now 6 months overdue?

Me: Yes.

Boss: I presume you're finishing things off then?

Me: Umm, not really, I have done some of the cost analysis though.

Boss: That's all? So when will you have it done?

Me: Not really sure, sometime perhaps. I think you need to appreciate that my team are very artistic and take pride in their work, and one of them's been ill.

Boss: I presume you had a contingency plan for that kind of thing?

Me: Not really. I left you a voice mail about it yesterday

Boss: Ah yes after I left you half a dozen requesting you get it touch

Me: That's it, yep.

Boss: So your projects late, you have no idea when you'll be delivering it, your managerial skills seem to be questionable and your communications with me have been under par. Remind me why I pay your salary.

Me: Well while I was not delivering your project I did press ahead with a project for the Asia team and that went fairly well.

Boss: You mean the Asia team that doesn't pay your salary? Oh well, at least we know that when your project is done the procurement team you've commissioned for production will move things along. They have two other projects which delivered months ago

Me: No sir, they didn't, in fact they're both running quite late too, can't swear to that though, comms isn't their strong point.

 

If you think that Beagle's boss smiles and offers to make everyone a cup of tea, turn to page 76

If you think that Beagle's boss says some bad words, flings a pen across the room and walks off to consult HR on staff dismissals, turn to page 19

Edited August 24, 2013 by Beagle

[MonkeySloth]

The only defense I was really raising was for sculptors as I don't think the bottleneck is really with them.

[Beagle]

It's hard to say if there is a bottleneck or if it's incompetence, bad luck or something else entirely.

My only point really is that these guys have taken nearly a year to produce 10 minis when other 1 man shows have produced 50 minis in 6 months, and with a grand invested I expect better answers than what I've had.

 

Maybe it's just that it's 3am and I have to spend all day tomorrow trying to make my house habitable as my wife's returning from 3 weeks overseas.

[JackMann]

I don't really blame Andy for this. Not entirely. He went with what looked like a reputable company, since he doesn't know much about making minis himself. Mini company took in far more work than it was able to handle, and he's basically faced with the choice of backing out of the deal and hoping he can find someone else who can do the casting cheaply and quickly, or sticking with them and hoping for the best. Depending on the terms of the contract, the former might not even be an option.

 

Of course, if he contracts with them in the future, that's entirely on him. "Fool me once, shame on you, etc."

[CashWiley]

I stand behind my earlier statement. From the sidelines, this looks like the EFS debacle continued.

 

Go look at Mick's website.

 

On the other hand, part of my does want Andy to get a ******* attorney on this at some point. EFS /clearly/ overextended and there's nary a mention of Low Life on his facebook back to the plorp balloon (which Andy has said is no longer going to be used, Garrity is going to sculpt one). I thought for sure Mick had been posting more LL minis (the original 10 for sure).

 

I wonder how much happened behind the scenes that led to Andy meeting with Sandra and Jason and whether EFS has left the picture.

[JackMann]

One can certainly hope. Of course, there are likely to still be other problems--this is all new territory for Andy--but at least he can stumble along in something resembling a forward direction.

[Beagle]

Well I'm not sure how much we can pin the blame on EFS, although performance in their own projects has been poor also. Regardless of who's blame I'm still not sure I agree with Andy's refusal to set any future timelines in case they're missed.

[MonkeySloth]

Well considering their track record they're at least 50% to blame.

[Redshylock]

EFS said they are going to start shipping their resin stuff for Dwarf Gladiator early next month. Having said that I am not holding my breath for it.

Edited August 27, 2013 by Redshylock

[Beagle]

From Andy's update:

 

In related news, I had a chance to hang with Tim and Jeff Neckerman of Valiant, the peeps who are doing the actual casting and production of the miniatures. We participated in a few cannibalistic blood orgies (as one does) and are very close to working out a distribution and packaging agreement, so that makes me very happy.

 

I presume our Illustrious comrade my Cashwiley was on to something and EFS may indeed be off the photo shoot (if EFS are not doing the above, what would they be doing)?.

Edited August 29, 2013 by Beagle

[MonkeySloth]

Speaking of Valiant, it's funny how all these other companies that started "advertised" as kickstarter mini sculptors, castors and so on all buckled under the amount of stuff they had to do (EFS, Trollforge) but Valiant has picked up just about everyone that's left those as well as just doing a lot of other KS business (I'm almost certain they do Stonehaven) without missing a beat. There's something to say about a company that just sits behind the scenes and knows how to handle large work loads and set reasonable expectations with their clients.

 

One positive thing that's come out of all these kickstarters is the huge positive name recognition for Valiant who was known by some of us but now is getting to be more well known. If someone states on their KS page that casting is being done by them then you know that there won't be a bottleneck with that part of the KS.

Edited August 29, 2013 by MonkeySloth

[Dan d'Lyon]

Speaking of Valiant, it's funny how all these other companies that started "advertised" as kickstarter mini sculptors, castors and so on all buckled under the amount of stuff they had to do (EFS, Trollforge) but Valiant has picked up just about everyone that's left those as well as just doing a lot of other KS business (I'm almost certain they do Stonehaven) without missing a beat. There's something to say about a company that just sits behind the scenes and knows how to handle large work loads and set reasonable expectations with their clients.

 

One positive thing that's come out of all these kickstarters is the huge positive name recognition for Valiant who was known by some of us but now is getting to be more well known. If someone states on their KS page that casting is being done by them then you know that there won't be a bottleneck with that part of the KS.

 

They are local to me and I know a few people that work there. Believe it or not, miniatures are a fairly small percentage of the casting work they do overall.