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Gencon Booth - Thoughts?


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Off topic but...

 

... PP has been around for a pretty long time and Wyrd is kinda the new company on the block and they've got an 8 foot tall statue at their booth. They have made their presence know. I'm sure that attracted more people to the booth than say any number of two or three inch tall models in a case (that's what will keep people there).

Out of curiosity when does Wyrd lose the "new company" moniker (and excuse). They are not the new kid on the block, that would be GCT games or any of the others that spring up every year. Malifaux has been around for five years and is in its second edition. Wyrd as a Company has existed longer than that (Malifaux had a long development cycle).

 

Every year I was lucky enough to be selected as a GenCon volunteer for them, the painted miniatures cabinets were a huge draw often requiring a wait to catch a glimpse. An 8' Whisky Golem is cool and all but during GenCon big over the top statues are not exactly uncommon (hell Iello games had a human sized version of their King of Tokyo game the year it was released).

 

As you can probably tell I really hate the "new company" excuse as I believe it hampers their development and growth.

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I'd argue that it might be better to take the money spent on attending Gen Con (which can't be cheap, I'm sure!) and invest it in an in-house painter or two. 

 

Sounds crazy right, not attending the biggest gaming Con of the year?

 

But consider:

 

- an in house painter would allow for beautiful painted miniature to be featured on the online store, gallery etc and maybe...eventually...on the boxes (I know, hot topic).

- after a year off from Gen Con, Wyrd could return with painted minis to demo and/or showcase in the booth (I think there may be a risk of losing booth location if you don't attend for a year, so that has to be acknowledged.

 

Here's the thing: which one reaches more players and has a bigger impact on the growth of the game?

 

Over the course of GenCon, dozens...maybe hundreds...of players get a demo. Hundreds.

 

Thousands of people might become aware of Wyrd and Malifaux. But they are maybe seeing some grey plastic and some people playing a game. Hard to judge the impact of that.

 

Meanwhile, beautifully painted miniatures reach *thousands* of players online. They see these gorgeous models and are drawn into the game, fiction, hobby etc.  I just spent a long time assembling a big pile of Neverborn plastics - they are FANTASTIC quality and are let down by not showcasing them painted on the site.

 

I would argue that Privateer didn't get as big as it did via trade shows and Gen Con. They had beautiful paint jobs to show in their books, on their boxes, and their website. Even when the sculpts were MEH (and they were, for the most part, in early days), the paint jobs helped to elevate them. Certainly Press Gangers and other factors (not to mention great rules) contributed to the huge growth of Warmachine, but having really nice models to show "the potential" to new players is also a major factor.

 

It's a miniature game. Need to show painted miniatures.  Showing the unpainted renders is totally fine (and GW shows photos of sprues..of all things), but painted miniatures INSPIRE existing and new players - and feeling inspired creates sales.

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While I agree painted miniatures draw people in and inspire them, I don't think wyrd needs to be paying for an in house painter, or even a commission one really. If I'm looking for pretty models, I'm on google, or at shows, or on forums/blogs going 'ooh, what's that model you've painted? It's from what range?' Then looking that range up. Wyrd's official paintjobs didn't draw me in, it was the players and fans painting them and leaving those images all over the internet that did. So the thousands of people seeing the models online are quite probably seeing other people's work first, not wyrd's official paintjobs.

Hiring a full time painter is a lot of expense that then has to make itself useful while there's no models needing paintwork, too. Wyrd chose to stop using painted stuff for reasons they explained back when they changed over, so they've clearly looked at the benefits and decided they don't outweigh the costs. Speculating on which route would be better for them is somewhat meaningless (including my speculations, of course. The fact that I agree with wyrd doesn't mean I know what's going on in their meetings!). They could of course reassess and change their minds, but I doubt it'll happen any time soon.

And I say that as someone who'd love to see a full gallery of models, and potentially as the closest thing to an official wyrd painter at the moment ;)

[if I had enough money and free time, I'd sit and work my way through the range and build up my own gallery that they could freely use. I might do that anyway, starting with the giant pile of stuff I already own, if I can figure out how to work the cursed gallery thing. But that's going to need a lot of time and isn't something I'd be able to do within even a year. And even with that, some people would still say the pictures were bad, or the paintjob changed how the model looked, etc]

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Yeah I don't buy it personally. True you can find just about anything on google...but part of the idea is to have a consistent look to the range. For example, Privateer's official paint jobs always look consistent, as do Infinity's thanks to Angel Jiraldez. I believe a big part of the steadily increasing popularity of Infinity is how amazing he makes their models look. Combine great rules, great sculpts, and beautiful paintjobs and the players will take notice and they will come.

 

Is it hard to manage a painter - be it full time, commission or whatever? Sure. Business is hard! It's hard to make multi million dollar video games, but my company does it. You pick a business you want to be in, and then you do whatever it takes to thrive.

 

"some people would still say the pictures were bad, or the paintjob changed how the model looked"

 

People always complain about something (heck, I'm doing it right now).  Personally I think those two arguments are full-on ridiculous. Anyway, the trick is to find the approach that appeals to the maximum number of consumers, and do that. I doubt Infinity suffers from the fact that basically NOBODY can make the models look as good as Angel does for example.

 

It's true that us debating it doesn't help - Wyrd has to make their own decisions. My opinion is they are being held back by not showcasing their new plastic range in beautifully painted form.  It's funny - Infinity models are a major pain in the butt to assemble (WAY less friendly to work with than Wyrd's plastics), but I put up with it because I'm inspired by the unbelievably gorgeous photos. Meanwhile, Wyrd models are a pleasure to work with. Combine that with pretty pictures and you have a killer recipe.

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My point is simply that it isn't a simple case of 'hire painter, paint models, profit'. There's a lot more to it than that, which seems to get forgotten. Whatever it takes for Wyrd to thrive in the eyes of anyone other than Nathan is basically guesswork and assumptions without any real data.

 

As a side note, I thoroughly enjoy Angel's work and respect his skills. However there are some models I'd never buy, simply because I've seen the paintjob. So that sword cuts both ways. 

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A nice paint job won't stop me buying a model. A paintjob I don't like will though. 

 

It's rare that it happens to me, but it does happen. Not just to me, but to various people over various things. Paintjobs aren't universally nice, after all. Something I like someone else could hate. If you don't like the spanish style of painting, then a game whose entire line is painted that way will not entice you at all. The back edge of the sword may be blunter, but it does still have a nasty bite :D

 

But mostly because the specific piece I was thinking of was painted with her ass hanging out of her armour. It was unnecessary and I don't find that kind in any way interesting. After carefully looking at it for a while, I worked out that there was no need to actually paint it like that (and I'm still lost as to why he decided it should be done that way), but by then I'd lost all interest in the model.

 

Edit: Hopefully none of this is sounding rude or harsh, I'm happy to discuss it and entirely understand that there's two sides to the whole process!

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Well, sure there's always going to be certain paint jobs that don't appeal - it's a very subjective thing. Same goes for sculpts. I find that "darkness" sculpt completely unappealing and strange (the big toothy mouth blob guy) but that doesn't put me off the whole Neverborn faction :)

 

The goal would be to have the majority of them be appealing basically :)

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Aye, it's just another clouding factor in the mix, not a massive problem.

You're making me want to actually get on and start building a gallery of everything, done by me...

It might not be viable for wyrd to do it officially, but there's no harm in me getting my stuff done and galleried, and people would be free to link that all over!

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I personally like m2e style, great 3d sculpt pictures, with inspiring concept art. If I would display bare plastic I would suggest a few options a mangnified view, 3d scuplt preview video on display and or prime white wash black pops details perfectly without a need to paint. Grey from a distance makes it hard to see detail.

I prefer no studio paint in malifaux line only because outside of guild and Korps there isn't much of a uniform to color schemes.

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Well if there's the interest in doing it, it shouldn't be difficult to put up galleries of fan painted models in one place.

For example, I really dig the Red Chapel crew, but am not sure how to paint undead skin. I go to the Wyrd Gallery and look up the Red Chapel crew (or even Rotten Belle), and am now free to view several different versions of those models.

The added benefit of this approach is that anyone should be able to find something that appeals to them. There would be a variety of techniques and ability on display, and if it's community supported people can ask questions about what they want to do.

I guess it could function like a Malifaux painting Wiki.

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