Meet the Crew
about 2 years ago – Fri, Sep 30, 2022 at 05:16:09 AM

Tonight's update focuses on the team that brought you this campaign. Behind every Stormlight collectible is a lot of hard work from a crew of dedicated, creative people. We want to shine the spotlight on some of them in this update!

But first, it's time to introduce a very memorable member of another crew. As many people have hoped, our fourth Bridge Four member is Teft!

Now every one of the book-themed packs in this campaign is a 7-pack, each containing a bonus Bridge Four miniature corresponding to that book. Remember, if you get the Rhythm of War pack you'll get all four. If you get one of the lower pledge levels, you'll be able to pick your desired sets in BackerKit. (For example, if you only want the Rhythm of War pack, you can back at the Way of Kings pledge level and then select your preferred pack in BackerKit.) Teft is one of our favorite characters, so we're glad we were able to add him to this campaign! 

Unite Them

This project required a new level of partnership between Dragonsteel and Brotherwise Games. We’ve worked together before, on the “hero-building” game Call to Adventure: The Stormlight Archive. That was a standard licensing deal, where Brotherwise approached Brandon’s agent to pitch a game idea, and Dragonsteel said yes. Over the course of that project, though, we established an especially strong rapport. In particular, Brotherwise design lead Johnny O’Neal and Dragonsteel creative lead Isaac Stewart had a great time working together to art direct over 100 illustrations of Stormlight locations, people, and creatures.

There had never been so much Dragonsteel-approved Stormlight artwork in one place, and it got both teams thinking. What if we could use the same approach for the books’ protagonists? It would require an even closer relationship, but would be valuable for all future Stormlight products, games, and entertainment discussions. That was the impetus for the miniatures project. After agreeing on a character lineup, it was time to bring the teams together.

Dragonsteel Team

On the Dragonsteel side, Isaac Stewart and Ben McSweeney took the lead. Isaac briefed Ben on each new character. Ben then created sketches and control drawings to review with Brandon. Isaac also worked with Brandon to look across past illustrations and reference to zero in on each character. The goal was to get maximum involvement from Brandon with minimum impact on his writing schedule, during his once-a-week art review meeting. Another key player was Karen Ahlstrom, who reviews every design against an incredibly detailed internal database of facts about each character.

In addition to Ben, Isaac worked with a number of illustrators to create portraits and reference images for the sculpting team: artists like Audrey Hotte, Marie Seeberger, and Petar Penev all had an influence on our final designs.

Brotherwise Team

This project required direct oversight from Chris and Johnny O’Neal, co-founders of Brotherwise Games. Chris led the business side of this project, from hiring to sourcing, while Johnny focused on art direction. The Brotherwise sculpting team includes experts from around the world. Our lead sculptor is Leander Pokorny, who established our aesthetic: lightly stylized, but with more realistic proportions than standard miniatures. Our next most prolific sculptor has been Iurie Barbaneagra. Other fantastic sculptors lending their talents are Roberto Chaudon, Solveig Horsfeld, Pablo Zamora, and Jin Vi.

Aside from Chris and Johnny, the support team for this project includes Hayden Dillard (Development), Matt Paquette (Package Design), Chip Cole (Graphic Design), Matt Molandes (Marketing & Community Management), and Beverly O’Neal (Operations).

…And You!

Of course, every backer also plays a key role in bringing this project to life. We’ve done a lot of projects without Kickstarter (including the Stormlight version of Call to Adventure), and crowdfunding makes it easier for a lot of reasons. It means we don’t have to guess how much to manufacture and risk ending up with way too much or too little inventory. (We would have seriously under-ordered the statue if not for this campaign!) It brings more attention and excitement to a project. It also gives us a chance to hear directly from backers, allowing us to do things like revise our stretch goal plans (and future campaign plans) based on community feedback.

It’s also just a lot of fun to tell the story of this project and see everyone’s reactions in real time. Thank you for being a part of this journey, and here's to even more excitement ahead in the next two weeks!

Painted Dalinar Now Available
about 2 years ago – Fri, Sep 30, 2022 at 04:32:25 AM

As of today, the Stormlight Miniatures campaign has been live for two weeks! Everyone at Dragonsteel and Brotherwise has been delighted to watch this campaign grow to more than 12,000 backers. It’s an awesome response, and bodes well for the other projects we have in long-term development!

One thing we’ve seen is that a lot of people are really excited about the painted figurines and statue. While we think our miniature packs make great display pieces even if you don’t paint them, we can understand the excitement for full-color, physical versions of your favorite Stormlight heroes.

With that in mind, we’re making one more available: Dalinar. Before reading further, please keep in mind that this update includes major spoilers for Oathbringer.

Designing Dalinar

As the lead protagonist of Oathbringer, and many readers’ favorite character in The Stormlight Archive, Dalinar was one of our most important sculpts. Luckily, we went into Dalinar’s design with a clear sense of how he should look. Ben McSweeney provided a detailed uniform design and pose sketches, Audrey Hotte worked on his portrait, and we referenced a number of illustrations first created for Call to Adventure.

This is an example of a character where the sculptors (Leo Pokorny and Iurie Barbaneagra) pushed the design to the next level. Dalinar already looked cool in Audrey’s portrait, but we think the final character model strikes the perfect balance between “wise leader” with “hulking brute.”

The biggest challenge was finding the right pose, but we’re very happy with the final result. He’s depicted at the climax of Oathbringer when he invokes his powers as a Bondsmith to unite the realms and summon Honor’s Perpendicularity. We also tried versions of the pose where his palms or fists were already together, but our favorite was this moment as he literally pulls at the fabric of the Cosmere.

How to Get Dalinar

Today’s update isn’t truly a “stretch goal” (except for All-In backers), but it gives every backer more options.

Here’s how you can pick up the painted figurine of Bondsmith Dalinar:

• If you pledged at the $475 All-In level, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll automatically get Shallan and Dalinar as bonus figurines.
• If you pledged for the $175 Figurines & Miniatures bundle, in BackerKit you’ll be able to choose your favorite 4 figurines from the available options (Kaladin, Jasnah, Adolin, Shallan, Szeth, and Dalinar).
• If you’re already at that pledge level and you want a fifth figure, you can add $10 to your pledge. If you want two extra figures, add $20 to your pledge. You can do this now, or later in BackerKit.
• All of the above is true if you have the “$50 Painted Figurine Set” Add-On, though today we’re also adding a “$70 Painted Figurine 6-Pack” Pledge Level and Add-On.
• Or if any of that is confusing and you just want to deal with it in BackerKit, pledge $1 now and you can make all your selections after the campaign ends.

As much as we love Kickstarter, its interface does not make it easy to add an extra option like this. So we appreciate your patience as we work through those details. To avoid further complication, and ensure that our factory can meet high quality standards on these figurines, this will be the sixth and final painted figurine we offer during this campaign.

Note that while a project is live you can adjust your pledge by visiting the project page and clicking the “Manage your pledge" button. On the following page, select "Change your pledge". From here, you’ll be able to adjust your pledge amount or switch to a different reward tier (changing reward tier will automatically update your pledge amount).

Let us know if you have any questions, and we look forward to sharing our fourth Bridge Four stretch goal miniature in Thursday’s update!

Build Your Army
about 2 years ago – Mon, Sep 26, 2022 at 01:03:06 AM

Hello, Radiants! We hope you’re having a fantastic weekend. Today we have another stretch goal to reveal, and this one enhances the Army Builders Pack.

First, here’s a closer look at the Alethi soldiers included in every pack, including concept art by Ben McSweeney. Alongside Ben's sketches you can see some art direction notes shared with the sculptor.

These are specifically Kholin troops, reflected in their high-quality gear and uniforms. Working on these was a lot of fun, because Alethi armor takes inspiration from multiple eras and culture. We think the resulting look is very cool.

Now, on to our newest stretch goal: an extra infantry miniature for each army!

We’re able to make this Add-On a 6-pack (while keeping the $15 price) because we get some nice economies of scale when producing multiples of an existing design. This also affects the pledge levels that contain the Army Builders Pack, so the $175 and $475 pledge levels will now have 2 extra figures. These will be great figures to have whether you're creating a display of your unpainted miniatures, painting up a battle scene, or planning NPCs for the upcoming Stormlight TTRPG!

Thanks for helping us unlock these bonus rewards. We hope you’re having a great weekend, and we look forward to sharing more reveals and stretch goals in the week ahead!

The Crew Grows
about 2 years ago – Sat, Sep 24, 2022 at 06:42:02 AM

Today our team is traveling, so we’ll keep our update short and to the point. We’ve just unlocked another stretch goal reward!

Make it Rlain

Our newest bonus figure is probably the most unique member of Bridge Four, the Listener formerly known as Shen… We’re excited to introduce Rlain!

When deciding which members of Bridge Four to sculpt, we focused on key characters and memorable designs. Rlain is both! Featuring Rlain’s warform carapace and his Bridge Four uniform, this expressive miniature really captures how he feels caught between worlds. He’ll appear in our Oathbringer Collection, making that set a 7-pack.

We’ll reveal Rlain’s full design, alongside his fellow bridge crew members, in an upcoming update!

Paint by Numbers

We've been talking to our partners at The Army Painter about creating painting guides for some of our characters. Here's a preview of our Skybreaker Szeth miniature in four steps:

They'll provide a bit more information than this, including specific guidelines for how to mix paints from the Official Paint Set to get the right color for each step. But it's cool to get this sneak peek at our Szeth mini in some pretty simple steps!

Whether you plan to display your minis as-is or jump into the addictive hobby of miniature painting, we think you're going to love how these characters look. Have a great weekend, and stay tuned for another fun update this Sunday.

Big News From Last Night’s Livestream
about 2 years ago – Sat, Sep 24, 2022 at 06:07:45 AM

Hi, folks! This is Johnny from Brotherwise, and last night I had the chance to join Brandon’s livestream and talk about this project. It was a little surreal …sometimes I feel like I went to a concert for my favorite band and they randomly chose me to come onstage and sing backup. This whole experience is a dream come true and it all started because years ago, I fell in love with these amazing books.

But enough about that… let’s get to the reveals!

Design Reveal

When we started this campaign, we held back a few never-before-seen designs. Rather than showing off 24 characters on Day One, we thought it would be fun to unveil them over the course of the campaign.

Taravangian is one such reveal, and we love how his design came together. As usual, we started by looking at past illustrations (like this piece by Ari Ibarra), then Isaac commissioned concept illustrations from Ben McSweeney. We supplemented these on the Brotherwise side with some photo reference and a bit more back and forth.

Then we moved to the sculpting stage, adding fun Diagram-inspired details to his base. A final adjustment came from Karen’s team, reminding us that Taravangian is described as wearing royal rings.

And there you have it! A grandfatherly king with a few tricks up his sleeve.

Stretch Goal

We also announced a new stretch goal: a bonus Shardbearer miniature. Anyone getting a physical reward — from a single figurine Add-On to an All-In pledge — will get this bonus mini:

We originally planned this unnamed Shardbearer as a digital-only design, but we heard from a lot of folks asking for a physical copy. We figured this was also a nice chance to deliver something that reaches the broadest group of backers.  Whether you're pledging for a single $15 figurine or going All-In, we'll ship you this mini. 

We also like that this Shardbearer could be anyone — even your own original character. That’s highly relevant to our next big announcement…

Next Project Announced

The biggest moment of last night’s livestream was an announcement about our next big project with Dragonsteel: a tabletop role playing game! Here’s a quick teaser:

This is a very big deal. And while that video says “2024,” the RPG project is already in motion. We’re combining our Cosmere expertise with a team of expert TTRPG writers and designers. The result will be a tome of incredible lore, gorgeous illustrations, and epic gameplay. This project will remain under wraps for the next few months, but look for us to work with the Stormlight fandom next year to solicit feedback and ensure that this RPG is everything it should be.

In the meantime, know that your Stormlight miniatures will be very relevant to that new RPG! From protagonists who will guest star in our first published adventure, to custom skirmish rules for mass battles, these miniatures will be the perfect way to enhance your RPG experience. (And in the meantime, they’re awesome collectibles that will look great on your desk or bookshelf!)

Alright, that’s our story for today! We covered even more on the livestream, so check it out if you have the time. And if you have any questions, let us know in the comments so we can answer them here!