Saturday, December 22, 2012

Production Update 9


I am pleased to note that the vast bulk of the administrative tasks in getting Bombshell set up are pretty much done. Granted there are still innumerable details in getting the orders ready for fulfillment but all of the parts are in place now for us to begin the final segment of completing the project. Tim, Keri and I are finishing up the final batch of art for the postcards. here are a few progress shots.




The majority of the day Thursday was spent out at Reaper doing a little sculpting, approving and casting. The mold team (Ghent and Melissa) have done a fantastic job molding the Babes and getting them ready for production. I am very proud of their work and am fortunate to have their expertise in bringing the Babes to you.





There is still a LOT of sculpting to complete and I'm sure many of you are wondering when they will be finished. Now that most of this side-line setup work is done I can focus more time on finishing the actual sculpts. Delivery of Batch B for molding is expected to be sometime next week and there will be another update with photos of the sculpts.

Here is what has been set up so far:

• Molding & Casting deposit paid
• Masters for Batch A Babes completed.
• Batch A production molds completed
• Painting Assignments completed
• T-shirts ordered
• Resin base inserts ordered
• Postcard art 50% - Batch A goes to printer Wednesday
• Batch B Armatures complete

RESULTS ARE IN

Vicky has spent several days consolidating the results of the spreadsheets from the surveys. I can't begin to describe how juggling the data from over a thousand responses has been for the two of us. Here is the data she has compiled so far.

Kickstarter surveys: 26 responses outstanding of 1120

Babes:

Maelee - 1016
------------
Meagan & Monkey First Mate - 550
Sally - 562
Sword Maiden - 342
The Girl - 533
Betty & Shrapnel - 646
Dusty - 615
Vivian - 549
Bug Spray - 492
Tetsu Ko - 574
Nowada - 416
Raven Skye - 596
Pussy Patrol - 506
Inquisitor Mira - 597
Victoriana - 410
Wu Ling Shu - 643
Geirahod - 650
Delzira - 518
Cave Girl - 368
Dr. Helen Salinger - 1100

-------------------

Reinforcement Sets:

Professor Karrick & Thulie - 307
Luta & Shunkaha - 342
Rocket Biker & Bike - 358
Atomic Punks - 243

------------------

Bombkits & Additional Support

HlPrBot - 852
Relic 1 - 869
Relic 2 - 868
Relic 3 - 876
Relic 4 - 872
Steampunk Sprue - 940
Sci-fi Sprue - 927
Fantasy Sprue - 902
Squidman - 852
Raferu-san - 852
Tazjh - 852
Islug - 852
Belphegor - 852
Ping - 852
Flack - 852
Ghnt Spybot - 911

Sidekick Set 1 Sprue (Blunderbuss Monkey, HlPrBot, Rafaeru-San, Squidman & Tazjh) - 94
Sidekick Set 2 Sprue (Belphagor, Shrapnel, Flack, iSlug, & Ping) - 93

Resin pieces:

Rocket Bike - See Reinforcement sets
Additional Base insert sets - 93
Inserts for all Babes & Maelee - 10,583
Ammo Dumps - 895

------------------

T-shirts:

Small - 17
Medium - 41
Large - 61
XL - 94
XXL 75

NEWS

So by now you know the world did not actually end. This being the case we are full-steam-ahead getting the Babes finished up to get them to you.

We have reserved our spot at GenCon and received confirmation of our application. We will also have a Bombshell presence at Reaper Con in April and should have a new Maelee model available for that show.

Progress is still continuing on the Rocket Bike in ZBrush and I look to have some preliminary renders for the next update. It will need to go to print as soon as possible so I can get it off to mold. We'll be sending out the other half of the postcards to print within the first couple of weeks of January. Turnaround on the printing is pretty quick so this will be fine.  Our t-shirt printer gave me an estimated delivery of January 4th for the shirts so I'll post pics of those as soon as I can get them.

For those who asked, Shas'tan has recovered from his transgender surgery and will be going for a followup next Friday to see if he can have the cone and sutures removed. The surgeon is very confident this will greatly improve his quality of life.

Will keep you all posted with more progress after the holiday! Wishing all the best during the season.

~Patrick
The Sculptdude

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Production Update 8


Here is pretty much everything that went to mold yesterday plus the Sideckicks 1 Sprue and the Sci-fi sprue.











These guys I ran a few of while making masters of the weapons.



More pics soon.

Patrick





Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Backer Update - Survey

THE SURVEYS HAVE GONE OUT!

Thank you for your patience. 

Due to the structure of our reward levels, we are listing all available rewards in each survey. This is in case backers, either at lower or higher levels, increased their pledge amounts to include additional reward choices. As a special 'thank you' to all our Kickstarter backers, we will be sending a Doctor Helen Salinger Babe to each of you (see Update #28). That is why we are requesting address information from all pledge levels.


PLEASE NOTE: In order to complete the survey, all fields MUST have an entry, even if it is '0', 'none', or 'n/a'. In order to process your pledge rewards in a timely fashion, we need to have your surveys completed by Wednesday, December 19, 2012. Thank you again for supporting our project! Images for all of the rewards options can be seen on the Kickstarter Images Page.

We need to have the data back to set printing quantities for our vendors. I will be posting more images of sculpts between now and the "deadline".

SURVEY FAQ

Do not enter any quantities for PayPal Donate items on your Kickstarter Survey.

  • DO NOT list quantities for stuff you are ALREADY GETTING FOR FREE. In other words, the items that are already included in the Bomb Kit is stuff you will get anyway without choice. Only add quantities for your CHOICES and EXTRA items.
  • The PayPal Donate page is separate. You can enter your PayPal Donate rewards choices in the text box on the PayPal Donate form or email info@bombshellminis.com with the items for PayPal Donate. We will match them up for shipping.
  • If you feel you have made an error on your survey send me a PRIVATE MESSAGE through the Kickstarter site and I will notate your pledge survey so you get the items you want.
_______________________________________________________

PRODUCTION UPDATE

I am frantically trying to get everything collected to make our trip to Reaper tomorrow and there's lots of sculpting left. That means a late night with coffee is likely.

The bases have arrived at Valiant and I am awaiting a price quote for the production quantities.

Our 3D print vendor has shipped out the base tabs with the Bombshell imprint which should be arriving today. They are also printing Maelee's wrench and Sally's rocket pack. i hope to have both of these to take to mold tomorrow.





Here is my view from the workbench . . . 


and here is my view OF the workbench . . . 


Final details are being added to the girls.



Some of the them still need lots more work than others.

These are the armatures for the next batch, Meagan, Mira, Cave Girl and the Atomic Punks.


I have also printed out the Kickstarter images for reference.


This will help me keep track of what's ready to go to mold and what is left.


There will be another update of the final pics for this first batch of Babes before they go to mold. I will be updating the Sculpt Gallery and will post another update once they are ready.

I have contacted the artists to get the rest of the art for the Postcard sets so we can send those for printing next week. Plus, I will be painting the pieces I designed and will post the art for those, too.

We need to get the metrics back from the surveys so we can send the quantities to our printer for the T-shirts.

Anyway, much to do! Back to it . . . . 

Patrick

Friday, November 30, 2012

Production Update 7

It will soon be time to start collecting data.

=== The surveys have NOT gone out yet. ===

We will be sending them out beginning NEXT WEEK! I will be posting another update with more pics of the Babes that are done at this point between now and then. This will give you an idea of what to expect from the other pieces not yet completed. That way we can go ahead and start scheduling our production runs.

Assorted Sundry

Keri turned in the final art for Dusty!


Bearing in mind that there are lots of other things to do in addition to sculpting the Babes themselves, I was able to knock out some of this side work and get that wrapped up. There is still a lot of lead time on some of the digital and resin pieces that will require printing and silicon molding. In order to accommodate that I have finished these up first in order to get those off to the contract casters.

Here are the Sidekicks that are finished so far.



As posted previously, I made a 3D sprue for the base tabs on the figures with the Bombshell imprint. This file has been printed by the vendor and it will be going to mold next week to test the viability of the printing resin in the vulcan molds.

The base accessories have been completed and are off to the caster. Here are some shots of the ammo base insert in progress.







I needed to also make a couple of larger base inserts for The Atomic Punks creature and Shunkaha.

The next batch of digital files will include Maelee's wrench and Sally's rocket pack. This will allow me to put the parts together for the Sci-Fi sprue and have that mastered.



There are still some details to add on the rocket pack. So far I've learned a fantastic amount about ZBrush. All of these skills will come into play next in putting the HS38 Rocket Bike together. Once these parts are printed they will be going off to Valiant for molding.

NEWS

Many of you are aware that over the holiday weekend our male cat Shas'tan had a medical emergency requiring hospitalization. We brought him home today and he's finally eating and passing fluids properly. Thank you for all your well-wishes as we endured this traumatic time.



Due to both the holiday and our family emergency, I was not able to complete the pieces and get them out to Reaper for molding as expected. Over the next few days I will be playing catch-up at the workbench and posting new pics of what I can before we start sending the surveys. If all goes expected, we should be making our first masters later in the coming week.

~Patrick
The Sculptdude


Saturday, November 17, 2012

Production Update 6


Many of you have asked

=== The surveys have NOT gone out yet. ===

We will be sending them out once more sculpts are completed at the beginning of December.

Kickstarter recommends sending the survey near the shipping stage of fulfillment in order to verify everyone's address is up to date. We will have to send it considerably sooner than that to get an idea of how many copies of everything to order.

We are at the half-way point of the Production Process


I would like to say that half of the work is done, but that's not really an accurate way to describe the schedule curve. As we get closer to fulfillment the amount of completed work will increase exponentially. Hang in there.









I'll have more cool stuff for you next weekend. For those of you in the States. have a great holiday!

~Patrick

Friday, November 9, 2012

Production Update 5

We got some preliminary color roughs in from Keri and the final painting on Professor Karrick and Thulle from Patrick McEvoy.





Other progress is coming along for making things.


The girls are all lined up and ready for me to give them some putty lovin' this month. I also need to finish out a whole batch of accessories that will need to mastered as well.




The first batch of digital files are just about ready to go for a test print. The base inserts should be ready to go to mold this coming week. I added some client tabs on there too just to cut down on the repetitive work a bit.


The Experiment


Sally's helmet has been in my head for  couple of years now. I know Naismith did some big helmets for the Cobalt-1 figures several years ago and I think the idea is sound. I have wanted a space girl figure with a bubble helmet since the first Chronoscope pieces I sculpted for Reaper.



I laid out some of the basic shape profiles in order to create a mold for the vacuform. The various proposed shapes will lend themselves not only to helmets but also other pulp sci-fi designs like robots and brain tanks!



So, the vacuformer arrived along with some clear plastic stock and over the next few weeks I'll be making a few test forms for the helmet shapes. I don't even know if it will work yet, but the theory is sound.

Thanks for hanging in there. More next week!
Patrick