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Final Kickstarter Update

REAPERCON

This has probably the most fantastic ReaperCon experience ever! I had a wonderful time meeting new fans and introducing everyone to the Babes™. It was especially exciting to see many of our backers in person and talk to them about our project. Most of our Bomb Squad crew was on hand and we all had a wonderful time. As an added treat Kev White and the Hasslefree clan came over from England and was fantastic to hang with. Red Box's Tre Manor and I sang a little "Crazy Train" on the loading docks Saturday Night. Jim Ludwig from Dark Sword Miniatures had us all in stitches the entire time. Even Victoria Lamb came all the way from Oz and stopped by on her return trip from Adepticon. We sold quite a few Babes™ and more than a few Bombshell Sculpting Kits.

Now I have lots of unpacking, catch-up work and recovering to do. I can neither confirm nor deny any of my activities during the convention. What happens at ReaperCon stays at ReaperCon.

PROGRESS

We have completed sending out all of the packages that we have surveys to fulfill! We still have a handful of packages left to resolve with selection issues and shipping amounts but the majority is now shipped out. Our patient backers still waiting for their painted models and original sculpts should be relieved to know that those I have in hand will be packaged with their rewards shipment and we'll be sending those out this coming week. There are a couple that the painters are still working on but we should have those soon.

I want to assure our supporters that the extent of our main frustration with the project has come from Kickstarter's survey system. With the amount of funds they withhold it seems possible they could offer a much more robust, feature-rich pledge manager without the need to go to third-party designers. We have been having lots of trouble sorting out the surveys because we didn't have a slick pledge manager to implement. Using Kickstarter's own survey was extremely cumbersome and created a lot of errors for us to resolve at the time of shipping.

Once our online web store is available for purchases we will send an announcement update through the Kickstarter backer system. We will no longer be posting any further updates regarding the Babes™ Kickstarter project on the project page. Future updates will be posted on our blog at Bombshell Miniatures. If you discover issues with your rewards package and need to notify us regarding damage or missing items, we will work to resolve your issue as quickly as possible. You must send an email with your name, backer ID, rewards level and a description of your issue to support@bombshellminis.com

NEWS

Christopher Sheets has posted a great unboxing of his Bombshell rewards package. You can read it here!

I posted this over on the Reaper Forums but thought you may like to see what is coming up.

For the the Babes™ line we'll be releasing more female characters that were designed for the Kickstarter project but did not reach funding. There were several concepts we had designed but didn't quite get to make so we'll be offering these later. In addition, I still have a list of artists I contacted that couldn't find the schedule to get something to us for the Kickstarter and I will be contacting them for future character designs.

The Sidekicks™ were an unexpected by-product of what we were doing. I really just wanted to have a fun little critter or two to go with some of the characters like that were depicted in some of the Matt Dixon art we licensed. I didn't expect them to take on a life of their own and become a separate line. We will be branding them now for their own range and will continue to release critter character models much like Reaper's mouselings. There are several other robot designs I still want to do, too.

Stirring in the background is the Epic Models™ range. Currently I'm looking to brand our kit range that will include bigger pieces like Shunkaha and resin things like the Rocket Bike and Girron. This will include larger sculpts like 54mm or even 75mm figures, busts, and more vehicle kits.

Developing in the Secret Lab is our cinematic retro pulp Sci-Fi RPG with supporting miniature range. There will be more about that soon.

As of now I'm hoping to keep putting out at least 2 to 3 pieces a month but if sales and interest increase we will certainly be expanding our release schedule. This is all in addition to the regular pieces I will continue to do for Reaper, Dark Sword, Privateer and other clients.

I want to offer a sincere thanks to ALL of our backers. We literally could not have done any of it without the support of the hobby community. A select few of you have received commendations in your rewards packages for your exceptional promotion of our work. All of us at the Bomb Factory hope to continue to bring you exceptional models.

The Bomb Squad looks forward to seeing all of you at GenCon 2013.

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Thank you for your support!
Patrick
~The Sculptdude

Fulfillment Update 2

PROGRESS

Barring very few snags considering Vicky has been the only one packing and shipping over 1000 fulfillment packages with only occasional help from either Brett or I, the completion point has been exceptional.

Most of the surveys with discrepancies have been resolved. There are still a handful of pending issues that are in progress as noted below. Otherwise, packages have been sent to every backer we received a survey from for the indicated levels.

Total backers: 1126
Dropped backers: 6
Backers not responded to survey: 7

• $1   RACK LEVEL - Completed
• $7   PRIMER LEVEL - Completed
• $15  FUSE LEVEL - Completed
• $20  CASING LEVEL - Completed
• $25  CHARGE LEVEL - 2 Remaining
• $30  IGNITOR LEVEL - Completed
• $55  DETONATOR LEVEL - 1 Remaining
• $75  BOMB KIT LEVEL - 5 Remaining
• $100 BLAST LEVEL - 13 Remaining
• $120 BARRAGE LEVEL - 6 Remaining
• $140 INCENDIARY LEVEL - 1 Remaining
• $150 NAPALM LEVEL - In progress
• $170 PLASMA LEVEL - 8 Remaining
• $200 NEUTRON LEVEL - In Progress

Over the next several days we will be working to package and ship the NAPALM and NEUTRON levels which are about 320 packages or so.

For the rewards levels THERMITE and HYDROGEN, those of you receiving painted miniatures, we will be shipping those out as soon as the models are in hand. Rather than ship most of the painted models to me, I will be picking them up in person since all of our paint crew will be present during ReaperCon.

Thank you for all of your feedback, both encouraging and critical. We have been working under a pressure cooker over the last several months to get everything out and stay on track to get the web store up and running. This has always been our main goal and now it is only a few weeks away!

NEWS

All of our painters have been hard at work and here are a few more tasty tidbits! Meg Maples painted our studio model for Vivian Gale with exceptional looking metallics and clever water effects. Martin Jones never fails to impress with his camera friendly NMM techniques for Tetsu Ko, Pussy Patrol, Wu Ling Shu, The Cave Girl and Ping.

We will likely only have one more Fulfillment Update™ before things are wrapped up and the following week I will make a special announcement for the online web store. I will be transmitting the next update remotely from ReaperCon where all manner of folks will descend to revel in the Bones goodness.

See you next week!
~Patrick
The Sculptdude

Fulfillment Update 1

PROGRESS

According to Endicia, our shipping software, we have processed 391 domestic and international packages since March 22. Since I cancelled our PB account, I don't have a way to go back and get a total from them on how many were shipped through that system.

As of today all of the rewards levels from the $1 RACK LEVEL through the $55 DETONATOR LEVEL that we could process have been shipped. Vicky finished packaging the remainder of the $75 BOMB KIT LEVEL today and those will go to the post on Monday with several more from the higher levels. We are projecting that all of the packages with no survey discrepancies will be shipped out by April 19th.

Only about twenty of the processed rewards contained errors in calculating their totals, indicated too many or too few items for the amounts donated, or simply did not include the amount to cover international shipping. Weeding through these is taking an exceptional amount of time and all of the rewards that we can process with no issues have a priority and are being shipped as soon as possible.

Brett is still contacting many of these backers via email to resolve whatever issues there are and ship these packages when they are ready.

Shipping prices have increased since the beginning of the year and we are taking a hit on increased international shipping charges. When we set the international shipping amount to  $12 during the run of the Kickstarter project that covered what we estimated the shipping to be at that time. The average cost of BOMB KIT level rewards packages going out with and without a shirt have ranged from $16 to $18 a package. We have approximately 400 international backers so we've eaten about $2,000 in shipping. We will not be asking international backers for an additional amount to cover this shipping cost if they included it with their original pledge. If you are an international backer and you did NOT include an amount for shipping in your pledge, we will not be sending your rewards package until we receive your payment for shipping.

NEWS

Our accountant completed the tax return for 2012 and due to the income the Kickstarter project generated we will be paying in an additional $19,375. Fortunately we anticipated this and Vicky put enough aside to cover the taxes owed. We are sending this to the IRS this week.

All that remains is the final consignment of 215 Rocket Bikes this coming week and we will have received and completed everything from the Production Phase.

I am massively behind in my client sculpting work and will be working diligently to complete as much as possible before heading out to ReaperCon.

So, in the interim, here are a few cool shots of the Atomic Punks set painted by Jessica Rich.

See you next week!
~Patrick
The Sculptdude