A few years back I did a few turnaround designs for D&D Minis. The unfortunate thing with designs for miniatures is that the manufacturing process takes a long time, and so it was awhile before they released, and then it took maybe a year or so until I received samples--they come randomly packaged, so someone had to sit there and collate them, probably. Then I moved to New York and forgot where I'd left them (back in CA). Then I forgot to get around to blogging about it....So, 4 years later here we are.
I have a friend who for many years collected, customized and painted miniatures. Now, these were mostly Games Workshop minis, and mostly the nice lead-alloy ones, until they got really hard to find due to eating miniatures containing lead being found to be harmful (nevermind the pokey bits). I always enjoyed looking at his work on them, and appreciated the detail possible at such a small scale. It hadn't occurred to me back then that the design process probably started with drawings. I guess I thought the sculptor would just hack into a chunk of material like Michelangelo might do to marble.
In any case, I had to learn a little about mold processes, which was interesting, as when you mass-produce miniatures, the complexity of the shapes can easily mean you have to create multiple molds, meaning an increase in production costs. D&D Minis are mass-produced in China, and made from plastic, so they don't have nearly the level of detail possible in the medium. They also are sorta...bendy...which means you may get a sword bent when it comes out of the box. They are also assembly-line painted, for those who don't have the patience or interest in priming and painting their own, but don't want plain pewter-colored figures. I had nothing to do with the painting choices.
For these figures, my drawings were all far more detailed than necessary, and I knew they were. Part of this was because the drawings themselves were to be reproduced on accompanying cards which would have stats on them. But even for that, this was overkill. Subsequent designs, including for other product lines (TBA) have had much less-rendered drawings. They also include an important detail I hadn't learned yet--the figure should always be drawn without perspective. Here, the stance clearly indicates the relative position of the legs, but typically you would want to draw the feet on a flat linear plane (as if you were eye-level with each part of the figure). Like a cartoon of someone standing on a wall. As I said, it was a valuable education I've been able to put to use. In any case, it wasn't impossible for the lead sculptor to use this.
You'll also note that the figure, in the back pose, has seemingly switched arms. To do the back, I laid vellum over the front and traced the contour, knowing I'd flip it digitally for submission. Of course, since from the back view the rear foot would now be "lower" on the plane than the front foot, I realized I would not be able to trace the legs, and had to redraw them. That's how I learned that lesson.
In the end, while I knew the details would disappear, I must say that seeing the designs sculpted in less-than-ideal materials, at 1.25" tall, was still a bit of a surprise:
They definitely got the spirit of the thing, and some of the details in. In retrospect, I might've expected that the material may require the limbs be thicker for durability. The sword, as you can see is bending a bit. They also tucked that shield elbow way in, so as to not deal with a pit in the mold.
It was fun nevertheless. I think these were for set 14. The production drawings are available as a set
here.
