Hi Jim,
did you think of or even plan to release more monsters, e.g. the ones from the artworks of which you already produce the humans like Parkinson's "Return of the Banished", Caldwell's "Mind of the Magic", "GlenRaven", or "Wiz Biz II" or Elmore's "Shrouded Realm" or "Prince of the North"? On the one hand it would be great to complete a scene like these and on the other hand I miss monsters of your high quality series for gameplay. What's the greatest hero without a foe? I would like to see more dragons, of course (as I already stated here in the forums ), but they aren't the only enemies a character has to conquer...?!

Btw, is the TSR artwork definitely taboo? Even if it's not about TSR characters like Drizz't & Co, but just appeared in a TSR publication like Elmore's "Dragon Slayers and proud of it"? That would make a fantastic set (including the dragon of course) since it is a very intense scene and the persons represent each of the classic fantasy classes. It was just printed in the 2nd ed. AD&D PHB, afaik. No specific character is pictured. Larry Elmore sells copies of it from his website. Moreover, a lot of great pictures of monsters by "your" artists were published in any TSR book, but a mini isn't really a reproduction of the original, so don't you think there's perhaps a chance to produce them anyway? Monsters would broaden your palette of models a lot.

Cheers,
Ralph

The TSR artwork gets tricky as they but the rights to some pieces outright (like the inside of the players handbook 2nd edition with the little green dragon and the proud party that took it down).

I soooo wanted to do that artwork piece as a set....But TSR owns the rights to it from what Larry recalls.

Dragon Magazine covers are a differnt story altogether though as the artists typically kept the primary rights to these pieces (hence Northwatch and many other great pieces we have done off of Dragon Magazine covers).

The brutal truth of the matter is Monsters do not sell that well compared to well done PC types.

I know that Anne from Reaper was giving me grief over this at Gen Con Indy last year about doing up everything in the piece of art. This can get spendy on the sculpting and mold side of the house and many people do not care about the critters or the monsters, they only want the main PC types from the piece. They then do not want to pay extra for the critters and such.

It is a tough one to appease everyone on.

We may test out a few pieces where we do this to see what the market responds with. Or maybe we will do some Web site only exclusives to test the waters....

I can see both sides of this, but it is really something that I just hate to burn sculpting time and energy on (as Dennis, Tom and Dave are busy cats) when they could be doing PC types and Dragons.

Your thoughts?

Jim

Hi Jim,
yes, that's the painting I was referring to. Don't you think it's possible to bargain any sort of (inexpensive) licence with WOTC, resp. HASBRO to produce this set (or others) anyway? They do own all the TSR rights right now as they took over their business, right? And is it certain that you are actually bound to any rights even if you don't reproduce the original but just use it to sculpt minis from?

I understand that you have to think economically with just a limited number of releases per year and the limited time schedule of your great sculptors. I guess, that's the dark side of being in a niche business. However, it's definitely a shame if there won't be any DS monsters ever. Ok, one can't have enough dragons, I think - especially made by Dave Summers. But that's

Do you have the information that folks aren't willing to buy a set if one of the six minis is a monster from your colleagues from Reaper? What are their experiences with their Demons, Mindflayers, Undeads and other critters? As far as I can judge e.g. their Marilith (no. 2633) is not underrepresented on CMON. A search for "Vandorendra" reveals that there are 21 painted specimen. IMHO that's quite a lot for a single model and I'm sure that's not due to the breasts, btw . Almost any well-known painter painted this model at least once. It's a really great mini. A search for "vampire" even results in 42 pages of hits (different models of course) - "wizard" just in 32, "paladin" in 27 and "thief" in 7.

If it is of any help - count me in for a triple order of your first monster set.

[irony] Perhaps the bare breasted models sell that well that the vending subsidizes the monsters. So please give us more nudes! [/irony]

To make a long story short: Don't let that idea threaten your business and don't leave out a single dragon by Dave. Anyway, I would be glad if you give it a try, perhaps as you proposed an exclusive for your web shop.

Ralph

Considering the majority of the miniatures I buy and paint are non-human types, specifically dragons and werecreatures (Rackham's wolfen count too), I would be interested to see what you put out in terms of monsters. In particular the lizard creature from Parkinson set 2 would make a nice addition. However, if this took time away from new dragons, I'd rather see more dragons than other minis.

As usual, Jo and I absolutely agree, I'd say .
The lizard creature was the one I meant when I was talking about the monster from "Return of the Banished". It would make a great model, I think.

But perhaps you'd prefer to start with something not-so-experimental. Did you consider to produce a vampire for example? Most are very close to humans or vile characters in appearance. Consulting the non-representative count on CMON, e.g. Dennis Mize's "Jahenna" (Reaper 2632) gets a score of 19 (don't forget the one titled "Reaper Vampire Seductress" by Jennifer Haley ) for a single miniature! That's hard to beat by a PC.

But after all, don't forget the dragons (btw, anything planned yet beyond the Easley set?) and perhaps you give the lizard a try one day.

Ralph