Kickstarting the Kickstarter
- OSHIROblog
- 33 minutes ago
- 3 min read
As mentioned elsewhere, it's taken long enough but finally the 28mm Japanese religious Kickstarter is ready to launch.
Below is the pre-launch link but I thought I'd take this opportunity to go a bit more in-depth as to the whys and wherefores for the project.
The main reason behind it is to bring the religious buildings up to scratch and give them accessible interiors to match the village and yamashiro ranges. When I first started the OSHIRO Japanese ranges (way back in 2007), mass battles were the 'thing'. Over the years this has changed to more skirmish sized games and so having accessible interiors has become a necessity.
Another element is to try and bring all the different scaled ranges to some sort of similarity; something which has been lacking recently. This being the case, one of the main elements of the KS is to produce a fancy roof for the odou (roadside shrine), it's only had a simple wooden roof up to now. This will be in line with the 15mm and soon to be 6mm versions, something which should've happened sooner, but there we are :-)
As you can see from the image above, most of the drawing for it is done. The intention is to have the roof in four, maybe five parts (at the moment) with an mdf frame underneath to tie it all together. This means that the drawing will have to be split with each section printed out, moulds made and casts produced to see if it works. This will take time and money, of which recently, I've had little of both. With the KS being successful it will allow me to set time aside and purchase the necessary materials to be able to have the roof complete as mentioned above.
The KS is also allowing me to add other buildings to the range that wouldn't necessarily be made. The above, for example, is a 'kaguraden' or dancing stage. There is also a 'mikoshisha', which is a portable shrine store, a small roadside shrine and a temple bell tower to complete the new buildings (the latter two are still being worked on). There are other buildings that were associated with shrines but for the time being I felt that these were the ones that would be most useful.
Existing items from the original religious catalogue range have been updated and re-mastered and casting for a lot of those is already underway; pictures of which will be forthcoming in the following weeks, because who doesn't like pictures of piles of resin bits in a workshop.
Part of the project as a whole will include tutorials for some of the pledge levels. These tutorials aren't part of the actual KS but I'm doing them alongside it. Adding the various elements to bases, painting them and including scenic features to help people get a good idea of the various layouts that are possible. If I get chance and time allows I might even get a battle report in before the campaign finishes.
Work will proceed with the smaller elements that need finishing (small shrine, bell tower etc) and plenty of updates regarding these will be posted. However, work on the odou roof will only continue when/if the KS fulfils; and why wouldn't it.
One question I have been asked several times in the past is why I don't release stl files. My main reasoning is that stl files aren't accessible for everyone whereas physical items are. I also have quite a traditional viewpoint in this regard and enjoy making physical models for release.
Of course, I'm happy to answer questions with any of the above (and also in general) and look forward to the project's fulfilment.
cheers
James
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