Icarus Miniatures: Bemalte Modelle

Greetings wargamers. Today we’re going to be talking about the state of The Icarus Project, where we’re up to, and what’s coming in the next six months!

You may have noticed things have been very quiet on the Icarus Miniatures social media pages in the last month. That’s we’ve been doing a lot of behind the scenes work getting ready for the next stage for The Icarus Project, and the company in general. I thought we’d take some time today to talk about some of the things we’ve been doing, and what you can expect for the rest of the year.

Happy Birthday

Icarus Miniatures as a real business and not just an idea officially turns 1 this month. August 27th marks the 1 year mark since Gabriel Cross was unleashed on the world. This is an important milestone, because as many as 20% of businesses fail within the first year. The road has been long and difficult, but thanks to the support of our incredible fans, we’ve made it to the first, hopefully of many, milestones!

You can check out the beautifully painted version of Gabriel, painted by the amazing Gustavo Munoz, below;

There are a lot of people responsible for us reaching this milestone, including our artists, Daniel and Osipov; our sculptors, Irek and Questron, our painter Gustavo, and of course, the community.We also wouldn’t be where we are without the support, both information and financial, of the various start up schemes we have worked with in the last year, particularly Business Wales. Anyone who says that running a business isn’t a daily struggle is a liar, but the support offered to us by all these people has helped immense.New Miniatures

So what’s actually been going on in the last few months?Well the biggest thing has been the production of the 4 new minis required to round out the starter sets for the Alliance and Nexus. I made the choice not to release the miniatures one by one on their own, and will explain why in more detail below, but doing so has meant there has been a longer period than usual with no releases or updates.But, I’m pleased to say that all 4 minis are currently in production, and the masters are being painted as we speak. So we are very close to the next big thing. . .The Return to Kickstarter

I’ve previously said that I didn’t want to return to kickstarter to launch the Icarus Project until we had more to offer backers. This is still true and I don’t want to return to the platform to launch the full game until we have the first 4 starter sets.But Kickstarter is such an incredible tool for creators to reach a wider audience and raise funds to do more with.So Icarus Miniatures will be returning to Kickstarter to fund the Alliance and Nexus starter sets. This campaign will be short (2 weeks), with a much lower goal than our attempt last year, and will seek funding for us to do a larger production run of the starter sets so that we can start really pushing them to independent stores. Any extra money raised will go directly into sculpting costs for the Ji’tar and Praesidian models. We’ll have more details on the kickstarter closer to the time, and expect a full announcement within the next month.The Rest of the Year

Once we’ve ran and fulfilled the kickstarter for the first 2 starter sets, the rest of the year will be devoted to further game development, reaching out to new trade customers, and beginning the sculpting process for the next batch of releases.We’ll be attending our first convention, Blast-Tastic, in October, and will be using that as the testing bed for conventions, with the hopes of organizing a full convention circuit for 2017, ideally attending at least one show a month throughout the year.Starting this month we’ll also be re-launching the Icarus Miniatures newsletter, which up until now had simply served as a roundup of the month’s posts from the site. We’ll be relaunching the newsletter with new monthly offers exclusive to our subscribers, as well as more exclusive first look content. So be sure to sign up using the form at the bottom of the page if you’re not already signed up.New Content

The other thing I wanted to talk about today is content for the site. A lot of what we’ve been posting in the last few months has been previews for upcoming miniatures, but there’s been very little actual content going onto the site.That’s going to be changing! Over the next few weeks we’ll be rolling out several new regular content features; including the return of Fiction Fridays, as well more developer diaries, and once the equipment is set up, we’ll be rolling out tutorials for playing The Icarus Project, as well as video unboxings, assembly and painting videos, and more! If there’s anything you’d like to see, be sure to let us know in the comments below!