Good day! I am very excited today to bring you an update on miniatures! It has been a while since we had any new info on that front, and while the delivery date is still a ways off, we wanted to let you know that we've been constantly working away on it in the background.

First, however, let's get to an all-important update on where fulfillment is for waves 1 and 2:

US: Fulfillment in progress! About 60% of Wave 1 has shipped out, and we expect the remaining orders to ship out next week. Similarly, Wave 2 is about 50% shipped, and we expect to have this finished by the end of next week.

CA: Product has been received in port and is on the rail to fulfillment, scheduled to arrive on March 28! The fulfillment center is planning to start shipping April 1, and they expect it to be a quick process to get everything shipped.

AU/NZ: It look slightly longer than expected for product to arrive, but we've been told fulfillment is beginning today! Most orders are expected to be ship within the next couple weeks.

Asia: As noted last update, orders will be shipping to regional fulfillment hubs from VFI at the beginning of April. Once they arrive and are processed at the local hub, they will be shipped to backers.

UK: While prepping the extra shipment from the US, we received good news! The original shipment from China is scheduled to arrive April 15, which is earlier than expected and about the same time we had planned for the US replacement shipment to arrive. Once it gets to port, it will be moved to Spiral Galaxy, and shipping will commence.

EU/RoW: The add-on container is looking to arrive on Monday. It will take a few days to get unloaded and delivered to Fulfillment Europe. Once that happens fulfillment can begin.

First off, I need to tell you that Sarah Dahlinger, one of the sculptors on this project, just finished a live stream where they sculpting a Kivak (a large rocky-skinned beast of burden used by the Savvas) for us! This will be a bonus minature included in every full miniature pledge, and you can watch it be made here in this video.

In addition, Jamie Daggers will be doing a 2-part live stream on painting our Buttons & Bugs micro minis, March 27 and 28, 1-4pm Eastern, so check that out as well.

Okay, on to the miniatures:

Hello Mercenaries, Price here to give an update on the Miniatures portion of this project! With the majority of Frosthaven and Buttons & Bugs obligations behind us, and Gloomhaven (2E) making great strides towards its final production - we figured it’d be helpful to start providing updates on the MANY products wrapped under the “Miniatures” banner - and that starts today! 

Below is a new Cephalofair "Miniatures of Gloomhaven" Tracker that represents where each miniature project stands. Since Miniatures of Gloomhaven represents its own fulfillment wave, this will also track their progress through mass production, freight, and finally fulfillment to you! Generally, we’re at a good place with this project and excited to now have even more bandwidth to engage and push sculptures through production. 

Note: The % listed under each icon in this graphic signals how many models have been APPROVED/COMPLETED at that applicable stage, not how many are currently IN that stage, which is more than listed. So expect much movement over the coming months as we finalize more revisions with our factory.

We’ve got many new models wrapping up this month, and with multiple April contracts, we’re looking to wrap up the majority of the outstanding work that needs to be done (most tied directly to new Gloomhaven artwork assignments needed for reference by our 3D artists.  

So let’s talk about what each step in this workflow means to help give better idea of what our team is doing at each step:

This is the first and most exciting step of each miniatures - working with our talented sculptors to create a first, and most ideal, draft of how we want each character to look, providing 2D game artwork, writing direction, and other artistic references. This typically involves approvals on a 1) first draft rough 2) posing draft 3) final detail draft. Once fully approved, the sculpt is handed off to our manufacturing for their digital review.

In this step, our manufacturing team reviews each miniature file (.STL) we’ve submitted and validates it’s physical ability to be professionally molded for mass production. This includes refinding hard edges or angles that will make mold release impossible or difficult, enhancing detail that may be too thin/small/flimsy, and advising us on other compromises that may need to be taking with the sculpt such as posture, posing, and further detail work. Our team receives comparisons of the originally submitted model, next to new revisions done by the factory’s internal artists.

During this step, the factory hand-produces polyurethane (PU) samples of each miniature to physically sample for us what the miniature will look like in physical manifestation. We receive photos, videos, and physical shipments of these hand-cast samples which are brittle and still absolutely work-in-progress. Any revisions we need to make at this stage can still be made digitally before we head into our next stage.

Once physical PU samples are approved, and all samples are approved for their given SKU, that SKU officially heads into mold making! This is perhaps one of the longest stages of the process. Here our factory casts and engraves large aluminum molds for mass production. These plastic injection molds divide each sculpt into two “halves” that hot molten plastic is injected in between before opening and releasing the final product. Your average, more basic model will ideally be cast in a single piece that requires very little if any further handlings. More complex models (Mercenaries, Lurkers, Demons, etc) often need to be cast as several individual parts that are then later manually glued together on the assembly line. This allows us to achieve more complex designs that aren’t possible to sculpt in a single piece, but also increases production time and cost - so this needs to be explored on a sculpt by sculpt basis. Any further mold changes that need to be made upon review of pre-production casts can be made directly to the aluminum molds, but in a limited fashion as metal can only be removed, no longer ADDED, to the mold, obviously. 

Finally, mass production begins and our shiny new aluminum molds and hot molten PVC plastics! SKU by SKU miniatures will be cast in bulk, manually finished where needed, checked for quality, sorted, and assembled into their final vac trays for each product before being loaded onto pallets and left to await pickup by our ocean freight partners! Excitement is palpable at this stage as we eagerly await to see the first completed units off the line and give them a full top-down inspection before giving the final GREEN LIGHT for mass production to begin in full. 

So that’s what to expect as we start sharing more progress updates and photos over the rest of the year. We’re really excited to see these big boxes of monsters, bosses, allies, and Mercenaries coming together and know they are going to be a fantastic upgrade for many Gloomhaven, Frosthaven, and Gloomhaven RPG campaigns for years to come! Stay tuned for more!

Cephalofair Games just concluded a company retreat where we play tested the RPG adventure included in the core rulebook (and worked on future projects). Everyone left really happy with were the RPG is at, and are very excited to finish up this project and get it out to you. I am really proud of all the work Danielle and everyone else has put into it, and you can hear more about some of the tweaks we made to the system in Danielle's designer diary next update!

Buttons & Bugs is here, and we have been so pleased with the reception! Check out this thoughtful review from the Cardboard Herald:

We are currently at PAX East! (Well, I am not, but some brave souls went directly from the company retreat to Boston to bring you demos of Buttons & Bugs, the RPG, and all that good stuff.) If you are at the show, come by booth 12115 to say hi!

And that's it! I hope you all are enjoying Buttons & Bugs, or if it hasn't arrived, I hope you enjoy it when it arrives soon! Catch you next time!