Minis

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A Small Story About Minis

When I first considered including miniatures in our Kickstarter, several friends and colleagues who owned game studios—people with far more experience than me—looked at me with a kind of quiet panic. They didn’t argue. They didn’t lecture me. They simply looked me in the eye and slowly shook their heads, as if to say, “Please don’t do this to yourself.”

Despite their best efforts to dissuade me, I included them anyway.

Thanks to our incredible backers, we raised just over $11,000 USD to fund the miniature project, and I enthusiastically set out to develop the STL files and bring the line to life.

The first challenge was finding the right sculptor. I cycled through a number of talented 3D artists before eventually meeting Carrie. She operates on an entirely different level from any 3D artist I have ever worked with. Her ability to transform concept art into beautifully detailed, expressive miniatures is extraordinary, and she quickly became an indispensable part of the Orthane team.

With the STLs finally in hand, my friend Mitch, owner of Masterwork Studio and our resident 3D-printing wizard, set out to build what can only be described as a miniature manufacturing facility in his basement. Before long, it housed multiple professional resin printers, a dedicated ventilation system, curing stations, wash stations, shelves of resin, and every other mysterious dooflanger required to make tiny warriors emerge from vats of goo.

Over the following year we printed, tested, refined, and reprinted every miniature. We played with them at conventions across the country, learning what worked and, more importantly, what didn’t.

The biggest lesson was this: with resin 3D printing, you can have incredible detail, or you can have flexibility and durability—but achieving all three at once is remarkably difficult. We also learned that while 3D printing is fantastic for prototyping and small production runs, it becomes dramatically more expensive than injection molding once you’re producing thousands of miniatures.

Looking back, I’m incredibly glad we went through that process. We needed to. It gave us the experience and confidence to know that investing the many tens of thousands of dollars required for steel injection molds wasn’t reckless—it was the right long-term decision.

So… that’s exactly what we did.

We’re now producing the first twenty Keshanar miniatures through Boda Games in China, with an initial production run of approximately 60,000 miniatures. Since the tooling is by far the most expensive part of the process, it didn’t make financial sense to manufacture only the roughly 8,000 miniatures needed to fulfill the Kickstarter. By producing a larger run, we’ll not only fulfill our backers but also build inventory for the store over the coming years and gradually recover the tooling investment.

The same lesson is now guiding our Tomb Tiles. We successfully 3D printed every set for our Kickstarter backers, and because they don’t contain delicate parts, the results were excellent. But for long-term production, injection molding is clearly the better path.

If you’ve noticed that all of our miniatures are currently marked “Out of Stock,” that’s because they’re in production right now. They are being manufactured as you read this, and we’re incredibly excited to have them available in the Orthane store in the next 2–4 months (hopefully sooner).

If there’s a particular miniature you’re excited about, click “Notify Me” on its product page, or send us an email at sendingspell@orthane.com so we can let you know as soon as it’s available.

As always, thank you for supporting Orthane Productions and our mission to create the world’s most authentic fantasy roleplaying experience inspired by ancient Egypt. None of this—from the books to the miniatures to the adventures—would be possible without your enthusiasm, encouragement, and belief in what we’re building together.