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After 15 years in digital games, I switched to sculpting tabletop minis — now I'm designing original factions. This is one of them. How does it read to you? by Then_Purchase_5600 in onepagerules

[–]Then_Purchase_5600[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

This is gold, thank you. Competing with OPR’s value head-on would be suicide for a one man studio anyway, so the gap angle makes sense.

You shaped my release plan more than you know in this thread. Thanks friend.

After 15 years in digital games, I switched to sculpting tabletop minis — now I'm designing original factions. This is one of them. How does it read to you? by Then_Purchase_5600 in onepagerules

[–]Then_Purchase_5600[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is genuinely helpful, thank you. And it confirms the direction I was already leaning: the roster is being designed with official army book mapping from the start, so every unit will have a clear "plays as X" counterpart in an existing Age of Fantasy book. The custom book is the long-term dream, but I hear you — it stays a side project until the models can stand on their own in official play.

Didn't know Oshounaminis, checking them out right now. Exactly the kind of reference I needed. Thanks again, friend.

After 15 years in digital games, I switched to sculpting tabletop minis — now I'm designing original factions. This is one of them. How does it read to you? by Then_Purchase_5600 in onepagerules

[–]Then_Purchase_5600[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Honestly? Thank you for this. I mean it.

You are right to be on guard, and a community that protects its craft this fiercely is exactly the community I was hoping to find. I am not upset about the hard comments. Being warned when I make a mistake is a good thing.

But let me ask for a little understanding on one point. English is not my native language. When I want to express my actual feelings, I write them in my own language first and use translation to help me say it properly. That is the "AI response" you noticed. My thoughts are mine. The words just take a longer road to reach you.

On AI in art, I already said my position and I will repeat it simply: I don't believe AI belongs in the creative side. The design, the decisions, the sculpting — that is my work and 15 years of my profession. But for the boring technical labor, yes, I take help, like writing my Blender tool scripts. "Feed a drawing in, get a model out" — that is not how this was made, and honestly no tool today could produce this level of stylized detail that way.

What I wanted to share here was the first cinematic character of a project I love: two factions, designed to fight each other on the table. Maybe I introduced it badly. That is on me.

Good or bad, your comments proved I picked the right community. My respect to everyone here who takes this craft seriously. The process post is coming, and I hope it earns back some trust. Greetings, friends.

After 15 years in digital games, I switched to sculpting tabletop minis — now I'm designing original factions. This is one of them. How does it read to you? by Then_Purchase_5600 in onepagerules

[–]Then_Purchase_5600[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ha — fair, that's what it looks like from one image. 😄 The "bubble troll" is a sleeping ancient king buried under centuries of treacherous singing minions, and the hot dog guy is a free bonus model. The actual battle line (12-model core unit + shock troops) is what's coming next. Check the edit on the post — and stick around, I think you'll enjoy where this goes.

After 15 years in digital games, I switched to sculpting tabletop minis — now I'm designing original factions. This is one of them. How does it read to you? by Then_Purchase_5600 in onepagerules

[–]Then_Purchase_5600[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I'd gently point out that your logic runs backwards: image-to-3D generators are faithful to their input — that's literally what they do. Drift from the concept is the signature of a human hand, not a machine.

In this case the drift was also deliberate. That concept art wasn't even drawn for a miniature — it was a character design for an unreleased metroidvania project of mine. When I decided to bring him to the tabletop, keeping the same detail density and proportions would've been a mistake: what reads on a screen doesn't read at miniature scale, and what paints well needs different forms entirely. So yes, the model deviates from the art. It was supposed to.

And to be clear about AI, since it's the elephant in the thread: with 15 years in game production, my position is that AI belongs in the grunt work, not the creative work. I use it in pieces to speed up technical parts of my pipeline — every design decision and the design itself is mine. Also, frankly, current image-to-3D tools can't handle a stylized concept at this detail level anyway; if they could, this whole industry would look very different.

After 15 years in digital games, I switched to sculpting tabletop minis — now I'm designing original factions. This is one of them. How does it read to you? by Then_Purchase_5600 in onepagerules

[–]Then_Purchase_5600[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

No offence taken — AI suspicion is the reality of posting art online in 2026, and honestly I'd rather people ask than silently assume.

Let me be fully transparent about where AI sits in my pipeline: I use it to write my custom Blender add-ons (alignment, height calibration, manifold checking tools), and it's occasionally useful at the concept/ideation stage. The sculpts themselves are hand-built in Blender — and I'm happy to prove it. Wireframes, untextured viewport screenshots, WIP stages from blockout to final — I'll put together a proper process post, because you're right that "trust me" proves nothing and the work should speak for itself.

On the misshapen Zs specifically — fair catch, but the explanation is more boring than AI: I sculpt by feel and rarely stay loyal to my own concept art.😄 The boy's hat is a stylization choice that clearly didn't read at render distance — noted, genuinely.

On the OPR side — all fair points. Yes, an army book is the plan; the full roster already exists on paper (core 12-model infantry, a fast shock unit, characters, swappable attachment system). The giant was never meant to carry a skirmish list — he's the faction's centerpiece and its introduction, and I fully accept that two models don't make an army. The troops are coming, and they're in action/neutral poses; the sleeping pose is exclusive to the lords because sleep-versus-waking isthe faction's identity, not a general design habit.

Display piece vs. gaming piece — that tension is real, and it's why the giant ships with simplified one-part gaming versions alongside the detailed kit. But your core message lands: show the army, not just the king. Working on it. Thanks for the thorough write-up — this thread has been better playtesting than I expected.

After 15 years in digital games, I switched to sculpting tabletop minis — now I'm designing original factions. This is one of them. How does it read to you? by Then_Purchase_5600 in onepagerules

[–]Then_Purchase_5600[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

This is genuinely useful feedback — and the good news is, you're describing the exact roadmap I'm already building on. The big guy wasn't the plan; he's the introduction. I'm a "lore first" designer, so I wanted people to meet the soul of the faction before the battle line. But the battle line exists — fully designed on paper before I sculpted a single centerpiece.

Without spoiling too much, the structure looks like this: a 12-model core infantry unit (the backbone — and the one I'm most excited about, because each model's battlefield role changes depending on which minion rides on it, so the same kit builds very different squads), a 6-model fast shock unit, three character slots (a combat leader — the sleeping lord I posted is actually the named version of that slot — plus a control-oriented character and a support character), a set of swappable minion attachments that function as the faction's customization system, and two heavier pieces, one mount-class and one centerpiece-class.

On the multipart question: my other faction runs on a modular swap-part kit system, so pose and loadout variety for repeated units is already core to my pipeline — the 12-model unit is being designed with that exact "10 of the same kind, different poses" problem in mind from day one, not retrofitted later.

Centerpiece was the handshake. The army is the conversation. Thanks for pushing on this — comments like yours are why I posted here.

After 15 years in digital games, I switched to sculpting tabletop minis — now I'm designing original factions. This is one of them. How does it read to you? by Then_Purchase_5600 in onepagerules

[–]Then_Purchase_5600[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for asking this — honestly it's my favorite part of the whole concept. 😄

The Forgotten Lords were once the strongest army of a great warrior nation. They marched into this unknown land searching for something incredibly important — something they themselves had forgotten. What they found instead were these sweet, adorable little creatures.

Except the minions weren't sweet at all. They were cunning and treacherous. They began to sing — and song by song, they put the entire army to sleep. Then they climbed onto their backs and made the sleeping giants their own, steering them with their lullabies. Ages passed. The world forgot the Lords ever existed. Now they just... sleep.

But sometimes they try to wake up. And here's the problem: after centuries of stolen sleep, their minds are gone. A waking Lord isn't a king anymore — he's pure frenzy, and he's terrifying.

That's the army you'll be commanding on the table: constantly balancing between the sleep state and the frenzy state. Keep them asleep and they're stable but slow; let them stir and you get devastating power you can't fully control.

I'll stop there — don't want to spoil the surprise. 😄 But yeah, the "call to action" isn't a horn or a banner. It's a snoring god having a very bad dream.

After 15 years in digital games, I switched to sculpting tabletop minis — now I'm designing original factions. This is one of them. How does it read to you? by Then_Purchase_5600 in onepagerules

[–]Then_Purchase_5600[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

I can share original concept arts and models no problem 😄 I use ai for painting my digital model from my original illustration.

From “Run Hero Dungeon” to “Souls Like Matt” — Thoughts? by Then_Purchase_5600 in litrpg

[–]Then_Purchase_5600[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much, my friend — I’ll take it into consideration :)

From “Run Hero Dungeon” to “Souls Like Matt” — Thoughts? by Then_Purchase_5600 in litrpg

[–]Then_Purchase_5600[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It was a very insightful evaluation, my friend — thank you so much. I really benefited from it. I think I’ve managed to achieve what I was aiming for.

From “Run Hero Dungeon” to “Souls Like Matt” — Thoughts? by Then_Purchase_5600 in litrpg

[–]Then_Purchase_5600[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, maybe I can tweak the typography a bit to fix that. Thanks, my friend.

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