Quote from: gleichman;576742Let the demonizing begin.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;576563Now it's obvious.  What was I holding out for?

THIS!

Should have known they would achieve the final stretch goal with the ultimate geek magnet. It's like showing a bottle of booze to an alcoholic.

Also, yet another thread where people rose to Mr. Gleichman's obvious bait. Don't you ever learn?

Quote from: CRKrueger;576674I think generally yes.  An initial surge as the KS first comes on, then spikes as new stretch goals are revealed that really push it over the edge for someone.

What the Reaper and Order of the Stick kickstarters both did very well was offer additional material as stretch goals that current contributors could increase their contribution to receive.

In the case of Reaper, they had 16,475 contributors at the Vampire level. If they could convince 25% of them to drop an extra $10 every time they offered a new option, they'd convert another $40,000. For their very last stretch goal they set a +$100,000 goal for a $10 Cthulhu.

I'm fairly certain they didn't add more than a couple hundred new contributors in the last 24 hours: But they hit people's inboxes with high value upgrades and then sealed the deal in the final hours with a couple of amazing miniatures. But I'm guessing they leveraged an average of $30 or $40 out of their existing contributors.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;576762I'm fairly certain they didn't add more than a couple hundred new contributors in the last 24 hours:

That doesn't track with my recollection... or kicktraq. They added over 3600 in the last day, over 9000 in the last 3 days:

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/1513061270/reaper-miniatures-bones-an-evolution-of-gaming-min/#chart-daily

I think the real effect that was going on is:
1) The deal was getting sweet enough to get all the hemmers and hawers to jump on.
2) The sweeteners of the stretch goals were getting good enough that many of the vampire subscribers were doing some pretty intense word of mouth marketing. As you are my facebook friend, you should have seen some of this first hand.

For myself, I pledged the $100 for Vampire after I saw Jeff's post (otherwise I wouldn't have been aware of it).  Then I got confused and thought I needed to pledge an extra $25 for shipping (even though I'm in the US).  Then when I realized I didn't need to, I started looking at the extras.  I figured I'd get a case to go with my minis.

Then, over the next day, I looked at my budget and the additional options.  I didn't figure everything, but I looked at my budget and decided that I could go to $308 and pick some good options with the extra money.  

So I roughly tripled my pledge with 40 minutes to go.

Quote from: CRKrueger;576719I would be careful of Reaper Master Series and Vallejo.  They are made for professionals- ie. the guys who win Golden Demon Tournaments or the chick who sells painting DvDs on CMON.

As a result, they are meant to be used in layer, after layer, after layer, after layer, 45 coats to do a cloak, that kind of thing.  Vallejo and Reaper are probably the best paints though overall, and the prices aren't bad.

You want to slap some brown on a dwarf's cloak and says "Job's a Gud-Un."  You'd be better off sticking to the Reaper Hi-Density Pigment line for the bright colors, or Games Workshop or go underground artist and make your own by raiding Michaels for paints to mix for a fiftieth the price (but a lot more work).

Games Workshop is not as thin, which means it covers better, but you also waste more paint.  Also the most expensive.  But it doesn't use dropper bottles, which means no palette to worry about.

Tamiya makes alcohol based acrylics, which go on glossy so good for planes, tanks, things like that which you can selectively grimy up.  Tamiya is also better bang for the buck then Vallejo, Reaper or GW.

Whatever you decide, get some Reaper Flow Controller, and Drying Retardant, or make your own with some diluted Future Floor Polish, it makes a huge difference, especially with mixed colors you have on a palette.

From personal experience, I know the Reaper and Vallejo paints are really great for layering, thats true. They can also be used with less thinner nearly straight out of the bottle and cover in a single coat.

GW paints are ok for regular painting but over time their paint pots have gotten smaller while the price keeps increasing. Also they seem to be very good at designing pots that speed up your paints drying out.

For ease of cleanup, I would suggest water based acryllics only, especially if your work area is accessible to children and pets.

You can find flow inprover in larger quantities for better prices in any craft store. Floor polish will work in a pinch but the good stuff is so easy to find its hardly worth it.

You can get a palette super cheap. Just go to your local home improvement store and just get a couple of plain white bathroom tiles. They are great and won't stain like a plastic one and are easy to clean with hot soapy water.
Best of all, they are CHEAP.

Quote from: CRKrueger;576719I would be careful of Reaper Master Series and Vallejo.  They are made for professionals- ie. the guys who win Golden Demon Tournaments or the chick who sells painting DvDs on CMON.

As a result, they are meant to be used in layer, after layer, after layer, after layer, 45 coats to do a cloak, that kind of thing.  Vallejo and Reaper are probably the best paints though overall, and the prices aren't bad.

You want to slap some brown on a dwarf's cloak and says "Job's a Gud-Un."  You'd be better off sticking to the Reaper Hi-Density Pigment line for the bright colors, or Games Workshop or go underground artist and make your own by raiding Michaels for paints to mix for a fiftieth the price (but a lot more work).

Games Workshop is not as thin, which means it covers better, but you also waste more paint.  Also the most expensive.  But it doesn't use dropper bottles, which means no palette to worry about.

Tamiya makes alcohol based acrylics, which go on glossy so good for planes, tanks, things like that which you can selectively grimy up.  Tamiya is also better bang for the buck then Vallejo, Reaper or GW.

Whatever you decide, get some Reaper Flow Controller, and Drying Retardant, or make your own with some diluted Future Floor Polish, it makes a huge difference, especially with mixed colors you have on a palette.

thanks for this--i've never done the painting minis thing before and could easily see myself buying the "wrong" paints.  

i'll have plenty of practice materials when my vampire level package ships, eh?

Quote from: Exploderwizard;576789From personal experience, I know the Reaper and Vallejo paints are really great for layering, thats true. They can also be used with less thinner nearly straight out of the bottle and cover in a single coat.

GW paints are ok for regular painting but over time their paint pots have gotten smaller while the price keeps increasing. Also they seem to be very good at designing pots that speed up your paints drying out.

For ease of cleanup, I would suggest water based acryllics only, especially if your work area is accessible to children and pets.

You can find flow inprover in larger quantities for better prices in any craft store. Floor polish will work in a pinch but the good stuff is so easy to find its hardly worth it.

You can get a palette super cheap. Just go to your local home improvement store and just get a couple of plain white bathroom tiles. They are great and won't stain like a plastic one and are easy to clean with hot soapy water.
Best of all, they are CHEAP.

and thank you for this advice, too.  

now i'm thinking i should get something else to practice on, so the reaper sculpts don't become tarnished with my basic paint job, lol

An excellent podcast with the guy from Reaper answering many questions about the kickstarter

http://ec.libsyn.com/p/1/9/3/193df1923ef576d1/Nerdherders_Exclusive_Reaper_Miniatures_Kickstarter_Interview.mp3?d13a76d516d9dec20c3d276ce028ed5089ab1ce3dae902ea1d01cc8137d8c85c13cc&c_id=4879938

Awesome paints info, folks, thanks!

That Podcast is amazing and had tons of inside info, I recommend it.  I posted this on the reaper forums, but it might have a better home here:

I listened to the podcast twice and there were tons of neat tidbits in there. It was a long night with a crying baby, so i may have missed a few things.

Bones accounts for 1/3 of the Reaper revenue. Does that mean it is cannibalizing other products, or growing their revenue by 1/3. I think the later is more likely as they had an aggressive KS to embiggen dem bones skus. Their accountant was even willing to allow the 30k goal as is, even though 30k only covered 1/3 of the costs. So they were sitting on a big hit, but unwilling/unable to pay the upfront cost to grow the line. 3.4M of risk free cash can alleviate those sorts of issues.

A very rough breakdown of where them money went might be as follows:

~340k to Amazon/KS (~10%)
~2M to the molds (5k to 10k per at about 300 models) Is size or complexity the cost driver for the molds? An injection machine or two may be in here as well, plus plant upgrades.
~1M for production and perhaps shipping cost (Bryan said they needed 500k to pay for people who added in the last 24 hours or something to that affect, so roughly double that I think.) They may have even paid out of pocket for some of this.
= ~3.34M (the take)

But this is not the end of the story. Accountants can do all sorts of fun things with cash flow (did I mention Reaper is owned by accountants). Expenses can offset other gains, and capital expenditures can be amortized/depreciated over many years Thus the kickstarter money is not a cut and dried cost calculation, it results in long term tax reductions as well. In addition, every bone sold from the KS line in the future will result in higher profits per unit when compared to the earlier bones, as the capital expenditure portion of the price has already been paid. The molds will last a long time if there is good maintenance.

Another important matter is that that the KS money is like a 7 month risk free loan, it is a big sum of money for a company the size of Reaper, Risk free means that it will not drive them into bankruptcy if things get squirly.   Businesses also like prepaid sales, in fact they love them! The bigger the better, they can get lower prices per unit, while also adding to the size with non prepaid units at a lower rate. I wouldn't be surprised if Reaper orders 10-20% more than the KS total to cover the time period where they will be setting up the equipment.

As to how much Reaper will release on the market at one time, i think everything at once. This matches their current model as they already have over 7000 skus, a few hundred more will not make a big difference. Plus the Undertaker level will already have everything included.

I think they will allow swaps in the RPM, they hinted at other features in the video, and each order is already customized. In addition, it will allow them to gain (free) marketing data on their core customers. What kind of customers like x, y and who does not like z. There is much anecdotal evidence already, but real data is usually better.   

All in all. it seems like Reaper just about broke even, but the long term implications of the drive are significant as well as the goodwill it fostered in the community and the new audience it opened up (me being one). They chose to price the KS very aggressively giving great value as it helps them more this way in the long run. It was not a cash in move (rather obvious).

As Reaper is a private company, the owners can execute solid long term strategies without worrying about shareholders trying to thrown them out for short term losses/non nonperformance (not that they are nonperforming mind you).

TY Reaper,

Cheers

thanks, teazia, for that info!  i had trouble getting the podcast to load so i missed that analysis.

Quote from: Melan;576134If I was still using this stuff, I'd be in at $100. That's a lot of miniatures.

Me too, but I've come to love paper miniatures too much. I don't have the space for that much stuff, and paper minis fill the bill for me. Plus, using PIG's custom paper mini maker I can make my own out of any images I care to upload, so I'm covered. Reaper does good stuff though, and I still have some of their metal minis, including a big 'ole hill giant. Nice selection here though, grats ya'all.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;576669Glad to help.  Enjoy your ironic beard and skinny jeans, and watch out with that pizza.



No, I was saying that your comments make it sound like a very self-appreciating ass, that's all.  I don't care how many last minute donations there were, or when your bid was, but the fact that you had to come on and make commentary reducing the value and impact of everyone else would normally lead me to wonder about your self-worth, but since I can tell you view yourself as an Rand protagonist, I know that's not the case.  

So it was clearly done with the intent of reducing other's view of the worth of their contribution (bids is very inaccurate, I think.  We were contributing to a cause, not bidding against anyone for something), which is very much a dick move on your part.  I wouldn't expect you to understand that though, for the exact reasons above.

Ah, I see you've met gleichman. Don't waste your time.

Quote from: gleichman;576687No. I'm well aware of how the culture is changing and expect it only to get worse.

g has me on ignore, otherwise I might own his pathetic ass in yet another argument, so this is for everyone else. You're wasting your time trying to point shit out, as gleichman is one of the worst trolls this forum has seen. His every post is designed to push people's buttons with it's arrogance, condescension, and/or dismissiveness (apparently not a word, but ya get it ). If I were ya'all I really wouldn't bother, you'll just end up gettin frustrated, which is exactly what gleichman wants. I end up feeling sorry for someone who's apparently so sure they're right that they won't even consider someone else's point, and ignore anyone that proves him wrong. Ya'all can do what ya want, but I'd be surprised if you ever got gleichman to see your point.