This week we look at how sculpting takes place and affected the look and feel of Boneblade Serpent by talking with Scott Okumura, a graphic designer working on Dreamblade Since this is our first article talking about the sculpting process, we we discuss general practices related to Dreamblade and the creation of minis as well as Boneblade Serpent.
Q: First, what is your job title and could you explain what your responsibilites are, what you have worked on in the past and how you are involved with Dreamblade?
I'm a graphic designer here at Wizards and, over the last three years, I've had the chance to work on a wide variety of projects. I have a definite preference for early concept development and often collaborate with members of our New Business department, preparing "blue sky" projects to meet game-play and viability requirements. Unfortunately, much of that work can't be mentioned yet. Of the projects that have been marketed, I've worked on Hecatomb (card design), and a trio of Avalon Hill board games (Monsters Menace America, Nexus Ops and Vegas Showdown), all from initial concept to final production.
My involvement with Dreamblade began several months before the game-play and viability had been determined. My first task, working with R&D and our product engineer, was to come up with an efficient solution and layout for the 40mm base. At the time, the general dimensions were still in flux. Changing stats in mind, the base needed to be standardized to enable basic restrictions to the size and posture and footprint of the minis and to the complexity of stats and rules that were intended to appear on the top and bottom. This had to be sufficiently resolved prior to the art commissioning and sculpting phase to prevent large and costly revisions. The attention given at this stage was a deliberate attempt to take advantage of lessons generated by previous miniatures lines; by minimizing post-sketch revision.
A language of symbols (aspects and special abilities) had to be considered at the same time and I began to employ options so that those had time to evolve within their proper context. I was also working on the logo and dice at this time, so the motif of the "blade" was starting to take shape. My exposure to the artwork of the minis was my primary influence for that device.
Q: What are the various stages a sculpt goes through once a piece of artwork is handed off. How many people besides yourself are involved in this?
Once the sculpting was set to begin, I worked with the art director to present artwork and specific directions to the sculptors. This was an unusual effort due to the size of the initial set (96 miniatures) and the rapid timing for our turn-over. Once prepared, scaled proofs of the sketches were circulated through all members of the development team to ensure proper scale, rarity assignment, and visual appeal and I would sometimes be asked to make adjustments to the images or written instructions. The revised proofs were then presented (in phases) as the clearest possible guide for the sculptors to begin their work from.
During this time, R&D, Brand and Organized Play discussed candidates for promotional use and produced a list which would be used to prioritize certain miniatures, Boneblade Serpent being one of those.
The next step was to review the initial sculpts. Those photos, taken from several angles for each miniature, are received and organized by me into a new set of proofs for the entire team to review following the same process as before. The material that the sculpts are made from is still malleable, so details may be added or removed and whole postures may change if necessary. Boneblade Serpent, for example, had comments to add material to the region of one elbow to balance and strengthen the form and to add detail to the wings and flesh on its body. These are both fairly common notes. Some detail (about 10%) is always compromised from sculpt to final PVC because of the heating and cooling of the soft material and the layers of paint which tend to fill recesses. For that reason, we try to compensate with an emphasis on detail, particularly at this stage. Corrections to scale and posture are less common.
There are usually three rounds of this type of review, with each round increasing the total number of minis ready for the polyurethane (PU) casting phase. This phase is used to demonstrate the stability and assembly of each mini and is our first opportunity to review tangible samples and see all of the minis in context to one another. They are ultimately used as the base models for our painted masters, which are later returned to the manufacturer as guides.
PU samples are shipped from Hasbro Far East (HFE) in China in padded boxes and are handled as little as possible on our end due to the fragile quality of the material. It's not as flexible as Safety and Reliability Standards (SRS) require the finished product to be. Nevertheless, they do manage to get scrutinized by lots of people and for many purposes. Any corrections that come from that are communicated to the manufacturer as quickly as possible so as not to hold up the tooling phase where the metal moulds are created and we are finally committed to the shapes we've created. HFE awaits our approval of each and every sample before they proceed. The tooling date is generally immovable so there's a lot of pressure on us to get everything approved.
During this phase, some sculpts had to be shifted or rotated on their bases in order to avoid touching their names and stats. Many minis have leading or trailing feet or sprawling tentacles and need to be positioned carefully. The printed bases are a unique feature of this product so this was adopted as a point of caution from the start. In general, overhang is encouraged but requires careful attention to avoid collisions with stats. That caution helped us avoid having to make these final adjustments and there were not many. Boneblade Serpent has an ideal connection with its base so it makes a poor example of this problem. It represents a relatively efficient design.
After PU samples are approved, the art director concludes with the paint (deco-op) phases of the project and I focus my attention on printed components.
Q: Dreamblade minis are larger, in general than other miniature lines here at Wizards. What problems does scale pose in the sculpting process and what affects a mini’s final size? How do you try to show scale between mini’s when they all have the same size base? Where does Boneblade Serpent fall in this scale?
The base with all of its printed information is our biggest obstacle. That put a lot of importance on reaching a uniform solution for both (base and printed areas) as early as possible.
While that was being done, R&D had to decide what size was going to be used to represent in the game. Since power was settled on as the determiner, the human scale standard (such as what is used in D&D and Star Wars minis) was abandoned and that's why obvious humans are not scaled uniformly in Dreamblade. The environment of the game is a dream world, so that seemed appropriate. R&D assigned size categories to each mini that we planned to create (from XS to XL) according to the rules as they were being completed. The categories were XS (30mm), S (35mm), M (40mm), L (50mm), and XL (60+mm). They represent visual mass more than height and so it was left a little subjective on my part, even with the guidelines. It's easy to imagine the kind of things that create problems with overly rigid guidelines, such as four-legged, stooped, or scrawny creatures, creatures that are holding weapons over their heads or have big hair, etc. There is also a 5% shrinkage that occurs during the cooling of the PVC and has to be taken into account when setting the original scale. This is all reined in during the initial stages of the approval process.
Boneblade Serpent was designated as a Large mini. Its head reaches 50mm and its arms and the top of its blades rise up to 55mm (prior to casting). Some consideration was given the fact that it's slender and slouching somewhat. Later sets will likely be able to increase the general size of the minis slightly. Given the untested challenge of fitting the minis on their printed bases, I attempted to err on the safe side.
Q: What kind of adjustments do you have to make to a figure to take it from artwork to a sculpt? Are adjustments made to make the miniature more visually dynamic, structurally sounder or easier to produce? Did Boneblade Serpent require any adjustments like this?
The first adjustment is to follow the guidelines and set the scale. Often sketches have a slightly elevated perspective to them and that has to be considered when placing them on a graph. Any obvious interference with the stat fields on the base need to be identified as well and sometimes adjustments are made digitally by the designer. Though not entirely foolproof, a template is supplied to the sculptors which informs them where the text fields are.
Another principal concern is part count. Common miniatures have to be of single-piece construction to keep costs down. This sometimes requires a change in posture when an "undercut" is identified. Boneblade Serpent is a good example of this. The area inside of its tail could not be defined unless a second piece was created for the curled portion, enabling a mould to separate in two opposite directions. Since the mini is a common, the effect was accomplished by simply leaving the area black (unpainted). If you look closely, you can see the single parting line where the two halves of the mould meet (along the sides of the body). There's a degree of flexibility there as it does not have to be a straight line, but a lot of consideration has to be paid to it when making refinements.
Sculpts also need to be strong. If there are weak joints, the form may bend when it's being removed from its mould. Since that's done when the plastic is still warm, the mini could bend and freeze in that new position as it cools. This is pretty common with spears and guns. It's the reason material had to be added to the Serpent's elbows during the sculpt phase.
All of those adjustments support production and hopefully save on costs. Changes to add appeal generally work the other way. However, detail was recognized as an important aspect of the game so we made every attempt to add it throughout the sculpting process. That was a global comment on every round.
Q: How does a mini’s rarity factor into the sculpting and painting process? How does this affect the number of parts or number of paint steps a mini has. What about Boneblade Serpent?
Rarity has a huge impact on how paint steps (deco ops) are distributed over the set. It also limits part count significantly and that affects posture and complexity. With the rarity distribution for Dreamblade, the highest part count we are permitted is three. Of course, a rare mini that can appear complex yet conserve on parts can enable other pieces to make use of more parts and retain their complexity when they might otherwise need to be simplified. Commons have no option for more than one piece so they require more revision and get a lot of scrutiny throughout the process.
Q: What are the different materials used throughout the sculpting process?
The material the sculptors use is an oil-based clay that stays malleable for a long time. I never see those models first-hand. Rather, six or seven digital snapshots come by way of our server once the sculpts are ready for initial review. Those come with a scale marker so I can check for accuracy.
The polyurethane (PU) step is an intermediate phase. It's a brittle material that can't be worked. If further changes are made to a sculpt, it has to be done to the original clay model and a new PU sample is created and sent for approval. There were few changes during this phase because of the attention we gave the minis during the earlier, more malleable phase.
Once PU samples are approved, tooling to create the moulds takes place and black PVC forms are cast. The bases are cast from a harder, colored material, pad printed, and collated to the proper minis.
Q: How long is the typical process from art to the poly sculpt and how much longer before you have a final product? How many revisions does something like Boneblade Serpent take to get to a final stage?
I began the process of routing sketches internally in July, 2005 and by the middle of August, all sketches were approved and presented to the sculptors at HFE. Photos of the sculpts began coming back in early September and the process of finalizing them was completed in October. So, roughly four months from sketch to final sculpt. The paint and manufacturing steps went on for another three months I would have to estimate. During that time, the art director dealt exclusively with the miniatures process and I concentrated entirely on other components for the game.
To use Boneblade Serpent as an example again, I recall just one round of adjustment following the sculpt review. It was fairly uncomplicated from the start and the instructions we gave were easily accomplished. A more complicated case would be that of Thunder Sultan, where an elaborate sculpt had to be reshaped and simplified to make a two-piece uncommon. Other tough cases involved figures that appeared too rigid at the onset and needed to be more graceful, like Night Queen. Those are character refinements and are the most difficult to communicate.
Q: What kind of design decisions went into the design of the base itself?
The base was a genuine collaboration. In order to arrive at a solution that would last into the future, new designs were routinely created and discussed. The rules of the game were still being modified at the time so I had to follow R&D's suggestions closely. They were most familiar with the experience of playing the game and I tailored the layout to enhance that if possible.
We needed to be satisfied that the stats would be accessible and legible during the course of the game and that the rules and other information we wanted to include would be able to fit. An estimate of the letter count was made very early on so the rules could be written within reasonable limits. This is a typical approach for new card games. However, the surface area of our stickers was smaller than a traditional card and we knew it would take some compromise and care to get everything in its proper place. In the end, I think we reached a good consensus.
The art director and product engineer also helped to define the look of the base. Specific use of color had implications that would effect far more than the base. Also, the combination of the base and mini was a special production challenge since an inset area of PVC had to be created as a uniform interface (the black square at the foot of every mini). Simply gluing the minis directly to their bases was not an option since the bond would never be strong enough without a sunken post of some sort. Those were decisions that had to be made through cooperation.
Q: Didn’t you also work on the packaging for Dreamblade ? What were your primary design goals with the packaging.
The Brand and Marketing team decided that packaging for Dreamblade had to be familiar to players of other miniatures products by sharing a basic format. It also had to look distinctive when placed next to a D&D minis box since that's where it would likely be sold. That controlled a lot of the decisions that were made regarding the design.
In the case of the boosters, the logo was turned on end in order to make the best use of the vertical space. I think the boxes are as small as they can get so surface area was at a premium. As a result, they should be fairly heavy boxes for their size. I think that would enhance the "perceived value." That sounds silly, but I think it's extremely important for a new product. I hope there will be an opportunity to go further with the package design in a future release. I can imagine a lot of intriguing possibilities and I'm certain the game deserves it.
