New Superscape Project?

[Garada]

Like hi1 said, I don't have a ton of time to dedicate, but I'd definitely be up for participating in something of this nature - a little smaller scale, focusing on lesser known / obscure characters that may not be on C3G's radar (or alternate takes on characters they've already tackled). I already have a ton of customs featuring C-list / offbeat characters and would definitely love to submit some of them for a thorough peer review / make-over / whatever. If I love a character enough I'd also be willing to take on art duties for some all-new cards.

EDIT [to add more blah blah]:

A few thoughts / philosophies on this potential project...

1] Cards should probably be discussed in a public thread for maximum input from the community, but have a 'board of directors' who have the last word and vote on what the final mini / art / stats / wording will be.

2] Any characters chosen should have a pre-painted miniature readily available for a not-too-outrageous price. Nothing will drive folks away quicker than them having to paint / mod a mini or drop $50 just to use a custom design from an upstart new group - C3G can pull it off because they've already established themselves, but otherwise it just seems a bit presumptuous and is asking a lot of the audience.

3] Strive for maximum compatibility with Classic Heroscape [including the 'Marvel 10'] first and foremost, and C3G as well, but also create our own internal synergies. C3G has already covered so much ground and created so many amazing cards that there's not too much point in reinventing the wheel; that said, there are characters that could definitely benefit from an alternate card. Not so much the most popular characters who are all pretty much already done to perfection, but some of the lesser-known characters that are a bit too 'niche' or synergy-dependent in the C3G line-up would be OK. I will use the recently-released Lady Blackhawk as an example: while she's a great C3G design, if you don't use vehicles in your Scape experience half of her value is squandered. I'd have loved to see a Lady Blackhawk with more of a WWII vibe, perhaps even one that has synergy with other Blackhawks figures or other WWII-era characters. I believe a custom creator already made a pretty cool Lady Blackhawk [chas?] - that would be the kind of character I'd nominate!

4] Designs should be thematic and fun to play! Sometimes C3G is a tad too over-complicated - not bad for a seasoned gamer [which I consider myself to be], but casual players / first-timers that join my games are often intimidated by the C3G cards I put in front of them. Please don't read this as a criticism of C3G, because I really can't overstate how much I love their cards and use them in my Scaping [just take a look at the Army Roster from a recent HeroScape Tournament I hosted and you'll notice that the majority of cards are C3G and Classic Scape cards]. C3G cards are what I would consider 'Advanced Scape' for sure, and they demand a lot of the player with a frequent reliance on complicated mechanics [such as the Banner / Hulk combo] or Glyphs, and it definitely seems like the more obscure / niche the characters is, the more obtuse or specialized their powers are. Not a bad thing, but I can definitely see how this could be a turn-off for more casual players, or someone who just wants a fun, thematic and easy to play version of their favorite character. Again, not ALL C3G cards are guilty of this, and in fact there are a ton of really fun cards that see action all the time on my table [Judge Dredd, Lobo]. I don't want to sound like I'm advocating dumbing anything down, and I certainly would want to avoid anything as bland as the Official Iron Man card [Double Attack and Flying... that's it?!?] - the key is to find that sweet spot.

5] Aesthetics - Mini Photo or Comic Art? Personally, I prefer a Mini Photo for my own cards, but I've surrendered to the fact that many prefer Comic Art and have even found myself printing the Comic Art version of some cards [especially when the Mini has a particularly sub-par sculpt]. A lot of the people I play with seem to prefer the Comic Art version when I'm printing cards for them, so what the heck do I know any way? Any project like this should definitely offer BOTH options. The most important aesthetic aspect is a desire to make the cards look as professional and as close to 'official' as possible.

6] The FLYING Symbol - to use or not to use? Personally, I would NEVER use the Flying Symbol in my own customs, but I fully accept its use on C3G cards and other quality customs. It still doesn't 'feel' right to me though, and it has one other adverse side-effect - too many powers! There's something challenging about only using a maximum of 3 [maaaybe 4] special abilities to define a character without overcomplicating them, and if one of those slots is already taken up by the Flying ability, you have to get creative with those other 2 abilities. Trust me, I understand WHY it's used, and who knows - maybe it WOULD have become an official part of the game... but it's not and should be used with care! Luckily, C3G has drawn the line at the Flying Symbol, and I respect that, because short-handing special abilities is a dangerous game. Why not a Disengage Symbol? A Tough Symbol? A Double Attack Symbol? A Counter Attack Symbol? These are all fairly common abilities that could easily be short-handed with a symbol to free up more space on cards, but then you'll have a Superman with 4 or 5 symbols on the bottom of his card AND 2 or 3 other special abilities. Soon you'd need a reference card to keep track of them all. It's just too much! Anyway, sorry for the rant. With all that said, using the Flying Symbol wouldn't be a deal-breaker for my involvement with a project like this [though I'd prefer NOT to use it], but any NEW Symbols definitely would be!

Whew, I have a lot of opinions apparently! Just to put it all out there and let you know my tastes and the direction I'd like to go, should you decide that you'd like me to be a part of this endeavor, here are some characters I'd love to see come out of this:

- Freddy Krueger & Jason Voorhees - two of the most iconic horror characters of all time, and best of all there are some excellent miniatures readily available for an amazing price! The Freddy vs Jason Horrorclix Base Set was going for $9.50 last time I checked, and it includes multiple sculpts of both characters. There are a ton of interesting and fun possibilities for these two! My only caveat would be that if we did one, we'd have to do both [which shouldn't be a problem since anyone investing in the minis would already have both characters].

- Power Rangers - I'm not actually a huge Power Rangers fan, but I have a sick obsession with Pink Power Rangers. I even made a couple of Pink Ranger customs, and you know what? It was fun! I couldn't be bothered to make all of them as a personal project, but I would definitely love to offer my input and be involved in fleshing out the group with the development of the other Rangers. These characters are extremely iconic, and I bet a ton of players would love to see well-made representations of the classic Mighty Morphin' group. Suitable figures are available via the old Galoob Micro Machines sets which are long out of print but available for a very reasonable price on places like ebay.

- WWII - I am a huge fan of WWII-era Super Heroes [and other non-super Comic Characters such as SGT Rock] and would LOVE to see a group of WWII-themed cards featuring both Marvel and DC characters. There has been a bit of development, with the Official Cap, plus a few nice C3G cards for characters like Bucky, and I've even made custom cards for a few WWII-era characters both alone and in collaboration with my pal Matt Helm, but there is still a TON of ground to cover here... rich, fertile ground!

- Alternate Batmen - I'd love to see a version of the Damian Wayne Batman [as depicted in Batman #666], as well as some of the 'Batmen of all Nations' / Batman Inc. characters such as El Gaucho, Nightrunner and Mr. Unknown - all of these characters have readily available, extremely inexpensive miniatures! Of course, I'd love to make the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, but the mini is too expensive!

- DC's 'Supernatural' / Worlds of Magic / Vertigo characters - Deadman, Animal Man, Sargon, Etrigan, Swamp Thing. I know some of these characters have been covered, but I haven't seen a representation of Swamp Thing that reflects his true power.

Obscure X-Men Universe Characters - I love stuff from Grant Morrison's New X-Men - characters like Cassandra Nova, Quentin Quire [Kid Omega], the U-Men, Fantomex, Xorn, The Stepford Cuckoos, etc. Also amazing was Peter Milligan / Mike Allred's X-Force [later X-Statix], and I'd love to see a card for the Mister Sensitive figure that's out there! I'd also love to see cards for old-school Clairmont-era X-Men villains The Reavers [Pretty Boy, Bonebreaker, Skullbuster, etc].

- Death's Head - one of my all-time favorite obscure characters, and he just got an incredible mini in the latest Heroclix Marvel set. I created a very simple, straightforward custom card for him, but I know that with communal development he could be way better!

[laughing matter]

Right now it doesn't really matter how much time you have on your hands, we just need people to help get this project started, figure out how we're going to run this project. We really just need people to sign up to help. It's not a lifetime commitment, you can quit whenever.

[laughing matter]

1) we still need a board to be put together

2)agreed, although I don't mind having to mod, I thinks it's really fun so let's make that a last option if we can't find a good figure.

3)agreed, completely

4)of course!

5)we could do either, or both. I think that needs to be put to a vote.

6)I kinda like the flying symbol, but only because it gives you more space to fill with theme and stuff. And there's no rule that say's we can't do more than 3 abilities, plus official heroscape went with 4 abilities on cyprien's wife(even though one of them was a penalty)

7)we should do all of those characters!

8 )I have seen some of your stuff and matt helm's work,and I must say i I'm a fan. ( please join this project! we could definitely benefit from your help! )

9)on the Freddy Jason thing, c3g left some good ideas in their public design thread before they decided not to green light them, I even collaborated on them a little and was saddened not to see them make the cut

10)mind pming matt helm and showing him this, maybe see if he's interested?

11) so can we put you down for a spot on the board?

[Garada]

Hmm, I didn't know that C3G were working on Freddy & Jason - that's cool! I'm sure there are a ton of good ideas to borrow there. I had a few ideas on cool mechanics / abilities, but haven't written any of them down yet. I should write down MY ideas before I look at the C3G thread just to see how far off my ideas are from theirs. Anyway, these two are a MUST DO as far as I'm concerned - extremely iconic characters, beautiful and inexpensive miniatures and best of all they haven't been released by another custom project yet.

Thanks for the kind words - I'll definitely put the word out there to Matt Helm, although he hasn't been around for a while. Real life and all, you know?! Heck, I hadn't been around here much for a while, but lately my creative urges for Heroscape have been rekindled.

I would love a spot on the board!

[McHotcakes]

Glad to see this thread is taking off. Thanks at laughing matter for keeping going. I don't really have a lot of time to post here so you're help is truly appreciated.

As for Garada's points

1] I completely agree with this point, seems good.

2] I'm not sure all of the cards need pre-painted figures. There are a lot good obscure superheroes who don't have official minis out there. I don't want to turn down a design just because the character isn't popular enough to have a heroclix. Proxying is a legit option in my opinion.

3] Again I'm in agreement with you here. The project has got to be compatible with classic scape and C3G. I hope C3G wouldn't mind us stealing some of their powers, because I think that they nailed a lot of them on the head, and as you said there is no need to re-invent the wheel.

4] Completely agree with you here. I've always been a fan of keeping things as simple as possible. Even though I love scape I understand that it is just a game, and it should be fun above all else. The idea would be to find the simplest way to represent a character and have them "feel"right.

5] I think for cards we could do both a mini and comic card like C3G. I personally like the comic art myself.

6] Personally I love the flying symbol. It's such a common and unique ability that I think it needs its own symbol so it doesn't take up card space. For adding other power symbols I'd have to think about it. I'd think it really depend on how frequent the powers show up.

- Freddy Krueger & Jason Voorhees -I am a huge horror fan! Some of my first customs (which I never got a round to posting ) were Freddy and Jason and Ash (from Evil Dead). I'd say since Freddy and Jason are in comics they are more than welcome here. Which I suppose opens the door for other horror icons as well. Which I personally don't have a problem with. I think horror villains fit in quite nicely with superheros quite honestly.

And I'll address all the other ideas in this paragraph. The main point of this project is to represent characters that individual scapers want to see. Those that would be passed over by more main stream custom makers. It would be a great way to expose more obscure characters that we love to the community without a response of "Who the heck is that?" So bring on alternative and obscure heroes!

[McHotcakes]

Updated list

Members
McHotcakes
Laughing Matter
Garada

Interested
Lazy Orang
tablewalker
hi1hi1hi1hi1

For those of you on the fence I don't really want this project to be too time consuming. I myself have school in the spring and won't have too much time to playtest and what not. So as long as you are willing to commit to brainstorming and character ideas I think that will be enough.

[Yodaking]

I'm not going to have much time for this over the next few months but down the line I'd be interested if it is still going. The Transformers were rejected by C3G but I have a few that could use a card for my personal games.

[laughing matter]

Then welcome aboard, and may the force be with you

[McHotcakes]

Okay then people let's see if we can get things rolling. For any who is a member or interested at all let's try and figure how how exactly this thing is going to get structured. I know we have some pretty good ideas so far so let's get it stamped out.

Do we have a hierarchy? What's required for membership? Are we doing this in waves or by single figure release? And most importantly what should we be called?

I have an idea of how I'd like this thing to run but you guys seem to have a lot of really good suggestions too. So let's see where we can take this thing.

[Garada]

My only suggestion would be to tackle one or two figures at a time, at least in the beginning.

With limited resources, this would give us the time to dedicate to properly develop them without overextending ourselves. Perhaps when more people get on board we could work on producing an entire wave, but in my opinion baby steps are the most prudent way to proceed at this point. If we can create one or two really solid, fun and appealing cards with our initial efforts, people might really take notice.

This also gives us a chance to figure out how well we all work together without taking on anything too big or overwhelming.

As far as the other points, I defer to you! Do we solicit nominations [and then votes] from the community for which characters to develop, or do we choose them ourselves?

I'm excited to get started!

[McHotcakes]

My initial idea would be to have the members nominate a figure one at a time and work our way around round robin style. Member A nominates a figure then we all work on that one design and any related designs to it. I. E. someone nominates Freddy we might as well do Jason with him.

Maybe after we go through one rotation we can hold a community vote to see which characters the community would want to see.

[Garada]

Sounds good to me! Just a word of warning - my first nomination will likely be Jason ...