Kickstarting Pastiche Heroquest Miniatures

[knightkrawler]

A bunch of specific miniatures made for heroquestwould be a lot more interesting to me. Altought, i would like new races! Speifically gnolls and skavens.
[/b]

There I'm absolutely with you.
The Skaven from AHQ fit in style, but they are a tad too big, in my opinion.
The gnolls from D&D boardgame are less than perfect in detail.
So these are two races I'd really like to see on real HQ bases...

Oh, and Lizardmen. Simpler than those you already posted (the Secret Skeleton ones), but more old GW Skink and Saurus style (4th edition).
Only, the Saurus need to be a little bigger.
Talking my taste here...

[Maike05]

Plastic!

[chaoticprime]

Loads of good stuff above.

I cannot do plastic, as injection molding would make the costs stupid-high. Resin is better in every way, and is indistinguishable when painted.

We can do slotta based miniatures, with optional bases. These are meant to be high-quality gaming miniatures, not the plastic bits from out of a board game. The whole idea is to make a better and more available set of miniatures for the game, but without betraying its visual aesthetic.

I have little desire to actually manage the kickstarter, I would rather just handle the production and distribution part. I thought I just saw a volunteer...

[Daedalus]

I have been itching to try out a Kickstarter for my miniatures company, Secret Skeleton Miniatures, and I love Heroquest. What kind of interest do you think I could drum up getting a crowd-funded line of Heroquest-a-likes? Higher quality, similar figures, would be easy to have done. I am not suggesting identical remakes, but as there are no existing copyrights or living trademarks, we actually could.

EDIT: Applicable to the US.

EDIT: As rules-sets for games cannot be the subject of a copyright, we could re-do the whole game.

Let me open by saying I'm one of those who has been hoping this would happen. Yet, I'm gonna err on the side of caution and raise what I think is a red flag. I could be misunderstanding copyright law in the US, but what about this from the US Copyright Office http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.pdf found under How Long Copyright Protection Endures?

"...For works made for hire, and for anonymous and
pseudonymous works (unless the author’s identity is revealed
in Copyright Office records), the duration of copyright will
be 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation,
whichever is shorter."

Is a sculptural work somehow different in regards to its protecton period? The same document linked above states sculptual works are eligible for copyright, but it makes no differentiation from literary works. That would cover the US expansion minis if they were made by MB sculptors at work. If instead done freelance, a sculptor is given 70 years after death as the copyright duration. As part of business, I assume such a copyright would be transferred to MB by contract. But not back in the earlier days of GW, which likely included some of Hero Quest. Might this have been the source of the GW/MB split up as MB knew it could retain the art at no further licensing cost? -edit

On the other hand, Blue Moon Miniatures hasn't been bothered yet about its Bog Raiders by GW, apparently because they aren't willing to pay the burden of recovery costs (a guess on my part). Or maybe they somehow stay under the radar of GW legal. Being in the minis biz, you may know something about this than I'm unaware of. Beyond that, Uk copyright again lasts for 70 years after death for sculpture property. This copyright was likely bought by GW, I think. Otherwise they own it as work for hire.

Varying the poses may work here, but I don't know how much more needs to be changed to be considered original enough not to be considered a copy or a derivative work. Personally, I want to see a style close to the static, old-school look, not something more realistic and dynamic that resembles Pathfinder minis. I'd love it if I could see a Yeti with a pose and look from the Frozen Horror box, for example. I'm hoping you know something I don't, or GW or Hasbro doesn't care enough to challenge new work. As a fan, I'm behind the idea if it's feasible, but the last thing I want is for GW legal to swoop in and claim the pledge money as damages.
We're up agianst a , , and here. Lends a whole new meaning to Hero Quest.

[chaoticprime]

Miniatures made for use with the rules of the game Heroquest are perfectly legal to make. Game rules cannot be the subject of a copyright. Further, they hardly own the rights to any of the creatures they used, except the fimir, which you mentioned above. Varying the poses is unnecessary--unless we create the miniatures using the same practice they did--the exact same (using their miniatures, or the masters made for them originally), there's nothing they can do. Wizards of the Coast has, many times, ordered companies to cease and desist from making miniatures of a handful of their monsters--monsters clearly indicated as their IP within their license agreement, the OGL. Even still, people skirt around those rules and produce beholder miniatures all the time. I know first hand that Reaper miniatures has only ever received one C&D from WotC/Hasbro. Furthermore, as Hasbro did not care enough to pay the $26 to renew their trademark on the game, or to register their copyright (which you have to do to challenge violations), I don't think fear of them is somethign we need to worry about.

[Sjeng]

yeah, just look at the Chibi miniatures kickstarter. They had almost ALL classic D&D monsters from the TV cartoon. They had to change only a few minis, and they found workarounds for most of those anyway through cleverly making miniatures with interchangeable parts. And if the fimir is the only unique mini that's not a generic fantasy monster, just call them bog raiders like blood moon did.

[chaoticprime]

yeah, just look at the Chibi miniatures kickstarter. They had almost ALL classic D&D monsters from the TV cartoon. They had to change only a few minis, and they found workarounds for most of those anyway through cleverly making miniatures with interchangeable parts. And if the fimir is the only unique mini that's not a generic fantasy monster, just call them bog raiders like blood moon did.

I was planning to call them Fomorians, actually. From the mythological monsters that served Balor, a god with only one eye.

[Sjeng]

I was planning to call them Fomorians, actually. From the mythological monsters that served Balor, a god with only one eye.

Sounds ominous. works for me

[knightkrawler]

But don't use the word "Balor". That's D&D, again. But Fomorians is great.
What may be dangerous to call the minis are "Chaos Warrior", "Chaos Sorcerer", "Ice Gremlin", "Polar Warbear", "Frozen Horror".
All these are clearly made up by copyright owners whoever the fraggle they might be.
I know, these are 'only' collocations, but they all are very closely connotated with specific products by you know who.

I'm in no way an expert, but looking at these terms I can't help but advising to be very cautious.
Alternatives: "Dark Knight (Warrior)", "Dark Sorcerer", "Frost Fiend", "Frostbear", generic proper name for the Frozen Horros.

But again, I don't know anything about copyright, so this might draw some ridicule at me...

[Sjeng]

- 4 chaos warriors (dark knights, melee)
- 4 fimir (bog raiders or bog lizards, melee)
- 1 chaos sorcerer (dark mage)
- 1 ice gremlin
- 1 polar warbear (arctic armoured bear)
- 1 Sinestra (evil sorceress)
- 1 Frozen Horror (Icy Monstrosity)

*cough* read back *cough*

I do prefer the frost fiend and frost bear though. nice!