Willy Miniatures : new KS !!

[willy]

which I would call blatant, outrageous, shameless plagiarism..

I don't know if Willy commissions these directly or if Pedro just sculpts what he feels like and sells them to Willy.. either way, one or both of them is WAY out of line here...

need this crap? some brands do not expose their models here , I now understand , I do not know what to do in the future with this forum.

[Wightlord]

that snow troll is just plain awsome.

Thank Cyanide. That is a sculpt of their vision of the Snow Troll from the video game. Very well executed sculpt of their artwork.

which I would call blatant, outrageous, shameless plagiarism..

I don't know if Willy commissions these directly or if Pedro just sculpts what he feels like and sells them to Willy.. either way, one or both of them is WAY out of line here...

A mini inspired by a video game is hardly "blatant, outrageous, shameless plagiarism" or IP violation compared to some independents out there who sell direct rips offs of pitches, dirty tricks cards etc. Some companies have even used GW Starplayers names verbatim for their minis in the past. So I cant see why people need to have a go at Willy because his minis are really good and if his transgression is only homage style figures then there are much bigger issues out there amongst the independents.

[Heff]

I can see both sides. On the one hand, beautiful sculpts. On the other homages that border on copies. How about more of the former and a bit less of the latter

[Norse]

the problem isn't this forum Willy, it's the fact that half your models are unoriginal at best..

I have no issue with the quality of the sculpts, just the originality of some of the concepts (or lack thereof)

get back to doing awesome, original minis like the Tomb Guardians, or the Vampire, please..

[fitch-face]

Awesome sculpt, Anyone know how tall this model is?

that snow troll is just plain awsome.

Thank Cyanide. That is a sculpt of their vision of the Snow Troll from the video game. Very well executed sculpt of their artwork.

which I would call blatant, outrageous, shameless plagiarism..

I don't know if Willy commissions these directly or if Pedro just sculpts what he feels like and sells them to Willy.. either way, one or both of them is WAY out of line here...

I see your point and I'd usually be pretty PO'd about something like this too. It is pretty shameless copying but it's copying a company that I have pretty much no respect for, principle has gone out of the window for me where GW are concerned. And honestly, I think if it wasn't for the skull helmet then there'd be no IP problem with the miniature. A troll is a troll and Mano di Porco sell a troll that looks EXACTLY like an actual GW troll. But GW would have a hard time convincing a non-gamer that they had any sort of case against Mano di Porco because it's just a generic fantasy character. Same with this, lose the helmet and it'd be practically impossible for GW to do anything but grumble. But I guess there's a huge demand for a troll with a mammoth helmet like that. You could get around it by selling them as different bits with the troll just being a generic troll/yeti and then the mammoth helmet being marketed as a "big guy helmet" or something. Heck, I'd probably buy the helmet if it was sold by itself.

I'd say the only danger is that if GW release Blood Bowl/Dungeon Bowl as this year's black box release and then start showing a little more interest in specialist games, Willy may find himself in trouble. I'd hate to see Willy on the end of a GW lawsuit so I hope he's aware of the risks.

[cyagen]

My only comment on that is that Willy should be carfull about having too much similarity with some of the "official" stuff.

That could result in some of Granny's lawyer running amok again and you do not want that.

Apart from that nice scult!

[bound for glory]

which I would call blatant, outrageous, shameless plagiarism..

I don't know if Willy commissions these directly or if Pedro just sculpts what he feels like and sells them to Willy.. either way, one or both of them is WAY out of line here...

need this crap? some brands do not expose their models here , I now understand , I do not know what to do in the future with this forum.

i, for one, would not want you to stop coming here. its a sad day when yet another figure designer gets chased off this site. all the nasty remarks are from a small group who seem to get off on wiseass remarks that the majority of the members don't agree with.
its a miniature for a obscure game. its not rip off at any rate. i know what the referance is. its close, but not there.
i guess we should go back to the days when only granny mad bb/ff figures. would'nt that be fun?

[Heff]

Willy

I think most of us are trying to be positive most of the time. But as an occasional trollette, in case it doesn't feel this way I offer you this as a partial apology and way of thinking about us.

Hope your English is up to this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz2jbCJXkpA

and not in front of the children people, it contains bad words and graphic images (cartoon ones but still)

[Shteve0]

Willy, honestly, when you do original figures they're epic. Look at the demand for your halflings, and the excitement your ghouls and tomb guardians generated.

What frustrates me is when perfectly acceptable figures - zara, prince moron, morg - are rehashed unnecessarily, or when someone else's design is (alledegly) lifted wholesale, such as with the barbarian hero, or this troll. And no, I don't care if its GW that's on the receiving end, since that kind of attitude strikes me as both GW-esque and extremely risky.

I'm afraid that what you're getting on this site is people's honest feedback. Those people also happen to be your target market. Please try and draw from their wisdom - many of the people offering constructive criticism here have been buying, painting and playing with fantasy football miniatures for many years. Any company in any walk of life that believes it knows better than its market research response inevitably struggles.

For me, the reason I've not bought anything (yet - those TGs make my mouth water) is because I understand they're out of scale with my existing minis (so I can't easily mix them within a team) and because of price (which I suspect is a product of their size). That's not a whinge, just an explanation.

[spubbbba]

I am not a huge fan of this model, partly as I never liked the Cyanide snow troll design in the first place. In fact I dislike almost all their computer models, but do really like some of the concept art. We recently got shown some alternative Chaos Warrior designs and all of them were vastly superior to the awful ones with the smock that GW approved.

The sculpt looks a little crude as well , especially the claws on the feet, I’d have liked to see a little ridging on them. It is a good first attempt but not up to the quality of some of the other greens such as the flings. Hopefully the sculptor will improve over future BB products and match the quality of Willy’s other models.

Constructive feedback is always useful and you are never going to please everyone. TFF is a sizable portion of your target demographic so it would be a mistake to alienate them. However forums have a tendency to exaggerate things and a small but very vocal group can appear much larger and more influential than they actually are.

[Dwarven Allstar]

I like the willy figures and look forward to getting me hands on a couple if trees for my flings.

Also it's very easy to be negative about something, I like the figures and it's nice to be able to have miniatures that are not only nice to paint but look good when playing. I say good on small miniature company's as it not only gives the buyer more choice but also raises everyone else's standards.

I say thumbs up for willy

[Norse]

all the nasty remarks are from a small group who seem to get off on wiseass remarks that the majority of the members don't agree with.
its a miniature for a obscure game. its not rip off at any rate.

this coming from a guy who openly admitted he sees nothing wrong with recasting if it means he can fill out his collection more cheaply...

[SBG]

First of all, let me just say that I still find the troll very nice, even though I didn't realize it was greatly inspired by Cyanide's version (I didn't remember him at the time. Still don't. Doesn't mean it doesn't look like it!). And let me add I'm against recasting, which is a total rip off. (Been burned once, I'm pretty sure). But this is not the case here.

Now, generally speaking, I really like Willy's work. Even when the star Ogre looks like Morg. My theory is, at some point, there's a limit to what can be original, exclusive and completely new, especially regarding fantasy stuff. We read about it, watch movies about it and surf websites talking about it. Sculptors, illustrators, writers are bound to be influenced by what they previously encountered.

As an example, look at this troll, on the cover of Paizo's Pathfinder Bestiary: http://paizo.com/products/btpy8auu?Path ... e-Bestiary. Doesn't he look like the GW troll? Even the Lord of the Ring's troll? It's great looking and I'm sure GW didn't sue. It might have been inspired by or maybe not at all: the mind of this illustrator thinks about this when he thinks troll. Paizo's legal team surely didn't see any problem wth it.

I've read somewhere that a MIT research found out that there were only seven original melodies left to be written, that every other is, at some point, a rip off of note combinations that have already been written. Doesn't make anybody stop writing music, does it?

So, even though some works may be more inspired by others than some, it doesn't bother me too much to see miniatures looking like some existing others. I'd rather not, but in this case, to me, so far, this the best available Snow Troll/Yehtee/ Norse's Big Guy available. If I do a Norse team, I'll buy it. If it doesn't suit your taste, don't.

Again, personnaly, I'd rather have something I've never seen before. But that doesn't bother me at all. I'm not even sure a case could be made to sue here: it's not exactly the same. Highly inspired by, maybe, but not the same.

Only my two cents. No offense intended to anyone. Let's keep BB alive and kicking!

Fred

[Gaixo]

Are there really Fantasy Football companies that choose not to advertise on this forum? I can only think of the one that is banned, but maybe there are some others that I'm unfamiliar with.

It's sort of ironic that people are getting bent out of shape over this, considering that the name of the star player in question was a codeword for "unsanctioned" rulebook trading on this forum (I'm really just upset that no one would send me a copy).

I would prefer that Willy came up with more original material, but I'm not going to get upset over the misappropriation of intellectual properties belonging to Games Workshop or Cyanide Studios. It would be a shame if Willy caught any legal hassles due to this, but taking that risk is his prerogative.

[GalakStarscraper]

need this crap? some brands do not expose their models here , I now understand , I do not know what to do in the future with this forum.

Willy ... you think this is bad ... post your minis on Frothers for feedback ... than you'll know what forum pain can look like ... the natives here are incredibly tame in comparison.

And to be clear ... I did not say in my comments that I had a problem with the sculpt. It is immediately recognizable as to where the inspiration came from ... but inspiration comes from many sources. Its a difficult line. Cyanide doesn't listen and made a mess of our great game ... its difficult to feel the love so to speak on their behalf. I see it but it doesn't feel like one of ours is at risk. The Thrud model went after a friend of the community ... for me that was different.

So recasting is always evil ... but original sculpts with HEAVY inspiration ... I have to be honest ... I don't share Norse's outrage on the topic at all as long as it is not "one of us" as the original source of the inspiration.

A quick example ... there have been some great selling figures in our store that I now cannot get because the manufacturer no longer sells them to trade vendors. We could easily make heavy inspired sculpts and put them out for those figures and clean up (selling them easily for less than the other manufacturer) .... we don't ... why because that manufacturer is one of us ... helping the community keep this great game alive when the owner could not care less.

IP is such a sticky item ... the Chapterhouse saga is clearly proving that. So my opinion ... don't harm one of us with your work ... and its all good.

So Willy ... happy to pick up some of these with my next order ... I like the sculpt better than the original video concept. Willy just shipped me Tomb Guardians for all those of you in the US that emailed me wondering when we'd get them in. So they should be available soon.

Tom