Harvinger Studios, Savage Crucible

[TheSameIdiot]

I've seen you mention this before and it makes me so sad because I was in the midst of a project to turn all the most memorable D&D characters I could think of (mine and others I've played with or DM'd for)

I'm going for the traditional fighter/rogue/wizard/cleric party, but when I first started this venture, I wanted to do what you're proposing. Maybe I will eventually. I'm not a customizer, and, as you mention, finding an appropriate library of bodies would be difficult at any scale.

I should be working smarter, not harder. Just base all my future D&D characters on action figures I already own.

 

[docsilence]

Rogue really is the tough one with current options, isn't it? I think Jaeger may fit the bill pretty well, but I'd been using the painted cat head from last year's con Legions exclusive for now. Removed the kilt from the figure and made it into a cloak.

 

[Damien]

It's a setting I want to run as-is some day, but in the meantime I borrow LIBERALLY form it. Keith Baker (and team) knows how to write a killer setting. Shifters shift into other settings really smoothly, or at least cleaner than Kalashtar and such. "Look, my dad was a werewolf, we don't like to talk about it, but..."

I've only played like.. two games ever?... in Eberron. It's just not a setting I could get any groups I knew to sink their teeth into. Wasn't enough Conan/Black Company OR enough Lord of the Rings for any of them. Tell people your fantasy setting has lightning trains and a lot of people kind of check out.
Bringing that into Savage Crucible, I'm pretty excited to see how they handle more technologically advanced stuff being incorporated into the concept.

I'm going for the traditional fighter/rogue/wizard/cleric party, but when I first started this venture, I wanted to do what you're proposing. Maybe I will eventually. I'm not a customizer, and, as you mention, finding an appropriate library of bodies would be difficult at any scale.

I should be working smarter, not harder. Just base all my future D&D characters on action figures I already own.

Best way to do it. From now on I'm only playing Princess Leia. I can play a different Princess Leia in every D&D game. She's got tons of outfits.

I think once Savage Crucible expands into characters with like.. shirts and pants... it'll become a little easier to do more than just make a fighter or a barbarian.

Rogue really is the tough one with current options, isn't it? I think Jaeger may fit the bill pretty well, but I'd been using the painted cat head from last year's con Legions exclusive for now. Removed the kilt from the figure and made it into a cloak.

It's also worth considering that if Savage Crucible/Mythic Legions serves as the baseline human, that does potentially open up 1:12 lines, or even 1:18 lines. 1:12 humans could be half-elves, younger people, or any number of other more diminutive types of characters. I joked about Princess Leia above, but I just grabbed the newest ANH Leia and next to notConan she's practically the correct size to be a tall halfling or even a short elf.

Boss Fight, in their good old days, made some fairies in the HACKS line, but they made them on the regular HACKS bodies. But that means you have 4"-ish fairies that can go with your 7" humans. I think there's a lot of potential out there to mix and match stuff with Crucible and Legions for a broader fantasy demographic, as it were.

 

[TheCaptain]

I'm fully on board with a furry dude in armor... just not that armor, to your next point.

I think the armor on Jaeger is atrocious. Truly, and by far, the worst design of fantasy armor I've seen on an action figure in a long time. I have been, and will continue to be, endlessly critical of how that made it past the sketchbook. It's just bad. I'd argue that the biggest problem with it is the lower torso. It's so thin (obviously to be interchangeable with the rest of the line and make it all fit together in the same way), that it doesn't look like he's wearing armor so much as he is wearing spandex with armor printed on it. Like a bad cosplay outfit.
Then he's got this weird chest armor halter top over it that's completely disconnected from the design underneath that's (I assume) supposed to be coming out from below it? I don't know what's going on. It's just fucking bad.

The chest-mounted daggers sticking up into his face are dumb, too.

That entire figure could have been saved with all the armor being an overlay piece like Death Dealer. They're really going to struggle to make any non-science fiction, or traditional-style armor look right with a super skinny abdomen and a larger upper torso sitting overtop of it. That's just not what armor looks like, and the issue is that even if you don't think of it in those terms, if you've ever seen movies or TV with human beings wearing armor, that stuff is probably going to hit your eye wrong.

I think he and Nashorn are tied for worst armour in the line so far. I think any design that makes you stop and think "Wait what actually is going on there?" is a failure. It should read as what it's supposed to be as soon as you see it. Jaeger's shoulder pads: Metal? Iron? It's grey but not as shiny as his clearly metal forearm armour. But it's sculpted like leather, with weird seam line details or something at the edges, with no metal rivets and only a tiny bit of texture that could be intended as a hammered metal effect. And they're just gigantic and absurdly shaped to be solid metal. And as you said the chest armour is difficult to read as anything other than a weird little half-cuirass made of padded fabric over a chainmail... jacket? Very Witcher-esque and try-hard modern fantasy. The thinness doesn't bother me too much, at least it's a change from the incredibly thick torsos of the Mythic Legions 1.0 bodies. I would have much preferred him wearing the padded armour they've shown on the dwarf prototype though.

Nashorn's armour bothers me for some of the same reasons, I get that it leans into a very exaggerated fantasy design but their figures are so realistically proportioned and painted that they can't really get away with such unrealistic and weird armour. I mean, are his shoulder pads metal? What metal is any of his armour made of? Is the red shit paint, or some magical glow, rust, or what? His metal horns are hammered super rough with harsh angles but his shinguards are extremely intricate and cleanly designed. Then the random grey chestplate doesn't match any of his other armour in colour or design. He just looks incoherent and I don't really know what they were aiming for.

 

[Damien]

I want to dig into this, but I'm going to try to be brief because I can honestly go on about armor for about six hundred more paragraphs.

"Wait what actually is going on there?" is a failure.

Most of the time, yeah. I think it's fair to point out that sometimes armor doesn't quite make sense to people that don't understand it, so you have to allow that maybe something could be correct and still look weird. But more to your point, if your eye can't even figure out what's going on, forget about whether it's right or not, that's a big problem. That's definitely a problem for Jaeger. I, a person that knows a lot about armor, can't even tell what they were actually going for. The only thing I can figure out (a gambeson halter top over a mail arming coat that's been made wrong?) is dumb as shit.

Jaeger's shoulder pads: Metal? Iron? It's grey but not as shiny as his clearly metal forearm armour. But it's sculpted like leather, with weird seam line details or something at the edges, with no metal rivets and only a tiny bit of texture that could be intended as a hammered metal effect.

Yeah, man. It's crazy how bad that design is.
Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of big pauldrons on most figures anyway. Historically, that's a very specific thing and I just find it so fucking goofy when some dude that's not even wearing pants or a shirt has giant fuck-off pauldrons that put to shame the most elaborate 16th century jousting armor. What are they even supposed to be attached to? As a guy that likes real armor, 'assembly' is kind of the first thing that strikes me about a lot of fantasy designs; just tell me how this stuff all attaches to each other or the wearer. The 4H are so bad for giant pauldrons that are, apparently, riveted directly to a person's fucking nervous system.

The thinness doesn't bother me too much

I don't think it's so much that it's thin, but that it's so much thinner than the upper torso. It makes them look weird together. Maybe if the design on the abdomen was carried up onto the chest, it wouldn't be so bad. But since they're totally different designs, for some reason, it calls to attention how skinny and 'not very armor like' the abdomen looks in comparison to the bigger armored upper body.

Nashorn's armour bothers me for some of the same reasons, I get that it leans into a very exaggerated fantasy design but their figures are so realistically proportioned and painted that they can't really get away with such unrealistic and weird armour. I mean, are his shoulder pads metal? What metal is any of his armour made of? Is the red shit paint, or some magical glow, rust, or what? His metal horns are hammered super rough with harsh angles but his shinguards are extremely intricate and cleanly designed. Then the random grey chestplate doesn't match any of his other armour in colour or design. He just looks incoherent and I don't really know what they were aiming for.

I have a lot less problem with Nashorn's armor pieces, but I agree that they don't necessarily jive -together-. The chest armor has this like.. chitinous/organic look to it. But as you said, it doesn't jive with the rest of what he's wearing. I feel like he'd look a lot better if all his armor pieces looked the same as his chest armor. MAYBE it would also just look better if his chest armor were the same color as his vambraces and greaves.
I don't know what you mean by the red, though. I'm colorblind. What on him is red besides the loincloth?

I like the horns, though. I don't think they need to match the rest of the figure considering they are essentially just a purely decorative element specifically designed (in-universe, I mean) to stand out and look unnerving/unnatural.

 

[TheCaptain]

I have a lot less problem with Nashorn's armor pieces, but I agree that they don't necessarily jive -together-. The chest armor has this like.. chitinous/organic look to it. But as you said, it doesn't jive with the rest of what he's wearing. I feel like he'd look a lot better if all his armor pieces looked the same as his chest armor. MAYBE it would also just look better if his chest armor were the same color as his vambraces and greaves.
I don't know what you mean by the red, though. I'm colorblind. What on him is red besides the loincloth?

I like the horns, though. I don't think they need to match the rest of the figure considering they are essentially just a purely decorative element specifically designed (in-universe, I mean) to stand out and look unnerving/unnatural.

So the shoulder pads and the chestplate have a lot of red, adding to that organic chitin/metal confusion, and the base of the horns have a red gradient going upwards. Not an ugly design choice, it just doesn't particularly read as anything except that this atlantean necromancer conqueror or whatever likes his horns to be artistically airbrushed, unless they're supposed to be glowing like Who-man's sword. It doesn't really have a naturalistic rust tone or weathering pattern. I do actually like the shape of the horns, I think they would work as the only out-of-place piece on him, and that the chest and shoulders should match the rest of his armour better.

 

[Damien]

So the shoulder pads and the chestplate have a lot of red, adding to that organic chitin/metal confusion, and the base of the horns have a red gradient going upwards. Not an ugly design choice, it just doesn't particularly read as anything except that this atlantean necromancer conqueror or whatever likes his horns to be artistically airbrushed, unless they're supposed to be glowing like Who-man's sword. It doesn't really have a naturalistic rust tone or weathering pattern. I do actually like the shape of the horns, I think they would work as the only out-of-place piece on him, and that the chest and shoulders should match the rest of his armour better.

Interesting. I can't really even see the red, so it doesn't bother me. I wonder if they were going for some kind of 'he's magic and red is his magic color' theme. Guess it could just be there to suggest rust without doing the work of actually doing the paint hits to make it actually look like it's rusting?

Agree, though, about the horns. They work better as the 'finishing touch' on an otherwise fairly uniform design. Which he does not have. That being said, I posted a picture at some point, I believe, of my Nashorn wearing the Raider armor and even though it IS still a different color, I think it looks worlds better since it looks like actual armor that he might have grabbed and put on. The chitinous breastplate looks almost too artisanal? to be something he just grabbed and put on.

The cool thing is, this line is going to keep going and that's only going to add more swapping options for these figures.

 

[SalemCrow]

So my lizards arrived last week, and Jaeger and warrior with mace and shield arrived early this week.

I opened them all up and boy, am I impressed. I used a heat gun to swap the lizard feet, but otherwise I didn't really need to heat anything up to get parts moving.

I will agree with d_amazing when he says it in his videos, but I am not good at tabbing parts in. I wanted to move Jaeger's sheath from the cross body belt to his waist, but could not get it to tab into the belt, so I pulled the cross body belt off, and worked it back into that for now.

My Frazetta Girls Icon Conan also arrived the same day as the wave 2 figures, so it was a barbarian kind of day opening them all up.

 

[docsilence]

Oooof, getting Jaeger's biceps to move was WORK, but I got them going and how he's doing great. It's just a really fun figure to play with. I like to pick my ideal hand/head setup and not swap them out too much and I can't decide if I want him ready to dual-wield sword and knife or have an open-clawed hand and one holding a weapon. Probably the latter. And now to decide if he claws with left and swings with right or vice versa.

I really like that he works as a standalone figure, too - he feels like a trespasser in other fantasy lines, a weird interloper. (Also a great figure to buy while reading John Gwynne's Shadow of the Gods, for reasons.)

 

[Damien]

The only advice I can give with tabbing, which always kind of sucks, is to (there's NO way to say any of this that doesn't sound filthy) try to get the male end cold and the female end warm, so that the hole opens up easier, but the peg remains stiff enough to not bend going in and stop itself from seating.

John Gwynne's Shadow of the Gods

You're not done yet? C'mon!

I can't decide if I want him ready to dual-wield sword and knife or have an open-clawed hand and one holding a weapon

My biggest difficulty so far with this line, besides that some of the figures struggle to stand in neutral poses because the ONLY part of the ankle articulation that isn't tight enough is with the foot at an actual 90 degree angle to the leg, for some reason, is hand options. I have the Raider set, so I also have the middle fingers and fists for Who-Man and Krieger. I'm so excited to be able to do cross-body two-handed poses, but I almost feel like it's a waste to just be using gripping hands on everyone when they have so many great options.

I had this problem with the Retro Viper as well. If you give me a bunch of hand options and a very well-articulated figure, I'm going to end up spending a LOT more time re-posing it than I generally do with most of my figures.

 

[docsilence]

I'm SAVORING the books! I am RELISHING in the combat scenes!

So I got annoyed with Jaeger's floating shoulder pauldrons and popped them out and he just feels smoother and more fun, so I think they're staying off. I swapped out left sword hand for left claw hand and immediately thought too much about which hand I'd want a sword in versus a claw as a lefty and doubted my decision, but... eh, he's a wolf man, he's obviously ambidextrous. And I am now shopping for another figure. I got Jaeger from BBTS but eyeballing one of the lizards directly from their site.

 

[TheCaptain]

And I am now shopping for another figure. I got Jaeger from BBTS but eyeballing one of the lizards directly from their site.

If you don't have Nin Vilimir, you should get Nin Vilimir. One of my favourite figures of all time, and it looks like he's about to sell out on their website.

 

[docsilence]

If you don't have Nin Vilimir, you should get Nin Vilimir. One of my favourite figures of all time, and it looks like he's about to sell out on their website.

Debating whether I want to pick him up AND Who-Man at the same time.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

So I got annoyed with Jaeger's floating shoulder pauldrons and popped them out and he just feels smoother and more fun, so I think they're staying off.

Do you have a photo? I can't find a shot of him without them in the promo pics.

I didn't even register that they're pauldrons. My eyes glazed over them thinking they were part of his hood/cloak.

 

[docsilence]

Do you have a photo? I can't find a shot of him without them in the promo pics.

I didn't even register that they're pauldrons. My eyes glazed over them thinking they were part of his hood/cloak.

You got it. Quick and dirty shot of him without them, cloak on and off.