Design Your Own Miniatures With Heroforge!

If you've ever wanted to design your own custom miniatures, you could be in luck. The Heroforge custom miniatures site is now live. It's a little limited at present, but you can head on over and play about. You'll need to register to save your design though.

Heroforge was a highly successful Kickstarter campaign back in February. You design your miniature, and it is shipped to you. The system allows you to work your way through a number of options, much like creating an avatar in a video game. You choose a body, head, hair, face, clothing, and items.

Here's my attempt - a horned female elf in chainmail, leaping into the sky, with fireballs in her hands. Try it out here!

 

[Mike D]

I think the price is reasonable when you consider that you are custom designing your own miniature. I just designed and bought one, took about 30 minutes. I've been looking for a specific miniature for years - a female human duel whip wielding fighter - and not surprisingly, there is a dearth of that particular mini on the market. ( : Hero Forge does not offer whips (yet?), so I went with two spiked chains - close enough, especially given that my current mini is from Star Wars (two red lightsabers). So for me, this site was the perfect answer to my problem.

 

[Jester David]

Did anyone get one yet? What's the quality like?
Inquiring minds want to know!

 

[Fuseboy]

I saw a post floating around on G+ a while back - someone ordered one of the high-quality-but-weak ones. He was happy with it, but it was indeed weak: the weapon snapped off during painting and had to be repaired. No idea if he's a butterfingers or if they really are that weak.. but it put me off a little.

 

[Razjah]

A player in my group got a mini shipped recently. It looked good, but I thought the bust on the mini was ridiculous, although based on what the player said, that was more him than the site.

I am disappointed that some things are missing, like anything remotely reptilian. I was really hoping to get a good mini for my Kobold Bard who dresses like a musketeer/Pirate. But the site does not have anything like lizard people yet.

 

[MartyW]

I saw a post floating around on G+ a while back - someone ordered one of the high-quality-but-weak ones. He was happy with it, but it was indeed weak: the weapon snapped off during painting and had to be repaired. No idea if he's a butterfingers or if they really are that weak.. but it put me off a little.

I'm going to be posting my review soon on my blog, but I can speak to this.

I had the same thing happen and I was being ridiculously careful. My miniature also has narrow ankles, so it broke at the weak spot near the base. I would also avoid any pose that only connects the figure to the base by one foot (as seen in the example screen shots).

I've re-glued the mini, but I cannot recommend the miniatures for use in play. They are way too fragile and do not take even the slightest pressure in the wrong direction because the plastic does not flex and therefore breaks at the weakest point.

 

[MartyW]

New review posted:
http://ragingowlbear.blogspot.com/2015/02/hero-forge-miniatures-not-ready-for.html

 

[pickin_grinnin]

MartyW - Thanks for the review! It confirmed what I already suspected, at least when it comes to the graininess of the detail. It makes me wonder what type of 3D printer they are using.

 

[MartyW]

MartyW - Thanks for the review! It confirmed what I already suspected, at least when it comes to the graininess of the detail. It makes me wonder what type of 3D printer they are using.

Shapeways does their fulfillment (Hero Forge doesn't actually print any of the minis). One of my commenters noted that Shapeways uses the powder/binder process as opposed to the resin printing process. Resins might actually improve the durability of the output.