2012 - the Best Bits (part 1)

As we approach the holiday season and the end of the year, it's traditional  to look back at the past twelve months. There's enough bad news around at the moment, so let's keep it upbeat and concentrate on just the good stuff. Here's a rundown on the hobby releases that caught my eye, the stars of 2012. Some of them I have bought/committed to buy, others are on my to do list.

If you had to summarise the past year in one phrase, you could do worse than go for something like "the year of the kickstarter". I think the first I heard of the concept was back in May when Sedition Wars was launched. Since then, it seems a new crowd-funding project is launched just about every week. There have been some very high profile projects launched through this financing method, but I wanted to start with some of the lesser know projects.

Imbrian Arts is a company I discovered back in 2011, when I stumbled on some sculpts based on Arthur Rackham artwork. It turned out that the sculptor, Jody Siegel, had his own company offering a small but very interesting range of minis. Just last month he launched a kickstarter project to expand the range and introduce a gaming system. While some of the models are from staple fantasy fare such as goblins and undead, I think you will agree that these are totally unique and jaw-droppingly nice! There's a few days still to go on the project, so go take a look.

The Massive Voodoo blog is a collection of painters from Europe (mostly Germany I think) that has grown significantly over the past year. The rate at which the guys pump out prize-winning painting is phenomenal, but it's a very down to earth site with plenty of tips, videos and just pure entertainment. When an art book was announced a couple of months ago, I jumped in happily to lend my support and am eagerly looking forward to the new year when I expect the books to ship. For me, this is the number one hobby painting site on the web.

Copplestone Castings is a well-established company that has recently caught my eye, as I look around at the growing range of alternative games and minis. The range of 15mm fantasy figures is intriguing, I was particularly blown away by the dwarfs. There are hints that a game is in development, but there is scant information on this that I can find. Still, there are plenty of other games out there that the figures could be used in, though that deserves a whole topic in itself.

That's it for the first part of my rundown of the stars of 2012. In the next post I will be looking at some of the bigger kickstarter projects.