Diego Sanchez
First, I want to dedicate this blog to an amazing artist. Diego brings all the characters in my head to life, after I gave him the story background and the features required to support their personalities. Only on rare occasions we had to adjust the output. To give an example; João Luna is a character with which we invested a lot of extra time. Posture, looks, ... and yes the armillary sphere! But pushing towards perfection with patience is really rewarding, and the end result turned out to be stunning!
I asked him to make a high speed film while realizing a character on his computer, and the following video is the result. The last basic character, Sphen Easydive comes to live from sketch to colouring.
He was pleasantly surprised when I told him that we were taking steps to have these characters sculpt into miniatures.
Ana Roman
After contacting 3D-sculptor Ana Roman, her team of studio TinyFactory was ready to give a test demo in realizing one of the toughest items, João Luna's instrument: the armillary sphere. Quickly after investigating our characters and discussing some specifics, I can say that she really blew me away with the level of detail the armillary draft was made. We are still looking at all the practicalities for casting at our manufacturer. The miniature will be cast out in different pieces. The base tripod might differ for production. For now, behold the awesomeness!
Game Testers
There is a group of international testers that have started to test the game using the Tabletopia platform via our website. The first few tests were very promising, nevertheless more tweaking and squeaking need to be done before we have polished all the hidden traps in game design. Balancing the character abilities and hidden agendas will be the toughest of all.
If you love board games, you are not shy for online test versions and you are full of constructive criticism, WE WANT YOU! Regular voluntary testers will be mentioned on the box or/and the rulebook. You want to join and to have online access to the prototype game? On our home page or via login, you can sign up to do so!
For the next blog, I am aiming to focus on the background info of telescopes and sextants during the Apollo missions. Stay tuned for more...
Stay healthy!
Vincent