Why releases have been slow recently...

[cbr3d.com]

Pendraken will soon have to update their homepage:

"We now have over 200 ranges and over 3000 individual products"

Although this of course will remain technically correct I think it will have to revised to show the growth in those numbers.  

[Bloodaxe]

Pendraken will soon have to update their homepage:

"We now have over 200 ranges and over 3000 individual products"

Although this of course will remain technically correct I think it will have to revised to show the growth in those numbers.  

One thing Pendraken really, really needs to work on is to put pictures up on their site of the miniatures.  People wont buy as many miniatures with no pictures. They want to see what they are getting. It would help your sales.

[Hertsblue]

One thing Pendraken really, really needs to work on is to put pictures up on their site of the miniatures.  People wont buy as many miniatures with no pictures. They want to see what they are getting. It would help your sales.

You are, of course, absolutely right. And members could assist by posting pictures of their relevant models in the "comments" section.

[Bloodaxe]

You are, of course, absolutely right. And members could assist by posting pictures of their relevant models in the "comments" section.

That would be nice too, but having a  pic right next to the model listing & price is really necessary. Just like what is happening with Warbands.

[Leon]

One thing Pendraken really, really needs to work on is to put pictures up on their site of the miniatures.  People wont buy as many miniatures with no pictures. They want to see what they are getting. It would help your sales.

We do, and it's something we're working on as quickly as possible.  Unfortunately we didn't have any photos at all before we launched the new website in 2010, so we suddenly needed to find pictures of 2500 products.  We've added a lot of images since then, but we've released another 1000 products as well!

The main problem is finding the time to do them.  Getting the pictures for just 20 products can take 5-6 hours of time, which is spent casting them, glueing them on strips, blackwashing, taking the photos, editing them, and uploading to the website.  For the 2500 or more products still requiring pictures that means 600-700 hours of work.  Even if we could manage 5 hours per week that's nearly 3 years to get them all done.

We have started outsourcing the painting instead, so we've got people working on painted display figures at the moment.  The first of these can be seen in the Warband ranges, or the 16th Polish.  We've currently got the Ottoman Turks and ACW's away being painted up to be added to the website.  Plus the Nap French and SYW Austrians will be going away to another painter in the coming weeks.  It's a long job, but we'll keep plugging away at it as quickly as we can.

[cbr3d.com]

That's interesting.

[getagrip]

We do, and it's something we're working on as quickly as possible.  Unfortunately we didn't have any photos at all before we launched the new website in 2010, so we suddenly needed to find pictures of 2500 products.  We've added a lot of images since then, but we've released another 1000 products as well!

The main problem is finding the time to do them.  Getting the pictures for just 20 products can take 5-6 hours of time, which is spent casting them, glueing them on strips, blackwashing, taking the photos, editing them, and uploading to the website.  For the 2500 or more products still requiring pictures that means 600-700 hours of work.  Even if we could manage 5 hours per week that's nearly 3 years to get them all done.

We have started outsourcing the painting instead, so we've got people working on painted display figures at the moment.  The first of these can be seen in the Warband ranges, or the 16th Polish.  We've currently got the Ottoman Turks and ACW's away being painted up to be added to the website.  Plus the Nap French and SYW Austrians will be going away to another painter in the coming weeks.  It's a long job, but we'll keep plugging away at it as quickly as we can.

Put like that, for a small business, you can see the enormity of the task.

[fred.]

When the new website launched - there was a flurry of activity to add photos by us customers - but what I found was that its actually quite hard work. Because you often use figures in a mix from different packs. Or you can't quite remember which pack different figures came from. And once the figures are painted they look quite different, so its good to have photos of both bare metal and painted figures.

I now have a much better feel for how big a task this is.

Its really good to see that figure are being outsourced to get them painted and photographed. Are you getting the painters to take photos of bare metal (or black washed) figures too? Its good to see both.

[Leon]

Are you getting the painters to take photos of bare metal (or black washed) figures too? Its good to see both.

Not at the moment, as most folk we spoke to didn't want to paint on top of a blackwash, so it would mean sending two lots of every figure away to them.  The painted ones will take a lot longer to get done, so I'll be adding blackwashed ones at this end to fill the gaps while the painted ones are in progress.  The end result will be fully painted pics of everything on the website.  If we can do it, we'll ask Matt to add a secondary image section, where we can add blackwashed pics as well, but that would be further down the line again.

... but what I found was that its actually quite hard work. Because you often use figures in a mix from different packs.

That's also something we find, we've had some fantastic painted pics sent through to us over the years, but so many of them have got multiple codes on the same base, or they're in the middle of a game with other stuff in the background, or there's another company's tank next to them, etc.

[toxicpixie]

Exactly what Fred says - I thought I'd pop some pics on as I had them ready to go, then of what I thought would be a dozen plus pack codes I had about three usable photo!

[jchaos79]

This is a titanic task.

HAve you consider a system interactive with the users. We upload/post the pictures (bare meta, wash, sieze, different types of painting, comments to warband or BKC utility of the figures), not great qualitiy in some cases, but if people collaborate and there is a place to request fotos and add it to the central catalogue.

You know I did something similar in a forum format. First in spanish forum, then in english forum (expecting more collaboration).

The truth is that (as I understood), lots of people think is useful but it is not easy to collaborate with the catalogue. Maybe if something similar is directed by you in this forum, people could be more willing to collaborate.
A report botton or threat can be made to spot errors or comments. Then you should only be aware of this trhreat to search solution to errors instead uploading to the webpage 3000 images.

Last point is you could attract new followers to the forum, if people try to search for an image and is redirected to the forum.


Just a though, hope it helps and I could explain myself  (it is 7 in the morning here, I barely sleep tonight, adn I enter at work at 8  I am not going to check grammar so FK it is up to you to start joking)