Basic Action Super Heroes!

Currently talking with an artist and discussing this idea with some interested parties. I couldn't help but notice another thread here (that derailed) and thought I'd mention something that is "in talks" right now.

I have contacted an artist about interest in doing a Heroes / Villains book where customers pre-order the book by paying for a custom art piece to be made of their character. They also submit a write-up of their character, which can include stats, or a general description for me to stat up or convert from a previously used system.

Essentially when you commission your art piece, you'd be pre-ordering a printed book when the whole thing is finished. When the book is created, you also get credited for being the creator of that character.

These characters would be published together as part of a shared universe- so part of the fun would be connecting them in various ways! Also, you could make your hero be from wherever (as long as it's not somebody else's IP like Gotham City or Metropolis). So you could have characters from England or New York, the Orion Nebula, etc.

This is still in the works, but it is something that I'm looking at starting pretty soon.

In addition to submitting a character to be drawn, you might submit a City, Major Corporation, or place to be added to the world, by writing up a little bit about it. This is something you can include along with a submission for a character.

I've also considered letting people submit teams or Hero w/ Sidekick or Vehicle. That would likely cost extra though (artists tend to add to the cost per additional figure in a picture).

I'm really liking this! The preorder price for the book purchase also covers the cost of having our very own character professionally rendered for the product. Multiple submissions means you get multiple copies.

Well I know what I'm giving for X-Mas presents!

BASHMAN wrote: I have contacted an artist about interest in doing a Heroes / Villains book where customers pre-order the book by paying for a custom art piece to be made of their character. They also submit a write-up of their character, which can include stats, or a general description for me to stat up or convert from a previously used system.

Essentially when you commission your art piece, you'd be pre-ordering a printed book when the whole thing is finished. When the book is created, you also get credited for being the creator of that character.

These characters would be published together as part of a shared universe- so part of the fun would be connecting them in various ways! Also, you could make your hero be from wherever (as long as it's not somebody else's IP like Gotham City or Metropolis). So you could have characters from England or New York, the Orion Nebula, etc.

This is still in the works, but it is something that I'm looking at starting pretty soon.

THIS. Is an excellent direction idea sir!
I'm impressed and hope it works well.

Very cool idea to help get submissions but also "pay" the creator with product.

Great idea. Are you thinking of getting ONE artist in-which any creator to submit an idea would then contact and contract the single (same) artist? To maintain similar style throughout the product?

I'm interested in how the artist would handle the commissions. Would you (as BASH!) essentially be a middle-man that gets "xxx" $$ of the commission, then the other part going to the artist? Almost like BASH! working as the artist's agent, that helps attract work commissions...

Neat idea.

HECK, that could be a great way to write and get great commission art for ANY new company/producer! VERY interesting business plan. Wow.

-kev-

Sounds interesting. I'm not sure that I would like a book of random characters people liked. I would be more interested if it were themed in some way - science characters, magic characters, etc. Random characters made by players I think might end up being too random for me.

I'm interested in how the artist would handle the commissions. Would you (as BASH!) essentially be a middle-man that gets "xxx" $$ of the commission, then the other part going to the artist? Almost like BASH! working as the artist's agent, that helps attract work commissions...

The artist would be getting the majority of that money; the only thing taken out would be the printing cost of the pre-order. Shipping would probably have to be paid separately. In essence, I'd make $0 off of one. However, I would also plan to make it available for sale after that, of which I'd make money off sales as per usual.

dugfromthearth wrote:Sounds interesting. I'm not sure that I would like a book of random characters people liked. I would be more interested if it were themed in some way - science characters, magic characters, etc. Random characters made by players I think might end up being too random for me.

Well that might be the challenge- getting everything to "mesh" once it's created. Of course, if I end up having to do this in multiple different collections, I could very well see doing a book for different types of characters.

Oh wow! I LOVE this idea!! I was wondering who the artist is as well.

Very cool idea, BASHMAN. Are you able to say who the artist is?

drkrash wrote:Very cool idea, BASHMAN. Are you able to say who the artist is?

Not as of yet. I may actually try to use multiple artists in order to increase the turnaround speed. Otherwise the lag between people ordering and the book being released would be a LONG time.

I'm also thinking about some folks here who have already commissioned art for some of their characters who might want to get in on this. Presuming that the commissioned art is allowed to be reprinted by the artist (i.e. not only for personal use, isn't owned by another publisher, etc), and meets a certain standard of quality, I think it might be a good idea to let people submit their already rendered characters for inclusion. The question is how I would make this work in a way that is fair. Maybe allow them to submit 2 or more characters per pre-order?

So what would it cost to submit a character for this?

Again... I have to say this seems like a neat business plan and a neat offering to BASH! fans. To benefit both the creator and the publication.

I am looking for "holes" in the plan though. Why would this be bad or negative for either parties.

for example, question...

- Who "owns" the art and the character submission?

- Can the character be used in the future for an adventure by the publisher? Is there maybe a "use with permission" policy in the submission guidelines?

- Is there an agreement between the artist and the publisher to give the submission creators a "discount" on price, with the expectance of volume submissions and jobs waiting for the artist?

- Is there a "theme" of any sort set for creators to submit?

- Would the publisher be able to (expected to) make change requests to the creator's work before submission approval?

- IS there "submission approval" or is everything (within reason) in if/when submitted with art?



On the sidebar.
I think you could easily look at this type of project/arrangement as the many many "Handbooks of the Marvel Universe" line. If you look at those there are clearly a few select artists for the entire product. And each artist has a roughly equal number of characters illustrated, to give a "unifying" style of art. Also, the art styles are similar enough to "feel" like they're in the same "universe".

I really like this style of project management.

You may find me toying with it more in the future. NICE business plan idea. Now, I want to find the pitfalls and holes before seeing it used.

any ideas or questions to poke those holes (in a good spirited and intentioned way)?

-kev-

urbwar wrote:So what would it cost to submit a character for this?

It depends on what the cost of printing one will be. I should have a clearer idea this weekend (too much other work till then). I'd rather know the answer than posit my guess and end up having the guess be wrong later.

Kev, these are good questions and I'll try to answer them- but your posts do tend to be a bit verbose. Sometimes answering them feels like I'm being interviewed on the Miley Cyrus show!

- Who "owns" the art and the character submission

If you mean the rights to publish the art, that would be Basic Action Games. The person who commissioned the piece would of course get their art piece and could post it online, use it as an icon, etc; but it wouldn't be for republishing.

The character itself, however would be the property of the person who created it. Obviously, there is a tacit permission to publish the character in this volume, but re-using the character in future publishings would be the creator's discretion. I'd probably have some sort of "Opt-in / opt-out" of future publication option for character submissions. However, Basic Action Games would reserve the right to re-use the image.

Another thing about re-using the characters is that a person's submission shouldn't have been published by anybody else. That would create a sticky legal wicket I want nothing to do with.

Now if you commissioned something and wanted to make a BASH! compatible product featuring your characters, and wanted to use the images for that, I'd be okay with it (going through the normal third party publishing process, of course).

In the case of somebody supplying their own art (an idea I'm considering as an option) it would only be used for this one project. We wouldn't claim any rights to re-publish that art or character.

- Can the character be used in the future for an adventure by the publisher? Is there maybe a "use with permission" policy in the submission guidelines?

I was thinking of making that an option up to the individual person. Some people may really like the idea of their character being featured in published adventures. Other people may not like it. So I leave it up to them.

- Is there an agreement between the artist and the publisher to give the submission creators a "discount" on price, with the expectance of volume submissions and jobs waiting for the artist?

The price hasn't been stated yet, so there can be no stated discount either, but it would likely be cheaper, yes.

- Is there a "theme" of any sort set for creators to submit?

Not as of yet. But if this works out, I may just do that in the future.

- Would the publisher be able to (expected to) make change requests to the creator's work before submission approval?

Well if the character is broken, or the character doesn't make sense, I'll probably revise the build and send that to the creator to ask if they're okay with it.

- IS there "submission approval" or is everything (within reason) in if/when submitted with art?

For me to deny someone, it would have to be pretty outrageous; something that was overly graphic, etc. OR if the character is too similar to one that somebody else already submitted.

I think that we'd want to see what the characters are before it goes into the art commission stage, though, to avoid that problem. [/quote]

BASHMAN wrote:Kev, these are good questions and I'll try to answer them- but your posts do tend to be a bit verbose. Sometimes answering them feels like I'm being interviewed on the Miley Cyrus show!

LOL
I apologize for that. I type as fast as I think and have never been known for editing emails/posts. In fact. My (now ex) girlfriend HATED me texting her or emailing her. It was one of the "problems" in our relationship. Me, I thought it was communication. Don't girls usually WANT that?? HAHAHA!!

Anyway... seriously. Answers/thoughts are appreciated. Don't feel uber obligated, though. You reply more than most (any?) other creators I've seen.
But also keep in mind, when I post a thought/question - manytimes it's directed at the entire readership. For anyone to reply with thoughts on the subject. I've always felt forums are just that... a forum for anyone to reply and give thought. It often helps thinking even if it's not from the original source for the question. Or starts a completely new and different thought. BOTH are the awesome fun of fan forums.

BASHMAN wrote:re-using the character in future publishings would be the creator's discretion.

Yes.
Were it me doing this, I would want to be sure that either I "owned" the rights to publish more material for the character or at least had the option of requesting continued use of the character for Adventures or whatever.

The thing that would hinder me, were I working at something like this... is having a COOL character presented, then never being able to expand on that character in future publications in any way.

That would stink, not only for me as a publisher but more importantly the fans.

RPG Example.
I'm thinking of all the uber-cool iconic characters that the design company Super Unicorn created (on their own) for M&M 1st edition. So many cool ideas. And Green Ronin was not able to expand on any of them. And the "owners" haven't done anything with them for the fans..... Booo...Hisss.... I want adventure ideas or expansions of ideas for the Pugilist or Gepetto or Atomic Brain! Sure... I can do anything I like as a fan at home but as a fan of the image/idea it bugs me not to ever see more wide takes on the property.

Or what about all the very fun characters from V&V? I want to write new modules for the obscure fun characters of V&V!! But I can't because they're mired in someone's little legal crap.

Another example (from comics).
I love love loved "PRIME" ... I'll likely create something in a similar style if/when I design my own publications. But we'll likely never again see good stories with Prime. Why? Malibu Comics is in a quagmire somewhere in Marvel Comics (I think) and they'll never use any of the very interesting Malibu Comic characters. Or at least there's no sign they ever will in my lifetime. I won't even get to see trade paperbacks of those original comic stories. So to "get" them, I either have to dig through my dad's attic to find my old comics or find them all on Ebay (doubtful and expensive)



Man. I hate that.
I'd hate to see it happen with excellent new characters for BASH!

-kev-