An Interview with Oathsworn Miniatures

UK Games Expo is a great opportunity to meet the people behind your favourite games and model ranges, as well as to expand your horizons by finding companies you never knew existed and sampling their wares. This, of course, is not without risk to your wallet, but it's a risk worth taking.

This year, in addition to picking up a Kickstarter order, I thought I'd be a bit cheeky and see if Michael and Jo from Oathsworn Miniatures would be able to make a bit of time for an interview. To my surprise - and delight - they were happy to do so, so I caught up with them on Sunday afternoon, where the hope was that things would've died down a little. Compared to the Saturday it had, but that's not saying much...

If you aren't aware of who I'm talking about, Michael and Jo Lovejoy are the husband and wife team behind Oathsworn Miniatures, a UK-based miniatures company which produces the Burrows & Badgers game, alongside the Heroines in Sensible Shoes range of roleplaying game miniatures. I've spoken to them at events before, but this is the first time doing so as a "formal" interview.

Quick note - while I'm sure some of you would prefer to hear the recorded audio, there is that much background noise from the Expo that it isn't really suitable. However, what follows is the best transcription I could manage. Enjoy...

Thanks for your time this afternoon. I want to start by offering you my congratulations on two things. Firstly, your wedding anniversary recently - getting some time off has got to be a good thing.

Jo: Thank you very much.

And secondly, you've made the move to commercial premises instead of working out of your house - always a good sign. How does it feel to get the house back from under the metal mountain?

Jo: It's weird - it's so strange, going out to work every day instead of being at home. One good thing is that the room that we were using as the main bit in the house, I've now got all our books out, and it's like a little library. [laughs] There's piles of books everywhere, so that's going to be a really nice place when we do spend any time at home - which doesn't happen very often!

Michael: I'm now begrudging paying rent, because we basically turn up there, fall asleep, and then go back to the unit when we wake up.

Jo: That is true.

So that's the same as working any other job, really - you go back home to fall over. Though I guess, being self-employed, that you don't get the weekend side of things as much as the rest of us.

Michael: [sigh] No, no sick pay, no holiday pay - I'm a little depressed now.

Sorry about that - so, how's the Games Expo been so far this year for you, then?

Michael: Very busy.

Jo: Sorry, there's a customer wants to know about the game...

Michael: I'm sorry, mate.

[laughs] No worries.

Jo: You can swap with me.

I was just asking Michael how the Expo's gone so far.

Jo: It's been really good. I mean, it's always great here, it's totally different atmosphere to the usual wargames places that we go to, because you have lots of families, and it's a very relaxed atmosphere. There's loads of space, and we've sold out of loads of miniatures - we've done really well.

I've been circulating around the event, there's always been people at the stand, you've always seemed to be dealing with customers - that's got to be a good thing, to see that the range has got so much interest.

Jo: Yeah. And even people who aren't buying - which is totally fine - they see the miniatures in the display case, and they have smiles on their faces, like "Oh, look at that!" That is so wonderful, to know that you've sort of brightened someone's day, it does feel good.

Burrows & Badgers display board

So you've got the awesome little display board there with all the Burrows & Badgers models on - any plans on doing something similar for the Heroines?

Jo: At the moment we're concentrating on the Burrows & Badgers, because of the book release - and there's only so much we can bring with us, as well. We do have the Sensible Shoes with us, but we couldn't fit the display in the van. There's only so much space!

The downside of a range that keeps getting bigger...[laughs]

Jo: Yes, this is the trouble - you release another Kickstarter, there's another ten or twenty figures, and you've got to find room for them.

That's an interesting one - I was doing some research, before, as you'd agreed to do an interview, so I should probably check things out. I'd heard mention of Michael doing sculpting before Oathsworn, stuff like that. My first experience with you was, I think, here two years ago, and you had a little stand over there somewhere.

Jo: It was a starter stand, it was our first one.

Yeah, I got the tortoise from you, and a couple of other figures. I hadn't realised you'd done Kickstarters before the Burrows & Badgers line - off-hand, Project Pantheon, Clan McFiggin and a couple of Heroes ones.

Jo: Yes.

Obviously, those aren't on the webstore at the minute - are there any plans on bringing those back? Having looked at them, I know there's a few figures in there that I, for one, would love to pick up.

Jo: I know, I know - we would love to re-introduce the Dwarves, and Michael really wants to do the Norse gods and expand the range. That is a definite - it's on the to-do list, but the to-do list just keeps getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger! [laughs] But the thing is, with sculpting - and I'm a novice at sculpting, obviously Michael's the professional - you look at something you did a few years ago and think "I could do that so much better now." And so he would really like to do the Dwarves again - but he would literally do them again.

That's interesting, as I was looking them, and certainly the female ones from the Hero Halflings, I think it was, and - OK, I'm looking at a picture on a Kickstarter, obviously not holding the model in my hand, but just looking at the greens, I wouldn't say they were of any lower quality than the stuff that was in the last Heroines Kickstarter, for example.

Jo: Well, that's very nice of you to say so. [both laugh]

So nothing in the short term unfortunately, then?

Jo: There's just so much on the list, and we've got to concentrate on Burrows & Badgers for the moment, because of the book release, but, yeah - the list will eventually get done.

[Short commercial break - both Jo and Michael were dealing with customers - we resumed when both were free]

We're on the stand, customers are going to come up - I was expecting it, to be honest. Erm, where were we - oh, yes, we were talking about the older Kickstarters, weren't we?

Jo: Older Kickstarters - he was saying about the Dwarves, and the Pantheons.

And the Halflings, and such like.

Michael: [sigh] Yeah.

Jo: And you can do so much better now.

I'd not looked at them before doing the research to talk to you today - I'd seen the Burrows & Badgers Kickstarter, I'd seen the Heroines - but, you know, Odin on Sleipnir was a really nice model, some of the Halflings and Dwarves - probably all of them, to be fair, but some of them stick in your head - wouldn't've looked out of place in HISS 3. And it would be great to see them on general release again.

Michael: Yeah, probably not, is the answer. A lot of the masters are damaged - the mould-maker we were using at the time, we didn't get all the masters back from them, and the moulds are not great. We can't really produce them. If I can get any good casts out of the old master moulds we might be able to do something with them, but probably not is the answer, so they're kinda gone now, unfortunately.

That's a shame, as there were some good concepts in there that came out nicely.

Michael: We'll try and do more with the Norse gods, I think, because I'm always wanting to sculpt Norse gods, and I've got a few others sculpted that I've never done anything with. I don't really get any spare time, but when I do, I tend to be sculpting a Norse god.

It's your passion project, you might say.

Michael: Yeah, I do like them. The Odin on Sleipnir was just a nightmare to cast, because there wasn't a big enough number we needed to get lots of moulds made. It was in seven parts, and if it'd been in seven moulds it would've been nice and easy, because you'd vary your moulding, you know, all the big bits are in one mould, all the thin bits are in another - as we only had one mould, every time you ran it you'd get good casts of the fat bits but the thin bits wouldn't cast, and then you'd have to reset it to cast the thin bits. You ended up running the mould three or four times to get one complete figure. It's just not practical, unfortunately.

The Burrows & Badgers demo table - in an old picture frame

That's a shame, that's a shame. From my research, I see you've done sculpting for other companies before founding Oathsworn - I saw a lot of horse heads on your old website, which is a little worrying - what would you say would be the oddest thing, or most unusual thing, you've sculpted in your career to date?

Michael: Erm, I don't know - probably Burrows & Badgers, to be honest, or that's what most people would say. [All laugh] Most of what I did previously was historical stuff, a lot of historical things for various... a bit of Napoleonics, a little bit of World War II, lots of medieval stuff, generally small scale. I did a fair bit of sci-fi - I did a 6mm range of sci-fi dinosaur riders, that was fairly unusual.

Who did you do those for?

Michael: Micro World Games, I think it was.

I'm wondering if they're the same ones I bought at the Joy of Six last year, as someone was selling a bag of dino riders.

Michael: They could well have been, yeah. But I've done, I mean, outside of the miniatures world I've done porcelain brooches in the shape of horses' heads and things like that, which for a miniatures sculptor is a bit odd, I guess. But I've done all sorts of things over the years, so... I started out doing resin garage kit dinosaurs, basically, that was the first thing I started sculpting, and I went on from there.

So maybe a dinosaur in Burrows & Badgers for the lizards, at some point? [laughs] One of the smaller ones, obviously - I'm not talking a T-Rex.

Jo: [laughs] That would be so cool.

Michael: Might be a bit too far back in time, I guess.

Well, you've got to have a throwback here or there. Jo, you mentioned before that you're a novice at sculpting, you've mentioned doing bits of the terrain elements in the past - how much of a challenge has that been for you, and how've you found it?

Jo: I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I mean, I've always been creative, I've always been arty, but I've done other aspects, like I used to do glass painting and I used to do crafting with the kids, so I used to do it at college, and things like that. I've thoroughly enjoyed the sculpting, and I have a very good person sat on my left-hand side to give me any tips if I get stuck, so that's very handy. I don't think many people have that. [laughs]

An in-house tutor?

Jo: Yes. But I'm looking at moving from the resin into vacuum-forming, as we've got a vac-former. If you've ever seen vac-formed terrain, it's sometimes quite low on detail, and the inside is better than the outside, so we're experimenting with reverse tooling to try and get better quality. If it works, it'll be so cool.

An inverted vac-forming? That's interesting. Recently the terrain has all vanished off the website, and I've seen people asking questions - what is the future for the terrain line? You've got some really nice pieces, like the Mouse House, the stone circle and the standing stones, even the things like the tents and the fire...

Jo: Oh, I know - Michael did the Mouse House. I love the stone circle and the stones, I think they were my best piece, really, because it's so generic that you can use it for so many games - you don't have to use it with ours. So many people have bought it for that, and it was really easy to cast, which is always a bonus, it didn't have any problem pieces, which is great, so I'm really happy with that, but if I could recreate that, or something similar, in the vac-former, I'd be very happy. But, yeah, I'm weaning that out, because it takes so much time that I've got no time for research and development, so I had to make the decision to stop that, so I that can spend time trying to get the vac-forming sorted.

Cool - but maybe with a bit of luck, possibly someone else might pick the moulds up?

Jo: We have been thinking about that, because I've got all the master models, and giving them to someone else who does resin, and seeing if they want to produce it themselves. So it is something we have been thinking about.

That'd be good - I mean, some of the stuff you don't want falling out of production.

Jo: Yeah, because some of them are really cool!

Yeah, they're really nice pieces. Coming back to Burrows & Badgers for a bit, Michael, you wrote the game, you've been working with Osprey on the hardback, which is now out, and is a really nice book - how did you find that process?

Michael: It was interesting - we had a Facebook group for playtesting, which is... it's really useful, it helped a lot, but it can be really hard when people are telling you that the thing you've done is wrong. I mean, quite often they're right, and you have to accept that and realise that a rule's not working, or whatever, but, yeah, not the easiest thing to accept. So often, getting fresh viewpoints on things, it really shows you where you've gone wrong and what you need to fix, so I think we've got a better game out of it. But, y'know, me accepting that I'd done lots of things wrong... [Michael and Jo laugh]

Well, testing is there to help evolve the product - possibly "wrong" is the wrong term, but not quite as good as it could be?

Michael: Yeah, as much as anything it's wording - me thinking of a rule, knowing what the rule means, but trying to get that across in the wording... other people will read that rule, and interpret it completely differently. So it's ensuring that we word it in such a way that everyone agrees what it means.

I've been through something similar - my local games store put out a roleplaying game, which went to print earlier this year, and having the guy who wrote the game running a session was cool, because he could run the game exactly as he thought it was. But then you'd be sat there reading the thing he's given you, and go "Hang on a minute - what you've just told me is completely different to what's on the page. What's going on?" And he's gone through and done two more evolutions in his head of what the rules are, and you're sat there going "But you're expecting me to work off this, but you're... what's going on? I'm lost." I mean, are you happy with the final book, now it's out?

Michael: Yeah, overall - they've done a lovely job, it's production values are good and high. There are a couple of bits which have been missed out which make a difference, that I'll have to put in the FAQ, which would have been nice if they were in - magic item costs are the main one, but other than that, it's all good.

Jo: Yep.

Any ETA on the FAQ?

Jo: You're in the middle of writing it...

Michael: Err, it was meant to be a couple of weeks ago, it was supposed to be about three weeks ago - it's written, I've just got to get it all PDF'd up, but then, obviously, we were making Kickstarter packages, and preparing for shows, and it's all slowed it down - but, yeah, it's basically written, I've just got to finish PDF-ing it and get it uploaded.

Well, fingers crossed for that, then - hopefully in time for the event on the 30th?

Jo: Oh yes.

Michael: By the end of the week, fingers crossed.

Fingers crossed, touch wood. So, looking forwards, what are your plans for the rest of the year - other than a couple of days recovering from the Expo? 

Jo: That would be nice. [laughs]

Michael: No, that's highly unlikely, though.

Jo: Straight back to work in the morning.

Michael: It wasn't going to be more Burrows & Badgers, we had other things planned, but I think at the minute we've got to do more sculpting for Burrows & Badgers, because there're characters in the rulebook we don't have miniatures for.

The beaver being the big one. And a large hound?

Michael: Yeah, it's mostly the big stuff, so you've got your massive hound, your massive raptor and the beaver. They're the key ones that we need to do. And then a few more just to flesh out the range - various ones we've just got one figure of, things like that.

And not every one of the themed forces - single-bloodline force, that's as close as I can remember - they don't all cover the bases of melee, ranged, magic, which would be a nice place to have them.

Michael: Yeah, I'd like to make sure there's enough of the... the kind of Highland-themed ones as well, so if you wanted all your characters to be Highland-themed you could do that, you know. The same with the kind of Landsknecht type.

Oh, the otter for that set is... there's just the three of them at the minute, isn't it? The otter, the mole and the mouse.

Michael: I think so, yeah.

Jo: Yeah, I think so.

The otter is a really, really cool model - and I've missed out on him this weekend, but that's fine. [laughs]

Michael: And I will do a hare version as well. I haven't done a hare yet.

Oooh.

Jo: Yeah, that would be good.

Doing the ear as the feather, perhaps?

Jo: Ooh. [laughs]

Michael: Could be, couldn't it? So I quite fancy that. So, yeah, I'm going to have to do more sculpting for that. Also, we've got a tournament coming up, which has been organised. And I've got some writing I want to do - I've got an idea of something for the tournament, which I'm hoping I'll get finished in time to take to the tournament, but I can't guarantee it now as that was supposed to be done a month ago as well.

It's finding the time for all these projects, isn't it?

Jo: Yeah.

Michael: It is, it is. After that, we're going to have to do more Sensible Shoes at some point, because people are always asking, but we did have a sci-fi project, a year ago, that the rules were written for...

I was going to ask about that! You'd mentioned it, and I seem to remember you've done bots, war-bots, in the past.

Michael: Yeah, well, this is kind of a small skirmish game - you only need seven figures a side, and it's a very simple rules set that goes on a pack of cards. Rather than having a rulebook, you've got a deck of cards, and the first seven cards have the rules on them, and all the other cards are, like, wargear cards that you can give to your guys, and both players have the same seven guys, basically - you've got a couple of grunts, a heavy, a sniper, a leader, and an assault guy, and then, depending what wargear cards you equip them with, it changes them up. It's got a very simple, single tournament scenario, and it's just... it's just a simple, fun game. It's not meant to be, you know, big or anything. So we did two teams of seven miniatures, which we've done - so the rules are done, I've had the miniatures cast and painted - we just haven't had time to do anything else with it, because Burrows & Badgers then, you know, writing the rules and making sure they were done took priority.

And Osprey means that once a book goes out it gets a lot of attention.

Michael: Yeah, so we've been busy since.

Which is always a good thing, you know - expanding the business is a good side effect. So something to look forwards to down the line, an Oathsworn sci-fi game.

Michael: Eventually, yeah - the downside is that the longer it goes on and I haven't put it out, the more I want to do it differently. And I'll end up changing it, you know.

It's one of these things with a project where you have to accept that something is finished, even if it isn't perfect. Possibly some sci-fi terrain from you, then, Jo?

Jo: Maybe, yes, I think that, err, that would actually fit very well with the vac-former, wouldn't it?

Michael: We had it planned as a set, as a crashed spaceship set, that was one of the vac-former ideas was a crashed, you know... enough of a crashed spaceship so you could have a, sort of, a 3' by 3' table, with just the crashed spaceship on it.

Jo: Yes... I'd forgotten about that, yeah, we had.

Michael: Well, yeah, it was a year ago! [all laugh]

Jo: I know, I know...

Plans within plans... and then a rabbit comes along, and everything goes out the window, doesn't it?

Jo: [laughs] It goes out the window.

Cool - well, thank you very much for your time, it's been good to have a chat

Jo: It's been a pleasure.

The event seems to be quietening down now, finally...

Jo: Yes, ooh, three-quarters of an hour to go... I know. [laughs]

So, thank you for your time - I'll let you know when this goes up.

Michael: Thanks very much - lovely to talk to you.

Now, where's the save button...

---

Fortunately, I did find the save button, despite the app having changed since the last time I'd used it.

I'd like to thank Michael and Jo for taking the time to talk to me on day three of the Expo, when pretty much everyone was getting tired - and everyone still had taking stands down to look forwards to. If you've made it this far, I hope you found the interview of interest - let me know if you have any feedback, as it's the first one of these I've done for a long time.