I got my minis: Now Octopath Traveler is with me forever.

It wasn’t super long ago that I ordered these minis from Hero Forge. I’d backed their latest Kickstarter and had a color mini as a reward. I didn’t really have an idea what mini I’d want to make, but I was pretty sure I’d think of something.

When Hero Forge announced that their color design tools were ready to use, I was just finishing Octopath Traveler. I decided then and there that what I really wanted was a mini of my main character, H’aanit the Huntress. Once I’d designed her in the tools, I really couldn’t not design the other seven travelers, and so I did.

And once those were done, well, I just had to have all of them. My budget meant I could only get four of them. I really wasn’t happy with how Therion and Cyrus came out. Primrose and Alfyn were fine, but I really thought the four I chose, H’aanit, Ophilia, Olberic and Tressa, were a real hoot. I ordered those.

I didn’t expect them until mid-June, at the best. Instead, I got them today. A couple of hours later, I got the shipping notice in my e-mail 🙂

I apologize for the blurriness of these photos. The minis are very small and my phone isn’t great with pictures of very close things.

All the minis were apparently done via a sintering process instead of the additive process — they were carved from a bed of color sensitive plastic material by light. You can see the results of this process in Hero Forge’s latest Kickstarter update — I wouldn’t be super surprised to find that my minis were on that tray (though I couldn’t find them with a few minutes of looking).

H’aanit came with the arrow broken off halfway down. I couldn’t find the missing piece in the packing bag; it must have broken off while packing. She’s got her faithful companion, Linde, with her. If they’d had cat mounts, I’d have put her on that instead, though she never rides Linde in game.

I was able to get pretty close to how Olberic, the gladiator and mercenary, looks in game. The sword isn’t exact. A perfect match was released a few days after I made my order, but I’m fine with this. The detail is pretty impressive for something so small.

Ophilia is nominally the healer, though by the end game there is very little healing to be done even in boss fights, and she became my main nuker instead. Her path is to rekindle the blue flame of her god in the temples across the land. I really like how close she is to the model in game. In game, though, she wears a skinnier dress with long black gloves reaching past her elbow. I couldn’t really model that, but I will just assume this was her traveling gear, and the other stuff is the formal items she wore at home.

Tressa the merchant didn’t come out as I’d hoped. The gem she holds looks like a giant Nerf ball. The gold coins at her feet look like banana chips. The issue is obvious — this process cannot make shiny items. I feel her model is very close to how she is described in game, though we almost always see her as a low resolution sprite. And for the latter part of my playthrough, she was wearing Runelord gear 🙂 Because she is awesome at being a Runelord.

I loved the minis, and they are a really awesome way to memorialize a game in which I sunk so much time. I don’t paint minis (though I should learn). These are ready to go out of the box.

However, if I could paint minis, then painting them would lead to better results. More vibrant colors and more variation in texture and glossiness would really set these minis apart.

So here’s my plan: I’m going to order these minis again — but this time, unpainted. And I’m going to see how I could do on my own. I doubt they’ll be anything as good as these, but it would be fun to see how paint compares.

This will give me a chance to fix Olberic’s sword, and give H’aanit a pose where she is less likely to lose an arrow in transit. Also, I think I’ll have H’aanit ride her mentor’s familiar. It’s a wolf, and those are available 🙂