Interview with Sergi Torras (Dwarf Team by Virgil Games)

Greetings!

We are proud to present you an interview with Sergi Torras, the author of viking-style dwarves that boldly marched into indiegogo a couple of days ago to take a solid place between sneaky elves and slaans populating it. His campaign started 5 days ago and still have 40 days to go, but already got almost 1/4 of the required funds. This means something, right?

Sergi turned out to be a very communicative person and a Blood Bowl fan himself. We hope you'll enjoy the interview as much as we did.

Blodger Corner: Hello Sergi. First let me thank you for the great campaign that you started. The dwarves are awesome and I'm pretty sure that a lot of Blood Bowl fans will like them and contribute. 

Sergi: Thanks a lot! I’m glad you like them and hope you forgive my poor English ;)

Blodger Corner: Let's start with introduction. Could you please tell us a little bit about yourself?

Sergi: My name is Sergi and I’m from Spain. I have worked in advertising for many years until 2013, when I decided to drop everything and turn my hobby into a full time job. This dwarf team is my first serious project and I'm excited about the response of the gamers.

Blodger Corner: What's your relation to tabletop miniatures games in general. Is it only your work or also a hobby? Do you play any game or collect miniatures, may be do some painting? 

Sergi: Well, I’m a tabletop games enthusiastic. I start playing and collecting at 7, but painting since age 13. Now I’m 31, so that’s a lot of miniatures ;) I also worked in a GW store while finishing the university, which allowed me to improve my skills with brushes and start sculpting my first miniatures. During all this time I've played all kinds of games: strategy games, card games, board games, etc ... And of course my favorites are Blood Bowl and Warhammer (I have a 13k points skaven army ;) )

Blodger Corner: Why produce Blood Bowl miniatures, do you have any history with Blood Bowl, or are there any other reasons?

Sergi: When I started sculpting wanted to focus on a game that I love, but that also offers me interesting challenges. And Blood Bowl was the perfect choice. It has a great diversity of races and star players, all with their unique style and personality. But most importantly, sculpting an entire team are only 16 miniatures, so I can make each one special and no "one among the crowd". Basically what I want is to tell stories through the miniatures, and Blood Bowl allows me to do that..

Blodger Corner: There are two dozens of teams in Blood Bowl, some of them are poorly represented on the miniatures market and seem to be an obvious choice for production while others are already well covered by different manufacturers. Why did you choose dwarves instead of other teams?

Sergi: Dwarves are my favourite team. I have a team who give great moments, so I thought it was a good option to start with. As you say, there are many miniatures in the market and I there are already fantastic dwarf teams. Even old GW miniatures are outstanding despite having nearly 20 years. This team represents my personal view of what it looks like a team of dwarves over the field and I hope someone likes it as much as me :)

Blodger Corner: What are your expectations of the croudfunding campaign you started? Do you expect to raise the sum fast? Did you try to set the level low and safe, or did you risk to raise the stakes to gather more resources? 

Sergi: Actually I try to be conservative. Right now the economy is going through a difficult time and people have less and less money to spend in miniatures. Otherwise I'm also new on the business and it is difficult to convince people to give you money when they do not know you. I'd be happy if I achieve the goal (slow or fast) and see how my dwarves become true thing. But I also like to gather more resources to offer other cool stuff, as star players, a coach, markers…

Blodger Corner: If you get the target sum soon enough, would there be any extras for the team? What might that be? Is there a chance that all starplayers available to dwarves in the rulebook will be released? Any medics, cheerleaders, reroll counters and other sideboard stuff planned?

Sergi: Of course! The full pack! In fact I even have prepared a specially designed runic dice for dwarfs coaches ;)

Blodger Corner: Many manufacturers do not always think how exactly their models will be played in the pitch. Do you plan to release Knocked Down and Stunned markers for the deathroller?

Sergi: Of course. As indicated in the Indiegogo page, markers for the deathroller are one of the first things I do if I get the objective. But I hope my Deathroller would be hard enough to not get stunned ;)

Blodger Corner: What tools and materials do you use now and generally prefer? Resin or metal? 3D-modelling or sculpting? Designing models one-by-one or having a detailed plan for the whole set in advance?

Sergi: I like to plan in advance the whole team as a creative concept. I try to imagine how each race would solve the problems of playing Blood Bowl: How to protect their heads, how to identify their teammates in the field or what to do with their beards while running. This allows me to establish some common elements. This way each model has its own personality, but also conveys a sense of belonging to a group. About the tools, I work in 3D and use exclusively OpenSource programs.

Blodger Corner: Your Scandinavian theme is quite unique and cool. How did you come up with this design?

Sergi: Well, I guess it's something that haunted my mind for some time. I figured that a team of dwarfs would have to adapt their lifestyle to the trips around the outside world. That made me think in a group of Viking explorers saying goodbye to their families and embarking on a long journey of looting. Probably you’re will be thinking: "The Vikings did not wear horned helmets" I know that… but It looks pretty cool :)

Blodger Corner: Which of the already announced models of your campaign do you like most?

Sergi: Hahaha this is like asking a father which child loves more. But it has been fun design the blockers 3 and 5. It isn’t usual to see a dwarf with a pose like blocker 5 and I think it that blocker 3 has a lot of attitude.

Blodger Corner: Imagine that you have your team fully assembled and painted in the way you want. What color scheme would it be?

Sergi: In my head they have a lot of red and gold. But on this subject the guys of RN Estudio will decide the final look. They will be the ones who will paint the box art and I'm sure they will do a great job. I would like to thank them for the great work they are doing. Thanks a lot guys! You’re the best ;)

Blodger Corner: If the campaign works fine for you, what project will you do next? Will it be another Blood Bowl team and which one? Or will you switch to something else?

Sergi: I am currently working on a Norse team that... well, they also have quite Nordic appearance ;) It is still early to talk about it, but there is a picture on the Facebook page of Virgil Games.

Blodger Corner: And now the hard one. What other Blood Bowl team available on the market do you personally like? 

Sergi: Not at all! It is an extremely easy question!! I LOVE the chaos team from Willy Miniatures. No doubt they have been a great inspiration to me and I have a great friendship with the CEO of the company, Jorge. Great job Jorge! ;)

Blodger Corner: Is there anything else you want to tell Blood Bowl community? About this campaign, your other project or whatever you want - you are welcome to do it now and we'll spread your word.

Sergi: I would like to thank the entire community of players. Since the project began I have received lots of messages of support from players around the world. I also thank the opinions about the miniatures, especially when they are constructive. Thanks to them I'm growing as a sculptor, so if anyone wants to send me any comment via email or Facebook, I'll be happy to read it.

Blodger Corner: Thank you for your time. We really appreciate your work and wait forward to seeing the painted demo models. Good luck with the campaign and your future projects!

Sergi: Thank you for the support. I love your website and I think you're doing a great job :)