Situation Report - May 2025

Hey friends,

I'm positively confident none of you missed my TL;DR posts, but I can't put it off any longer. So, plepare for the longest post in the bistory of Bulkamancer Sculpts, because today I'd like to talk about the declining complexity and, ah, what the hell, let's be blunt, quality of some models as of late.

If you don't care for excuses, here's a short version: yes, we are aware of recent issues and are doing what we can to mitigate them. We listen to your feedback and kindly ask you to keep providing it (although being less mean about it sometimes would certainly help). But more importantly - if you see any design issues on WIPs, don't keep quiet until release, because by then it will be too late.

And here's a long and boring version. Okay, everyone who didn't want my whining has already closed the tab, so now I'm free to vent. Don't say I didn't warn you. The truth of the matter once again lies in my poor management skills mixed in with a mean streak of bad luck that's been plaguing our studio since January. I didn't mention it publicly before, but our core team was seriously on the verge of breaking up after the debacle with all those extra models in December and the Edgerunners diorama to boot, then a few more extra models in January to top in off, all rendered by a single person - Milana (YoruNoAme), and I could feel her eye twitch every time I sent another message her way. I'm not exaggerating, by the end of this streak, tensions were running so high I was sitting on needles every day waiting for some team members to say "Screw that, I'm out!" at any moment. This alone put Milana three weeks behind schedule, at which point she could no longer sculpt any elaborate models, let alone make renders for the whole studio. Something had to be done to fix it, and I started looking for a new render artist. Luckily (or not really), along came Szymon, whose main specialization was, believe it or not, rendering. He kindly offered to take over, even though I warned him it's much more time consuming than it might seem. In the end, I let Szymon convince me he's a superhuman cyborg who requires neither sleep nor rest. Of course, Milana still had to keep helping him to learn our render processes, so any hopes of catching up on her release schedule were out of the question at least for a couple more months.

As if that wasn't enough trouble, I began a full restructure of internal workings of our team, because they were established back when our studio was much smaller and never meant to work at our current scale. I can't go into details, but let's just say there was no way any team member could take those changes well, even though they had to be done for the sake of staying afloat and not drowning in a bureacractic nightmare. This was also around the time we let Totenn go, leaving Szymon to fill his large shoes even without having to handle renders. And then along came Henry of Skalitz... I'll be direct, that model was a source of my daily headaches for three weeks straight and I couldn't wait to put it behind us. I don't know what exactly went wrong with it, but it was a very difficult project at each stage. I can say for a fact that absolutely everyone involved in it did their best, but it simply wasn't enough. Why - I can't even fathom rather than simply admitting that it was out of our league. To make matters worse, in the attempts of saving the model, I asked Szymon to try and make an alternative head, and he eagerly agreed as if he had a time-turner in his pocket or at least a couple clones. I'm sure you can see where this is going, and I once again have to point out that the fault lies fully with me - I should never have let anyone take on more work than they could realistically handle.

Our rotten luck didn't end there. At one point, Vik crashed her car in another city and had to stay there for a week for repairs. If she didn't take a train home just for half a day to work on revisions, we wouldn't even release the Artillery Witch on time.

I omitted some stories concerning other models because then I'd have to send this post to a publisher and make into a book and I really hate going through revisions and censorship. Suffice to say, out of six planned models in April, not a single one met its sculpting deadline, so I had to contact every artist and beg them to make haste, then do the same with cutters and supporters. Luckily, we managed to avert that crisis without any release delays thanks to Somed, Takokumono, and Farenia working round the clock and through weekends.

April wasn't kind to us either. Szymon finally cracked and couldn't keep up with all the workload we'd been dumping on his shoulders. Alex and YoruNoAme voluntered to take care at least some renders. Yes, the same YoruNoAme who was still 3 weeks behind her own schedule. It may be laughable to many people and sometimes I feel we are the only studio that ever had trouble with their renders, let alone couldn't find a permanent solution even after 3 years, but I've declared renders my nemesis back in 2022 on the very first month we opened the studio and stand by those words ever since. A day will come when we put this issue to rest, but it is not this day. For now, I have to rely on the amazing people who still give a tart and don't nope-out from this issue despite their own workload. And this, of course, comes at the expense of simpler models, so I'm sorry to anyone who expected Sun Jin Woo to come with three sets of daggers, five outfits, and an army of shadows - there was just no way it could be achieved without any dark rituals involving blood of newborns. You know, because we are fresh out of newborns (pending internal discussions about donations in that regard).

Now, for the matter of Kratos. I feel your feedback, I truly do. Including the "Its about the cheesiest, most boring looking derped kratos ive seen". And Szymon feels your frustration as well. Trust me when I say Szymon is one of the most passionate artists I've ever met (and I've met quite a few), and I often tell him how his deadlines can't keep up with his ambitions, so I have to keep them in check non-stop, otherwise he'd aim for each model to be a diorama, then grieve because nobody prints it. Don't believe me - look at the Galactic Soldier (a.k.a. "the one model that shan't ever be spoken of"). But if I haven't stressed it enough - Szymon is buried in work so deep no light can shine through. As a result, Kratos didn't even meet 1/3 of the original plans Szymon had for him. And nobody is more disheartened about it than he is. Well, I come close, but I feel for every single model we ever release, and I never approve a release that I know could be improved without resorting to drastic measures and sacrifices. The truth of the matter is yes, given another month, we could fix all the design flaws and improve Kratos by a mile. But it would come by sacrificing quality of Szymon's next model - Doom Slayer. Is it a good trade-off? Some may say yes, but I sincerely doubt it. As much as I hate to admit it, but we are only human, and not every our creation can ever be a masterpiece. Szymon's curse is the aforementioned Galactic Soldier that was created in completely different circumstances with a 50-day deadline, but his every concecutive work is expected to reach the same level. Yes, I know what you might be thinking - "Just give every artist two months per model!", and yes, I've been planning on getting there eventually for some (not all) projects, but we aren't there yet until we onboard more artists, which is a difficult process in itself. Until then, just trust me we are aware of all the recent issues and are working on improving the overall situation.

And if you want to help us improve, there's an easy way of doing that - don't keep quiet if you see any issues on WIP pics. We post those pics to let everyone see what we're making, voice their concerns and point out desing flaws. So, once again, please, if you see anything wrong - just say so. All our artists care for their creations and put a great deal of effort into their models, but eyes tend to get blurry when you look at something for a whole month, so it's really easy to miss even the simplest errors. Don't be afraid that someone will shush you - we post WIPs to get feedback, not blind praise. And while giving constructive feedback may seem harder than it really is, you can start by omitting phrases such as "Wow, this is terrible", "Meh, not my cup of tea", or "HeavenMaker did a better job" and instead getting straight to the point of what exactly looks off or could be improved. Honestly, if you want a better model, don't expect the artist to notice all the flaws by themselves even if they look very obvious to you - a fresh set of eyes always helps. Seriously, I'm starting to understand some artists who don't want to post any WIPs at all, because all they'd hear is praise, but once the model is out and it's too late to make changes, everyone suddenly starts pointing out one issue after another. So, don't keep to yourself, alright?

There is one more thing I feel the need to mention. When it comes to my own shortcomings, I am strongly against using personal tragedies as excuses, but I can't and shouldn't force the same rules on others. Remember when I said bad luck has been plaguing us? There is no easy way to talk about such things, but the second half of April had been marked with personal loss for three people at Bulkamancer Sculpts. Szymon's grandma passed away and, living in a distant country, he was stuck finishing Kratos through the guilt of not even being able to attend the funeral. Katerina Likhacheva (Laeta), who's currently working on Maelle, also lost her dear grandma around the same time. Of course, we let her delay the model by two weeks, considering the circumstances. So, I'd like to express my condolences to both artists and ask everyone to be kind when giving feedback about these two models even if they end up below your expectations. As I said, we are only human and can't shut the world around us down to keep toiling away despite everything. As for my own personal tragedy, my cat passed away last week after living with me for 16 years and painfully fading away over the last three months. While he was very dear to me, I don't dare comparing it to the loss of relatives experienced by Szymon and Laeta.

I didn't mean to end on such a sad note, but I think I need to stop punching buttons and leave you be.

Sincerely,
Des