Review: Hero Forge (part 1)
Have you ever created a character for a role playing game that was really awesome and you thought wouldn't it be awesome if I had a mini that looked like them for our adventure? Well I have and I have gotten close approximations of what my character looks like by heading down to the Friendly local Game Store and picking up something. Some times I get lucky and find something that fits the bill. Most times I have come up short. Having a great imagination for building characters shouldn't be punished by having a mini that only sort of resembles you character. This is where Hero Forge comes in. Hero Forge is a platform for you to make custom minis for your games whether its physical or digital.
What is Hero Forge exactly? Well if you have been a long time reader we have mentioned Hero Forge before but this is going to be an in-depth look at this awesome site. So Hero Forge is a website that you can create your own custom minis. The fun part of Hero Forge is the scope of customization. You are not just picking out what sword your hero is going to have you are customizing absolutely every aspect of your mini.
When you visit heroforge.com the first thing you will notice is they are not messing around you are immediately started on your custom mini journey. You re greeted by a basic human mini to start. There are at the time of this post 47 species for you to choose from including merfolk, centaurs, robots, elephant people, and just about every fantasy species you can think up. There are female and male variants of each species to use as a starting point. I found it very easy to make non-binary characters as well. Hero Forge has done a great job at representation of cultures and ethnicity with the customization options. There are even various wheelchairs available if you are playing with Sara Thompson's Combat Wheelchair module.
...they are not messing around you are immediately started on your custom mini journey
Hero Forge is deeply rooted in Fantasy but is not limited to classic fantasy. There are lots of modern and futuristic mods you can add to your mini. There are historical, western, SciFi and modern object the mini can hold, place on the base, or have at their side or back. These objects are WAY more than just swords and axes. There are crutches, scientific equipment, artist gear, cooking equipment and spell SFXs. Additionally you can have your mini come to you painted already. There are even entire Facebook groups dedicated to designing characters using Hero Forge.
The flexibility and vastness of the customization are truly hard to fathom from words alone. Go to heroforge.com and just start creating characters. In Hero Forge part 2 we are going to take a look at some of the actual minis that I have ordered and see what they look like, what I did to create them, and how the ordering process went. Also in the next week or two we will be posting on our Instagram several walk-troughs and live videos.