The next wave in customer relations.

The consumer research drones are our first outing into the world of making miniatures. We wanted something that fitted into the dystopian World from the previous Kickstarter. When working on the previous Kickstarter, and imagining ideas for buildings, We had been thinking about the way our world currently works and then perversely exaggerating aspects of it. For example the cash for organs building was based on the cash for gold shops that you see around the place.

Where did they come from?

We wanted to make some robots, or at least try to make some robots. A key part of the inspiration was probably a lot of the robots that you see in shows like Futurama and certainly from the descriptions of robots from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. We thought about the various purposes they would have and jobs they would take on in a failed and crumbling futuristic society. We admit that part of the inspiration came from the things that We have been thinking about whilst trying to build Digital Taxidermy's forever home. It's not that We particularly want to kill or maim any of our potential clients, well we probably don't want to do that....often, but as it turns out market research is not an easy thing to do. It was that way of thinking that started me on this journey.

Trials and tribulations in market research.

We were thinking about the ways that you can contact or reach out to consumers. That, we suppose, would have been our starting off point. A lot of the designs that we have made, have a been about how you can start  on one particular train of thought and pursue it to an absurd and dangerous end. In the world that we are creating the corporations are desperate and without any moral compass, they have resorted essentially murdering (or threatening to murder) people that didn't want to buy from them. You can imagine that if your one job was to find out about what people thought about one particular topic.  Instrumental rationality might lead you to resort to threats of physical violence in achieving your specific goal. Also the justification, within the dystopian Society, is that if these companies are completely left to do whatever they want then why wouldn't they do this.  It's a means to an end.

From there, we just had fun thinking about the absurd ways that you might do this. Sometimes we would think of an idea for a weapon and then work backwards from there. we would also be thinking about the forms and surveys and marketing interactions that we have and then consider how to involve heavy weaponry in that.

Inspirations?

From a design perspective, we think it's quite clear to see that there are a few influences upon these designs. The obvious one, that somebody has already pointed out to us on Instagram, was ED  209. RoboCop and Omnicorp are definitely the kind of corporate institution that we were thinking about when building these robots. The way that company manages to act with impunity, in those films, is hilarious. The other inspiration for the models was probably ‘Chappie’. That is a particularly underrated film. From a visual effects point of view, the work they did in that film is really amazing. The ears at the back are probably inspired by ‘Chappie’.

Trials with scales

The scale of the Robots has been a bit of an issue. In the end we decided to release these models in two separate scales. The trouble is when you were designing an imaginary robot, it can be any size. If we decide that the robot should be 10m tall, then it is 10 m tall. The first set that we produced we're at the larger 32mm scale and we do enjoy those models. We have them sitting on top of the computers, watching over us while we're designing. However, once we compared them to other miniatures we realised they were pretty large compared to some miniature ranges. For example if someone wanted to include them in the Judge Dredd Game by Warlords then they would be nearly twice the size of those miniatures, same again for things like Konflikt ’47 and Fallout Wasteland warfare.  If these drones are meant to interact with people then it’s ridiculous if they are 3-4 m tall. Therefore, we decided to scale them all down for greater compatability. The zip folder will contain the original size and the scaled down version so you can have the choice of how it fits in with your other miniatures, these files also come pre-supported to make the process as painless as possible.

Setting

The world we are designing does not infringe on anyone else’s IP. This is great from a creative perspective and a legal one. What this means is we have to create a setting that can exist within various game systems. We think Mega City One (The Big Meg) is probably the kind of place where they could exist (alongside Judge Dredd). However we think any dystopian world would be the kind of place you might find them. They could work with Necromunda or something more apocalyptic like Fallout and they will definitely find a home among the many sci-fi RPG’s like Paranoia! and SLA Industries.

This part is entirely up to you. I don't have a specific ruleset to go with these particular models but we have made a free objective marker in the shape of a trshed CRD for you to download that forms the centre of a scenario you can apply to any skirmish game system.

What would they be like in reality?

Personally we think they're quite stupid, in terms of their intelligence, thus they are probably quite cheaply made making the armour a bit rubbish. They are supposed to target consumers and that makes us think that their aim is probably fairly good. Beyond that, it's up to you. we just keep ours in the office and they look at us and sometimes we answer their questions.

Now you know all about this crack enquiry team we are sure you have ways of using their talents. you can find them here in our shop:

As printed models

As STL Downloads