Phigs!

I just became aware that you had included some of my work in your April '02 edition of Masterworks. Thanks for noticing. I would, however, like to correct a few misconceptions about my company from that review and let you know some more about what I am going to be doing with Phigs Miniatures in the future.

Indeed, I will point out first that my company is Phigs Miniatures, and not Phil's Phigs as was stated in the review and on your links page. This is an easy mistake, given that the link and the material used in the review comes not from the official Phigs website, but rather from what is in essence a fan page put together by a dedicated man by the name of Tom Anders.

Tom's site is an effort by him to both promote my work and to convince me that certain out-of-scope topics he would like to see available for his favorite game should be made. While I have checked in on his efforts from time to time while preparing to start Phigs Miniatures, I have not initiated or followed through on the commitment system at this time, and do not plan to do so on any release which is to be a part of the Phigs Miniatures main line of figures. Should Tom's efforts eventually result in a sufficient number of buyers for a set of figures I otherwise would not have created, and one which I will not place in the main line of Phigs Miniatures, I will decide at that time how I will go about handling that release.

I suppose I should introduce myself at some point. My name is Phil Bowen and I've quietly been doing freelance sculpting for several years now. Recently, however, I've backed away from the hobby/business a bit, but I am slowly but surely working toward the launch of Phigs Miniatures, my own one-man operation which will focus upon one thing alone, fantasy sports games. I feel this is a genre which has long been overlooked and underdeveloped in the marketplace, and I hope that I can help to bring it a bit more to the fore. Upon the official launch of Phigs Miniatures in the coming months, we will feature miniatures and rules for Elfball, a mythical game with no Earthly counterpart, and soon after I hope to unveil Slapshot!, my game of fantasy hockey, with more to come after those two lines have developed.

In the meantime, the Phigs Miniatures website is up and running, and I invite anyone interested in seeing what I'm up to to stop by and check it out at www.phigsminiatures.com. On the website you can get a glimpse of upcoming projects, take a look at the draft rules for the ElfBall game, and even pick up a few of the pieces I've released so far in the online store.

While it is true that there is not a great variety of miniatures available in each release thus far, each with four or fewer pieces, this will not neccessarilly be the case in future releases. I am already planning to do no fewer than six miniatures for each official Elfball release (and considering that the game only calls for 5 players on the field per team, that should be more than sufficient variety), and a similar number should be seen in my Slapshot! hockey releases in the future. Indeed, I am presently working to provide an additional two poses for the Valkyrie team which i recently released and plan to carry into the main Elfball line once it is launched. Also, I no longer charge $10 to ship to European customers, but have settled on a quite reasonable "$5 to wherever you are" policy in recognition of the outstanding loyalty of many of my overseas patrons.

Phigs Miniatures is a very small company, just me, and it is afforded only my spare time. For this reason, our development will be slow, but I hope it will be steady. There's always more to come.

Thanks again for creating more interest in my work through your Masterworks column, and I hope that you will continue to watch Phigs Miniatures as we grow.

-Phil Bowen

P.S. If you would, please change the current links page entry for Phigs to the official site under the correct company name, or add it in addition to the link to Tom's site.

I'm certainly glad that I found your site, you can bet that as a lover of miniatures gaming first and foremost, I'll become a regular. It's great that technology lets sculptors go out on their own and present so much variety of vision to the gaming community today, but without sites dedicated to getting the word around, we'd not get very far.

Thanks for doing what you do,

-phil bowen, fellow frothed-up gamer.