A Sponsored Feature & Competition
Forge Yourself
in ANVL
ANVL have invited us to test out their new platform which brings tabletop characters to life in spectacular fashion…
With full customization you control your character’s race, accessories, clothing, and much more to create a perfect custom miniature.
What is ANVL…
ANVL is an online service for Gamers to take complete control over the design of their tabletop miniatures. It’s an opportunity to break away from the stale section of premade figures and to forge a whole new level of personalisation for your game…
With over two trillion unique combinations to create the perfect character it seems you won’t have any problems creating your next Adventurer!
So let’s find out..
In this feature we’ve been tasked to test their service from start to finish and see if ANVLs mission – that custom miniatures should be affordable for everyone – Is a just one!
The Experience…
Being a web based service, ANVL is available for Desktop and Smartphone devices and our initial step into this world was actually a bold leap…
The service doesn’t take any prisoners and like any good RPG video game you are instantly taken to the character creation screen.
There’s no popup adverts or sales pitch you are straight into the action!
On both Desktop and Mobile the interface is clean and should be very familiar to Gamers, with the ability to Name your Character, define their Race and establish their Gender as par of the course.
To help you on your way there’s a list of predefined character types to speed things along, including a random generator for those who want to lucky dip with… interesting results!
Initial thoughts as we began to interact with the tools is how instant and fluid it felt; as soon as an aesthetic was selected or adjusted the simulated model was instantly changed.
This itself while technically impressive lead to some amusement as you suddenly see the character proportions stretch and modify to their new settings; reminiscent of the Hall of Mirrors at the fairground…
But the effect is real time which makes it such an impressive feat of technology.
Delving Deeper…
As we began to explore further into the configuration options for Head types, Facial features and Body proportions the sheer scale of this service was obvious…
So for the cynics amongst us perhaps ANVLs bold statement of Trillions of possible combinations is holding true to its word!
As a User experience the forging process is so familiar to even a novice gamer that there’s little support needed to define your character.
While there is a help section we doubt its needed for anything relating to character creation at all…
Very quickly we’d created a character that we were becoming happy with and at no point had we felt there was any pressure to purchase.
We could tweak, save and return to our character at any stage; while equally designing additional characters and toggling between them to build up our band of Adventurers.
It has to be praised to ANVL that they haven’t applied any force in this experience; the process is devoted entirely on character development and the options to purchase are kept aside, but close at hand when you are ready.
In fact one of the features we truly loved about the system is the ability to pause a moment to admire and take a snapshot of our character from any angle…
This produced a completely transparent PNG image that we’ve used to great use for this feature.
We think that’s a great touch (and a hidden bonus) to help you take a still of your character and use on your character sheet… or maybe even box art!
These promotional videos show the ANVL process in real time. You can see just how fluid the experience is and how much personality you can inject into each character…
We have to really take a moment to again point out how much the experience is given to you as a Creator.
ANVLs platform let’s you design with no time pressure and even if you want to just play around there is no limitation on features.
You just have to register to save your progress and that’s it…
There’s great touches here that ANVL can easily build upon but the jewel in the crown has to be this overlooked feature of saving your character as a snapshot.
If it were us we’d ask ANVL to consider the option of rendering that image onto a Character Sheet or Stats card for print out and really seal the deal.
With some additional pieces this has great potential for the Adventurer’s Toolkit…
Gear Up…
Every great Adventurer needs to be ready for the next quest and ANVL have a warchest full of items to bestow on your character.
From Suits of Armour, to Loin Cloths; Great Swords to Spell Books everything is to hand to truly kit out your miniature in all its glory.
But it’s not just your character you can tailor, with a full collection of landscapes from muddy pits to arcane circles you can position your miniature on a variety of bases.
When combined with base items such as gravestones, chests, debris and battleground fodder there is truly a wealth of choice to be had.
It’s Hammer Time…
We’ve kitted him out, prepared his stance and selected his base, now the final stage of his journey is a baptism of fire in the Forge…
ANVL offers several options for the final finish of your character, you can even just opt to have it as a Digital File ($4.97) for use in other projects or to print at home.
With that in mind unless you have a resin 3d printer or some excellent dialed in FDM settings you are going to want to opt for ANVLs print services…
Currently the choices available stand at a reasonable $9.97 for Standard Plastic, $24.97 for Premium Plastic and $54.97 for a Steel Finish…
Thereafter things go into a level of enthusiasm beyond our testing with Brass ($249.97), Bronze ($249.97), Silver ($499.97) & Gold ($4549.97)
Personally we’re not sure how many Golden Miniatures are out there but what a sight that must be on the board!
We’d opted for Premium Plastic and he’s then sent to the great Forge In The Cloud… and will be shipped to us for our Final Assessment on quality.
At this time our Custom Miniature is being prepared for print and estimates between 1 and 3 weeks for dispatch.
So what can we discuss in the meantime…
Well, while we’ve created a standalone character, there’s new options within ANVL to include a Mount, or to even print at Double-size for a showpiece shelf characters (or maybe an in-game monument.) So the price does increase accordingly but we’ve be dealing with the typical costs of a custom miniature for the basis of this feature…
So how was the purchase process? Well checkout was so simple and friendly accepting standard fair of PayPal, Credit Card or Coupons.
We opted to test both PayPal and Coupon and in both instances the process was straightforward and gave us the option to share our Character on Social Media which is a great touch to take him venturing into the Virtual & the Tabletop World…
A great touch is that your Character (Your Order) is stored against your account so should anything ever happen to him in his battles you can always reprint the exact specification again – or next time improve on the material used…
Final Thoughts…
Having experienced the quality of the service, the ANVL platform is highly user-friendly, very straight forward and has a natural flow that results in a character within a very short amount of time.
That said it is a very personal purchase and comes at a cost so we’d suggest you slow down, actually experiment with the character designer and have some fun with it.
Use this time to truly put personality into your character and it will give you great joy and last you for many years to come we are sure.
In terms of cost is this value for money? Well this is subjective as $25 is a lot higher than standard miniatures, but then again this isn’t a standard service.
In a world where you are the Adventurer, you want to fully immerse yourself and having the ability to completely tailor your miniature adds to that experience.
So with that in mind, a character that is truly yours in both persona and style that will last a long time… can you put a value on that?
Yes and ANVL have done just that and we feel it’s a fair price for a quality service wrapped in an even higher quality experience
As a final note on price we’d even dare to say the Steel format would be the best option for durability with all the travelling to and from adventures, but our review centered around the Premium Plastic format.
It’s unlikely there will ever be true call for a Silver or Gold format miniature but who knows, I’m sure ANVL have tested this and there may even be some truly dedicated Adventurers who’ve invested in their pride and joy.
It is a passion of a lifetime so in the end you should determine yourself if it’s worth it – so experience ANVL today and Forge Yourself a new adventure…