New TFM website
Troll Forged Miniatures (TFM) is a wonderful project and company started by Ed Fortae. It is one of those flash of inspiration ideas, combined with his hard work and strong vision, he has grown the project and attracted a great and very supportive community. TFM is simple at it's core: Sculptors send their greens to Ed, Ed cast them up and sell them in the TFM store and the sculptor receives a royalty for each sale. This gives the sculptor and ongoing revenue stream from their work rather than a one off payment. It also seems that the sculptors are investing in TFM and want it to succeed just as much as Ed!
I have been spending a lot of time there of late, originally for WarSpike discussion, but in my spare time I have be busying myself with updating the TFM website, and working on the infrastructure of this unique project. One of my aims was to keep cost down to a minimum, as this is a start-up, and so I wanted to leverage new technology - i.e. make use of free online tools like blogs hosted on wordpress.com. The idea was to take those free tools and style them into a brand, but wordpress.com has some serious limitations, so the idea was to use the blog for what it does well; an interactive front end/ news page, and the hosted website as a static html website to handle orders (along with the PayPal cart system Ed set up). The two would then be blended together so it is hard to tell were one starts and the other ends.
All that was then needed was a way to tie them all together, so I used the theme for the blog and ported it over to the store too (with a bit of hacking!). Thinking ahead, and the need for access and easy to understand code layout - I put it into 'blocks' for easy cut and past to update. All in all it seems to work well, and keeps costs down. It also allows Ed to update his website much faster.
There results: The TFM Store | The TFM Blog | The TFM Forum*
* the forum looks nothing like the other two, but in a few years this may be updated and styled up too!
Anyway, I shall now go back to pondering the nature of WarSpike, and reading medical accounts of wounds!
Philip
Subscribe | Patronise | Contact
Comment
Hearing feedback is very important to me in developing my ideas. Much of my designs are inspired, and crafted, by chatting to fans on forums before snowballing into a full concepts posted on this website. I would like to thank all those who have contributed critiques and participated in discussions over the years. If you would like join in, you are most welcome!
To support my work: Connect