It should be said that there may be spoilers for Icarus Down in this post. I'll try to keep plot details circumspect, but tread carefully if you don't want to be spoiled.
For some additional publicity for Icarus Down, I invested in some rather neat swag. The pewter figures above measure around an inch high, and from left to right are Rachel, Simon, Eliza and the Elder. I had a whole batch of them molded by Valiant Enterprises and delivered to my door, and I will be giving these away at future events.
The idea came to me from comic book artist Shawn French, who alerted Erin and me to the company and an sculpter who worked for them. The sculpter could create any figurine you would care to describe, and send the "greens" to Valiant who would create molds off it and then run off any number of pewter figurines you'd want. Given the number of figures that Valiant could create quickly, the cost of the figurines amounted to just spare change per figure, making them very reasonable items to give out as swag. The molds could also be reused for future runs, should I run out.
Shawn put me in touch with the sculpter, Nicolas Genovese. I described to him the figures he wanted done and he set to work, producing the prototype "greens". Once I was satisfied with the results, he shipped them off to Valient, who created molds and did the molding, and the result is as you see above.
Hero Forge offers a similar service, where you can design your own figurines based on their templates, and they will render them in plastic, steel or bronze via a 3-D printer. However, these are a lot more expensive (they tend to sell single figurines, rather than in bulk), and with human artist Nicolas at the construction end of things, I could be sure of getting exactly the figure I wanted.
Thanks to Shawn, Nicolas and the good folks at Valiant Enterprises for giving me a piece of publicity swag that should stand out a little from the usual bookmarks and postcards. And come see me this weekend, next Tuesday or the following Saturday to get your own set of Icarus Down figurines.