The new line of Starfinder miniatures will support the pre-painted line that Ninja Division will release later this year (see “First ‘Starfinder Miniatures’ Revealed”). The new line will include premium resin models that are not included among the pre-painted model series. Ninja Division Co-Owner and Creative Director John Cadice explained the philosophy behind the new series to ICv2 at Gen Con. “[We’re] going to help fill in some of the gaps for different alien races, different characters, things that might be a little too broad and expansive for us to address in a pre-painted line right away… new sets, new warbands, new monsters, new alien races from a lot of… upcoming publications,” he said.
The unpainted line will involve smaller runs, so they will not be available through trade distribution. “We're always open to talk to retailers directly, but it's not something that's affordable to do through distribution, because it doesn't serve the RPG player on the end,” Cadice explained. “Assuming the retailer wants to make margin, they're not going to pay $20 a figure or something ridiculous like that.”
The unpainted line of Starfinder miniatures will only be available online from Ninja Division, at conventions, and via a Kickstarter campaign through which players can purchase a collection of the unpainted models. [Editor's note: Corrected typo in this paragraph to refer to UNpainted, not prepainted minis. 7:51 p.m. CT 8/24/17.]
The most popular models in the series will be added to the pre-painted line in the future, at which point they will be made available to the trade as part of that series.