D&D Miniatures: The DesignersMike Donais on who is behind the D&D Miniatures game:
There are a lot of people that work on this game.
I have never met Des Hanley but he does lots of great sketches for our minis.
Our current art director is Stacy, she started somewhere in set 3 and I am really happy with the great stuff she is doing. Mari is our graphic designer and is responsible for things like packaging and such. They both use other artists to do things.
I work in R&D so I know the most about those people.
Rob Heinsoo: Lead Designer - he comes up with a list of minis for each set. Lots of people including myself give him input on that list. He also comes up with their commander effects, or several different possible commander effects, and things like that. He also comes up with themes for the sets. Rob also did most of the writing of the rulebook.
Mike Donais: Lead Developer - Rob hands the set to me when he is done designing minis for the set. I cut out the ones that I think would be bad for the game for various reasons. I cost all of them. I cut or change abilities that are too complicated or too swingy. I often modify levels of characters depending on what niche I want them to fill. I change commander effects and special abilities so that they are as fun and balanced as possible. I do my best to make sure each faction is represented by the types of minis that they should get.
All of my work is done with a team of 4 developers. We meet every single day and usually play games and discuss various aspects of each set. These developers change with each set but have included: David Eckelberry, Matt Place, Devin Low, Rich Baker, Andrew Finch, Rob Heinsoo, Jonathan Tweet, Mons Johnson.
Jonathan Tweet is the R&D manager in charge of all the miniatures lines. That means he works with me and Rob and Stacy to make sure that everything goes well and interacts with all the other departments to make sure that they are heading in the right direction. He also was involved with the initial creation of the game and works on the rules as needed. Jonathan is familiar with all aspects from design to development to art.
Rob, Jonathan and I are always involved in miniatures and as such we give input on a lot of other miniatures related things. Things like huge miniatures, organized play, collation, promos, and many other little things that are done by another department but we want to work with them on.
The game was originally designed by Skaff Elias, Jonathan Tweet, Rob Heinsoo, Mike Donais and David Eckelberry. We worked for many months testing things like faction rules, how much to simplify D&D and how commanders and commander effects should work.
Jennifer Clarke Wilkes does all of the miniatures editing. This is time consuming enough that it is the only product she works on. This includes packaging, some web articles, stat cards (both sides), the rulebook, and much more.
I want to specifically mention Andrew Finch because his name was erroneously left out of the Miniatures Handbook credits. Not only did he design most of the creatures in the MHB but he also helped design and playtest other parts of the book.
Hopefully that helps explain who we are and what we do.