{"id":273773,"date":"2025-11-10T07:51:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T07:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/273773\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T07:51:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T07:51:10","slug":"icv2-icv2-interview-sirius-co-president-justin-ziran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/273773\/","title":{"rendered":"ICv2: ICv2 Interview: Sirius Co-President Justin Ziran"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n <\/a>We caught up with Sirus Co-President Justin Ziran, who’s spearheading the company’s recently announced move into miniatures (see “Sirius Launching Metal \u2018D&D Minis<\/a>“), last week to discuss the expansion of the company’s focus and plans for the line. Ziran joined Sirius as Partner and Co-President early this year from miniatures powerhouse WizKids (see “Ziran to Sirius<\/a>“).\u00a0 The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n

ICv2: Why did Sirius decide to produce metal miniatures?
Justin Ziran: I’ve made a lot of miniatures in my life, in my career, and they’re near and dear to my heart.\u00a0 When I joined the team, I noticed that there wasn’t an official D&D metal miniatures licensee.<\/p>\n

When we approached Wizards, we asked for the metal license with the intent of catering a release towards fans that would enjoy metal, a metal offering.\u00a0 I also wanted to take an opportunity to bring some of the more modern sculpting techniques that have come to bear over the last couple of decades that just weren’t there back in the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s when metal was in its heyday.<\/p>\n

That mixing of the two worlds was intriguing to me and provided a nice offering. \u00a0In my head, at least, I’m like, “Hey, what would I love to see?” \u00a0A high\u2011definition metal miniature produced in the style of those classic releases, whether that was the box sets, or the first\u2011edition books, or the animated series was just intriguing.<\/p>\n

That’s where we started with the whole idea. \u00a0Fortunately, and thankfully, Wizard said, “Yes, let’s give it a shot,” so we did.<\/p>\n

Why miniatures at all, are they a fit with Sirius Dice as a company?\u00a0 It’s not an immediately obvious connection.
When I joined the company, the plan was to broaden into accessories, not just dice.\u00a0 That is reflected more recently in the rebranding of the company, we’re moving from Sirius Dice to just Sirius.\u00a0 You’ll see that reflected on our website, on our packaging, and all of our collateral material on a go\u2011forward basis.\u00a0 The whole plan at the beginning was to broaden into non\u2011game but game\u2011play accessories.<\/p>\n

<\/a>These are original sculpts, the new miniatures you’re making?
Yes.\u00a0 We took the David Sutherland cover art.\u00a0 Obviously, you don’t have the front of the wizard or the fighter.\u00a0 We had to do some interpolation, but yeah, we started from scratch and used that art and that style of art as the inspiration.<\/p>\n

We had to do some interpretation on the front side of the miniature, which we did, but that’s the time\u2011consuming piece when you’re sculpting something so old and nostalgic, you just often don’t have complete turnarounds with all the figures like you do now.<\/p>\n

Where are you manufacturing?
We’re manufacturing overseas, but we’re open to and continue to look at North American options as well.\u00a0 Metal miniatures are a higher touch operation than plastics.\u00a0 The minute you introduce human touch into the equation, prices skyrocket.\u00a0 Even with all the mayhem that is going around with tariffs and importation and all that stuff, it’s still more economical to manufacture in China.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Are you going to use more retro art for inspiration?
We are actually going to continue on a retro plan.\u00a0 To me, the fit just doesn’t seem to be there for a modern interpretation on metal miniatures.\u00a0 The whole thing about this was the retro feel to the miniatures and the retro subject matter. \u00a0With D&D at the height of its popularity, we thought it was just a good time to go back and revisit some of those older themes.<\/p>\n

We will start with the 1977 D&D Holmes Box Set, and then we’ll move into the (they’re known in the industry or among players as) BECMI [Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, Immortals] series, but it’s the Larry Elmore box, that’s the Red Box, the Blue Box, etc.\u00a0 We’ll go down that path and probably throw in a little bit of the animated series as well.<\/p>\n

It was mentioned in the original release that the metal miniatures could be used for play.\u00a0 The scale fits, but there will only be a few items at first.\u00a0 Are you seeing people using these in conjunction with plastic miniatures they already have?\u00a0 Or how do you see this being used in play?
The target is a game\u2011playable collectible, is what we’re looking at.\u00a0 It’s not blind purchase, it’s a visible purchase.\u00a0 They’re designed to be game\u2011playable.\u00a0 By no means am I saying that they shouldn’t be used for game play, I think they will be.<\/p>\n

Given the subject matter and the themes and the retro look of it, I imagine people would have to make some choices there.\u00a0 You can play them side by side with the plastic miniatures, but we are putting them in what I’m going to call collector or display-quality packaging.\u00a0 If you think of higher\u2011end packaging that Apple comes in, or a nice watch, these figures will be displayed in. that way.<\/p>\n

We’re actually trying to put them in the box the way they appear on the cover.\u00a0 When you open that box, you will recreate that little scene on your desktop or on your bookshelf or wherever you may put this thing, but also, you can pull them out of the box and play them if you need to.<\/p>\n

Was cost one of the reasons that metal miniatures have become less popular, the cost versus plastic?
Yeah, that is definitely still in play.\u00a0 Metal miniatures in general are either made from pewter, zinc alloys, or copper alloys, all of which fluctuate on the commodities market.<\/p>\n

Pricing is not as stable as one would want it if you were doing a full line of millions of miniatures per release, but on a boutique kind of release that is targeted pretty narrowly, it just made sense to me.\u00a0 Yes, they’re a little bit more expensive, but the fit with the target audience and that nostalgia collector and player is just too good to pass up.<\/p>\n

Sounds like the positioning then isn’t really competitive with plastic, you’re seeing the user using them in different ways: it has more of a collectible element and display element than the plastic miniatures. Is that fair?
Yeah, for sure.\u00a0 The plastics market is pretty well served by WizKids and other offerings out there.\u00a0 It just didn’t make a lot of sense to come out with the pre\u2011painted offering or something that was trying to compete on that, especially when the cost basis of metal is just higher.\u00a0 The fact still remains that that market is well served at this point.\u00a0 Targeting that market just wasn’t part of the equation.\u00a0 It was really going after a nostalgia play.<\/p>\n

That said, it doesn’t seem like these are hugely more than the same scale of plastic miniatures would be, so that’s a positive.
I was surprised at the cost, but it is definitively more expensive.\u00a0 It’s just not as expensive.\u00a0 Back in the day when the big switch from pewter to spun resin, or PVC, or ABS happened, I remember in the pewter market, the commodity price just skyrocketed, it 10Xed in one month, and then everyone went crazy and had to pivot.\u00a0 Sometimes I think about that situation compared to where we are now with tariffs, and it’s not that dissimilar.\u00a0 There’s a market force that does something and you have to react.<\/p>\n

I remember everyone going to spun resin, coming up with pre\u2011painted plastics or plastics at that time.\u00a0 It was quite an ordeal.\u00a0 Going into it, I thought, “OK, this is going to be 10 times, 20 times more expensive.”\u00a0 It wasn’t. It’s actually rather reasonable.<\/p>\n

It’s no longer just pewter.\u00a0 There are zinc alloys that you can look at.\u00a0 There are copper alloys that you can look at that are all very, very good, and quite honestly, hold more detail than the original pewter did.<\/p>\n

Let’s talk about where you plan to take this line.\u00a0 The first question is, what’s your release cadence going to be on these box sets?
You’ll see a cadence of approximately one box set per quarter.\u00a0 If you look at the covers of the Red Box cover, the Experts, the number of minis is actually rather small.\u00a0 Some of these covers have two miniatures, a dragon and a fighter on it, or a horse, a fighter, and a dragon on it.\u00a0 We’re talking small miniatures counts released once a quarter, probably with a special release at Gen Con.<\/p>\n

Then we’re also wondering about products that fit Sirius or the market that might fit with this. Is there ever going to be blind packs of metal miniatures?
No, it didn’t make a lot of sense.\u00a0 I’m just referring back to the previous comment, where I think that market is pretty well served and coming out with a multi\u2011blind pack.\u00a0 It’s probably talking $30, $40 per pack of miniatures, which just doesn’t land well.\u00a0 I don’t think it lands well with me, let alone a DM that has to buy hundreds of miniatures.\u00a0 There’s no plans for a multi\u2011pack blind pack.\u00a0 We may throw a miniature in some of our mystery packs.\u00a0 We do treasure packs for D&D.\u00a0 I could see a miniature showing up in there every once in a while, but not as a delivery mechanism for metal miniatures.<\/p>\n

Then what about non\u2011licensed versions or products related to other licenses?
We\u2019re certainly open to other licenses. In general, just as a long\u2011time licensee, I don’t like competing with our licensers.\u00a0 Wizards has been very good about creating very definitive swim lanes, so all the licensees aren’t stepping all over each other.\u00a0 I just see no reason to coattail on all the hard work that they’ve done with their brand just to make a knockoff or like item.\u00a0 They’re letting us make the official D&D miniatures.\u00a0 We’re happy about that, and we don’t see any reason to make unbranded generic figures.<\/p>\n

In terms of other licenses, we’re very open to other licensing.\u00a0 In fact, we probably have some other licensing in process.\u00a0 Again, we like to keep very definitive swim lanes.<\/p>\n

What are your thoughts about paint as a line for Sirius, or what should those who want to paint their metal miniature be looking at?
The modern formulations of paint all work on metal very well.\u00a0 In fact, I think metal has some advantages in that the surface is generally a little bit more porous and a little bit rougher, so priming isn’t as big of a requirement.<\/p>\n

On plastic miniatures, made from petroleum, petroleum\u2011based paints or acrylic water\u2011based paints tend to have hydrophobic characteristics.\u00a0 When you put a water\u2011based paint on a miniature that is made with an oil derivative, the oil and water want to separate and push apart, so priming becomes very, very important.\u00a0 You don’t have that issue in metal.<\/p>\n

Now, some people like to prime just to improve the adherence of the paint, but it’s not a total necessity.\u00a0 Modern formulations of all the paints should work fine, but we don’t have any impending plans to launch a paint line.\u00a0 Having been there and done that, it’s out of scope for what the company does.<\/p>\n

You joined Sirius from WizKids after the company had been formed and been running for a few years, but it brought you back together with people that you’d worked with before in previous companies.\u00a0 What has that experience been like, and how do you feel about the team at Sirius now?
It’s great.\u00a0 Both Lax [Chandra] and Tina [Trenkler], the founders, have been part of my career in different ways, at different times. Tina was part of the team at Wizards of the Coast that onboarded me into Wizards of the Coast onto the project management team.\u00a0 I’ve known her for decades, the better part of 25 years at this point.<\/p>\n

Lax was the president of WizKids in Seattle, Topps WizKids, Seattle.\u00a0 He was the hiring manager for the position there. Individually, they became very influential people in my career.\u00a0 I have a lot of love, a lot of respect for them both.\u00a0 They’ve had a pretty big impact on my career, so getting to join them and work with them has been wonderful.<\/p>\n

It’s the best of all worlds.\u00a0 I get to work on Magic, D&D\u00a0and other game licenses that I love, and I get to do it with people that I love and respect.<\/p>\n

One of the criteria that I wanted was a smart, fast company: speed and smarts are the two requirements I had.\u00a0 I just don’t like to get bogged down in committees and big meetings.\u00a0 That’s one good thing about Sirius.\u00a0 Nice, small, tight team, quick decision-making, a lot of experience, and so we can move pretty quickly.\u00a0 It’s been really nice.<\/p>\n

Anything else you want to communicate to our readers?
I hope that they enjoy the miniatures.\u00a0 There’s a lot more coming, there’s a lot more category expansion coming, most of which hasn’t been announced.\u00a0 You’ll see forthcoming announcements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We caught up with Sirus Co-President Justin Ziran, who’s spearheading the company’s recently announced move into miniatures (see…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[31554,9348,18658,49,48,31553,31557,31552,31562,367,12493,31559,31555,31558,31556,3506,31560,31561,9486,30033,9487,21883,5769,61,21785],"class_list":["post-273773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-akira","tag-batman","tag-buffy-the-vampire-slayer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dragonball-z","tag-dungeons-and-dragons","tag-gundam-wing","tag-harry-potter-genres-we-cover-include-fantasy","tag-horror","tag-j-r-r-tolkien","tag-jla","tag-lone-wolf-and-cub","tag-mage-knight","tag-magic-the-gathering","tag-pokemon","tag-sailor-moon","tag-sandman","tag-science-fiction","tag-spider-man","tag-star-trek","tag-star-wars","tag-superman","tag-technology","tag-x-men"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}