Choosing just the right miniature to represent your character is an important part of tabletop role playing. A tangible presence of your character on the map can make it easier to understand a situation and make the right decision. When you can’t find a miniature that has enough of the right qualities to serve as your elf mage or halfling rogue, it’s a bummer. Hero Forge has come onto the scene to potentially save you from those situations.

The California-based company was borne of the predicament just described. Joshua Bennett, one of the founders, couldn’t find the perfect miniature or a service to customize one, so he decided to work with others to create a company that offered more miniature figure options. With Hero Forge, you can use a web based system to build a custom figure by selecting different options such as race, gender, pose, weapons, hairstyles, and faces. The customization interface appears to work much like creating a character in a video game.

Fancy, right? Once you’ve built the perfect mini in the right scale (you can choose between 28mm, three inches, or six inches), it’s print on demand and shipped to your doorstep. Hero Forge has turned to Kickstarter so they can transform their stash of concept art into fully fledged 3D parts and further develop their web user interface program.

Kickstarter has also given them an avenue to connect with their customers. They see what supporters are backing, and it gives them ideas about where to target their efforts. The various reward tiers let you essentially pre-order a custom figure and guarantee you’ll receive early access to Hero Forge’s website. Delivery of the product is estimated in October 2014. The figs are so detailed, though, that it looks like it might be worth the wait.

Watching a project like this take off so quickly could be a sign of the future. Backers gave Hero Forge the initial $95,000 they requested in less than 72 hours. They still, however, have several stretch goals to unlock, including one for animal companions and familiars. Head over to their Kickstarter page for more details.