I registered specifically to answer this forum post.

On KS, I see two tiers of projects. The one you saw was Cthulhu Wars, an industry project with experienced game industry veterans. Sandy Petersen designed the Call of Cthulhu RPG, the DOOM video game, and teaches a course in game design. Not too surprisingly, he has the various contacts and infrastructure to produce a professional looking boardgame.

However, as a single-person operation, you're not competing against them, any more than a mom-and-pop store competes against some big chain. Many one-man miniature companies are funding on KS, and are certainly not as large as the high-profile boardgame companies.

Impact Miniatures, for example, has run multiple miniatures and dice projects on KS. I would argue that KS has *enabled* them to help run their business. They also have a web site selling their miniatures, meaning that they have some small business experience prior to KS. KS does *NOT* teach you how to run a business, so you should have some experience before running a KS project. One of their early projects funded 4K, but a later one funded 100K.

RAFM Miniatures has been making miniatures for over 30 years. On IndieGoGo, they ran their first crowdfunding campaign for 17K. On KS, they're currently at twice that.

However, I don't think your goal is to run a KS project. Your goal is to make a living off of your sculpting abilities. If you're dreams are "dashed" because of a single KS project, I'm not sure if you have the tenacity to start your own business. But, thanks to KS, miniature sculptors are higher in demand, so I highly recommend you sculpt some figures of *different genres* and submit photos of them to different miniature companies.

Good luck!