Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Eilif wrote:You can't just make a mold of the figure, rather the figure has to be scanned (or created digitally) and then a CNC machine has to cut the metal mold.

The (slightly) older method, still in use, is to make a mould of the 3-up (sculpts at three times the intended size), then use that mould cavity to mill the shape of the metal mould, using a stylus hooked up to a milling tool via a pantograph. Have a squint at the guy in the bottom right photo, here.

Edit: One more point.
One additional detail that isn't always mentioned is the superior unity of the scupt that can be achieved with one-part models. A plastic kit with limbs that can be repositioned, positionalble waists and heads, etc will never have the anatomic realism that can be achieved when a model is properly sculpted to reflect musculature and anatomy. The reason is that folks rarely just raise an arm, rather their back will curve a touch, they might slightly couterbalance by shifting their weight onto a foot, etc, etc. Thus, a dynamically posed single-pose model can achieve much higher level of accuracy than multipart models. Most single-pose models are cast in metal and resin and this also contributes to their continued use and popularity.

Well said that man! Round of applause. The thing is, arms don't just stop at the upper head of the humerus - a lot of upper body muscles are actually concerned with arm motion - pecs, lats, traps, delts, etc. They all move and contract or slacken depending on just how you move said arm, and they move the clavicle and scapula too. A lot of this muscle contraction can be hidden and disguised by clothes, but see how raising the arm changes not only the angle of the arm itself and the individual surrounding muscles, but the shape of the general deltoid+pectoral mass and the vertical position of the shoulder joint.
Which is why, when I see some examples of the posability of multipart plastics, I wince a little.

Azazelx wrote:The final wave of metal Witch Elves, sculpted by Chris Fitzpatrick - which is the best of the metal ranges - also suffer from "trannyface" to an extent, but then again - have a look at the faces of the women around you at home/work/school/etc and take note of just how many of them don't have the slender, high cheekbone, flawless complexion "model" look that we associate with female faces. A lot of female faces could well be male faces with a change of haircut and stubble.

I've seen an article with cosmetics-free 3D scans of the faces of some of the most attractive female celebs, and they did look surprisingly mannish in some examples. But all the same, witch elves, after a dunk in that there cauldron, are not intended to be the everyday plain-janes you see in the street.

Im fairly satisfied with the responses so far.

One question. Does anyone have a metal and resin figure of a comparable character. E.g a metal grey knight and a resin one? Whenever I see bare metal figures they look much less detailed. I would love a picture from one of the
commission guys to show me a painted metal vs painted resin. Preferably an unbiased one. IE the wors resin figure you have vs the best metal one.

I assume a sculpt is a sculpt weather it be used for metal or resin. Its just loaded up from a pc nowadays and put into a mould.

I thought gw were still using the finecast brand but looking at their site today it looks like they have dropped it to a generic term. I could have swore i saw it called finecast the other day. GW really could have renewed alot of peoples faith in them with the finecast brand. With such a name, were they really stupid enough to cut the corners that they did, I shouldn't read this forum. It makes me lose faith in gw a bit more every day

I can't offer you a side by side comparison, but I can offer an explanation.

The reason bare metal looks less detailed is simply because it is shiny, and on a uniformly coloured surface like an unpainted mini, it is the interaction of light and shadow that allows our brain to figure out what we're looking at. A reflective surface produces less shadows, giving our brain less info to work with.

For this reason, bare metal minis often have an ink wash when being photographed for websites etc. Resin, having a much more matte finish, doesn't need the help.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Backfire wrote:
GW kits sometimes have dramatically dropped in price too, when moved to plastic - Killa Kans perhaps the best example, their price was cut by nearly 2/3.

Dire Avengers called, they'd like to speak to you. Cadians are on line two when you're done speaking to them, and Catachans are expecting a return call.

Not to mention the legions of Every. Single. Plastic. LOTR. Infantry. Box.

Vermis wrote:

Eilif wrote:You can't just make a mold of the figure, rather the figure has to be scanned (or created digitally) and then a CNC machine has to cut the metal mold.

The (slightly) older method, still in use, is to make a mould of the 3-up (sculpts at three times the intended size), then use that mould cavity to mill the shape of the metal mould, using a stylus hooked up to a milling tool via a pantograph. Have a squint at the guy in the bottom right photo, here.

Edit: One more point.
One additional detail that isn't always mentioned is the superior unity of the scupt that can be achieved with one-part models. A plastic kit with limbs that can be repositioned, positionalble waists and heads, etc will never have the anatomic realism that can be achieved when a model is properly sculpted to reflect musculature and anatomy. The reason is that folks rarely just raise an arm, rather their back will curve a touch, they might slightly couterbalance by shifting their weight onto a foot, etc, etc. Thus, a dynamically posed single-pose model can achieve much higher level of accuracy than multipart models. Most single-pose models are cast in metal and resin and this also contributes to their continued use and popularity.

Well said that man! Round of applause. The thing is, arms don't just stop at the upper head of the humerus - a lot of upper body muscles are actually concerned with arm motion - pecs, lats, traps, delts, etc. They all move and contract or slacken depending on just how you move said arm, and they move the clavicle and scapula too. A lot of this muscle contraction can be hidden and disguised by clothes, but see how raising the arm changes not only the angle of the arm itself and the individual surrounding muscles, but the shape of the general deltoid+pectoral mass and the vertical position of the shoulder joint.
Which is why, when I see some examples of the posability of multipart plastics, I wince a little.

Thanks for the mention of Pantograph I'd forgotten about that. I'd never seen an actual picture of the machine at work. IIRC, it still takes a fair bit of know-how for the process. I used to love getting sneak peaks of 3ups, but we don't seem to see as much of that anymore. IIRC, Mantic offered cast resin versions of some of it's 3ups early on. I don't know if they're all digital now or not, but it's a neat idea for a promotion.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Backfire wrote:
GW kits sometimes have dramatically dropped in price too, when moved to plastic - Killa Kans perhaps the best example, their price was cut by nearly 2/3.

Dire Avengers called, they'd like to speak to you. Cadians are on line two when you're done speaking to them, and Catachans are expecting a return call.

Really, what would they say?
There are no longer metal Cadians or Catachans on sale. However there are some other metal Guard ranges still in sale: Mordians cost £20.50 per ten miniatures, Tallarns cost £25.50. By contrast, plastic Catachans and Cadians are £18 per ten minis. So, it seems to me that most of the time GW indeed lowered the prices when converting from metal to plastic (not always, crazy expensive Space Marine characters are a counterexample). Of course, in some examples, subsesquent price increases have sometimes eroded or reversed the original price drop.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Backfire wrote:
IMO, Finecast's reputation would be better if GW had not screwed up the introduction

Ah right. If only they'd talked about it differently, we would have all accepted it? No. You can't piss on my face and tell me it's raining. A bad product is a bad product no matter how you spin it.

No, the big mistake was sloppy QC in initial release: if Finecast had been current quality from the start, it's reputation wouldn't be anywhere as bad. Sure, people would still get occasional miscasts and complain, but it would not have resulted the material becoming a common laughing stock.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

I was not comparing restic as resin, I was comparing restic as a less expensive material than metal.

Remember, GW bragged to stockholders that Finecast cost less....

I remember the opposite: that GW said that while the material is cheaper with FC, the production is more expensive.

Backfire wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Backfire wrote:
GW kits sometimes have dramatically dropped in price too, when moved to plastic - Killa Kans perhaps the best example, their price was cut by nearly 2/3.

Dire Avengers called, they'd like to speak to you. Cadians are on line two when you're done speaking to them, and Catachans are expecting a return call.

Really, what would they say?
There are no longer metal Cadians or Catachans on sale. However there are some other metal Guard ranges still in sale: Mordians cost £20.50 per ten miniatures, Tallarns cost £25.50. By contrast, plastic Catachans and Cadians are £18 per ten minis. So, it seems to me that most of the time GW indeed lowered the prices when converting from metal to plastic (not always, crazy expensive Space Marine characters are a counterexample). Of course, in some examples, subsesquent price increases have sometimes eroded or reversed the original price drop...

...I remember the opposite: that GW said that while the material is cheaper with FC, the production is more expensive.

I could be wrong think that HBMC is referring to the subsequent massive price raises that followed the release of plastic minis. Also, I think he's referring to earlier comments regarding how Mantic switched to restic and doubled the number of minis in a box while keeping the prices mostly the same. This, compared also the various times where GW halved the number of minis in a box and within a few price raises the cost was significantly more than the original plastic kit. (Dire Avengers, and both plastic IG troop boxes had this happen). That $30 box of 10 Catachans used to be $20 and used to have 20 troopers in it. That's a $1 fig that now costs $3!
Ouch!
Inflation is a reality, but how many consumer products cost 3 times as much as they did in 1999?

As to whether finecast is much more expensive on the production line, I don't recall them saying that, and even if they did, I don't believe them. There may be a price increase, but I don't know of anyone else casting in resin where the cost for production is dramatically higher. Especially when a company has the economy of scale that GW does. I just don't see Finecast being more expensive for them overall vs Metal.

Wasn't finecast invented entirely because GW wanted a resin they could pour into their old metal moulds?

I recall being told the spent over a million on R and D for the stuff but actual production should have cost them practically nothing.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Wasn't finecast invented entirely because GW wanted a resin they could pour into their old metal moulds?.

Not exactly. They wanted a resin that they could spin-cast. It uses different moulds - silicon instead of vulcanised rubber.

Backfire wrote:
Really, what would they say?

They'd say "Why am I half as big as I one was for the same if not higher price?". But you knew that already.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Wasn't finecast invented entirely because GW wanted a resin they could pour into their old metal moulds?

I recall being told the spent over a million on R and D for the stuff but actual production should have cost them practically nothing.

If they actually spent over a million on R&D for spincast resin...they are fools far and beyond what I have thought them to be. Companies like Nicem have been selling self mixing, auxiliary heated resin spin cast machines for at least 15 years (priced one out back in 1999).

http://www.nicem.it/eng/prodotti/schedaprodotto.asp?c=58&i=375

Even without a high dollar machine, you can spin cast easily enough using standard machines and fast set resins. The only real limit is that (in my experience) resins do not like natural rubber molds...you really do need to use a synthetic mold. Costs a bit more, but to be perfectly honest, pennies over the life of the mold.

Even with my hand mixing, manual pouring method of spin casting resin - my labor cost per cast has only gone up by about 4 minutes per spin (which ends up being around 16 seconds per miniature on most my molds...). Think that would work out to 50 cents extra per miniature if I paid myself $125 per hour (pretty sure GW's production crews are not making $125 per hour).

 jonolikespie wrote:
Wasn't finecast invented entirely because GW wanted a resin they could pour into their old metal moulds?

I recall being told the spent over a million on R and D for the stuff but actual production should have cost them practically nothing.

When I found out the UK was testing new materials for casting it was "suggested" that we do the same in Memphis to see what we could come up with.

We did use the old molds for testing out spin-casting resin. The first tries weren't very satisfactory, but with some additional cuts to the molds we were able to get them working just fine.

I'm not certain of the reasons the UK went with an entirely new process and spent so much money, but our tests were done around 2007 and much of the moldmaking/casting staff left around that time since GW was cutting staff.

Maybe the results were never relayed to the UK. The manager we had at the time didn't seem interested in anything other than getting his 99% fill rate for Direct Sales.

Given that GW has for five years been on a largely successful crusade to cut costs, it seems extremely unlikely that Finecast was not an attempt to cut costs.

The idea was to replace metal as a casting material without having to replace all the metal masters or cut expensive polystyrene injection moulds.

You can see on some Finecast models how there are traces of a sprue frame, and extra vents compared to the metal original. These presumably are adaptations for the new process, though if the metal originals had them the excess material would have been worth recycling and may have been cut off before packing so we would not have seen them. Personally I think they are traces of the new method. Metal being so much heavier than resin will spin out into the mould void much better without so much venting.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Given that GW has for five years been on a largely successful crusade to cut costs, it seems extremely unlikely that Finecast was not an attempt to cut costs.

Oh, absolutely. Whether it actually worked as they intended is another matter entirely. GW made some nebulous remarks that Finecast release had some "communication problems between departments" or something to that effect. I think they did not really anticipate the high miscast rate.

Someone pretty high up in management decided to launch regardless of the problems with Finecast.

GW manufacturing department must have done trial runs while developing the process. These would have indicated the likely rate of miscasts and so on.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Someone pretty high up in management decided to launch regardless of the problems with Finecast.

GW manufacturing department must have done trial runs while developing the process. These would have indicated the likely rate of miscasts and so on.

As Mr. Miyagi once said "You hit nail on head."

For people interested in such things, the mid 90s plastic skeleton and the Eldar Grav Tanks were made using three-ups from which a pantograph then cut the mould. Production photos are in WD #216 in the UK.

The cost of a model has little to do with the material and mostly to do with the design, art, mould, shipping etc.

I think metal gets a bad rap - sure its hard to convert but wow, is it easy to strip paint! You can always buy some old metal mini's off ebay and strip em and repaint them. doing that with plastic is a crap shoot and resin/finecast - yea right!

Johnson & The Juice Crew wrote:
So Ive done the obligatory first page google search and no info.

What is/was the purpose of metal figures over plastic? Does this hark back to the days where it was easier to produce metal figures that had more detail than plastics.

This also brings me onto my next point. Alot of the stuff that was metal has been released as Fine cast. What is the purpose of this over say, just having it all plastic?

I am unfamiliar with how models are made. I assume the plastic models are made with moulds injected with plastic. Is resin similar, just pour resin into a mould? Is resin cheaper than plastic? Is the infrastructure to maintain the production of plastics just to expensive.

I'm only familiar with games workshop. Do other companies choose resin over plastic or vice versa?

A lot of questions I know but I'm just curious. I didnt really like the metals and I'm quite happy to work on plastic or resin.

You won't find Finecrap on google. GW abolished the term.

Basicly it was a stopgap bean counter decision, based on tin prices world wide. GW was trying to enter the softer restic market, and failed miserably. The stuff was behind the scenes a stop gap until GW could reengineer their figures to plastic specs.

FIGURE companies use resin, or metal. This restic/ finecrap alternative based boardgame piece plastic is spastic-suckfest-tacular at its best and pretty much by now everyone is past the novelty and into the blind rage of trying to work with something this craptastic.

Its a price fix, to cut to the issue. Resin is pretty expensive, and you have to applaud the effort that the companies are trying, even if they didn't work out so well. On the whole, figures are either excellent or crap. no Mr In-between.

Oh.. look.... Where has the Grotster ended up in his drunken cherry popping spree?? Hide your mom!

And yes, everything they say about PR is true.

We wrote:
I think metal gets a bad rap - sure its hard to convert but wow, is it easy to strip paint! You can always buy some old metal mini's off ebay and strip em and repaint them. doing that with plastic is a crap shoot and resin/finecast - yea right!

I use the same stuff (Simple Green) to strip metal and plastic. Stripping the plastic is no harder than metal.

Really? I've found that after a day or so soaking in simple green plastic still requires scrubbing but metal the paint just falls off.

Anyway I think that all the materials have a roll to fill, plastic is for masses of posable line models who will die by the fistfull. Metal is for characters and individual game pieces no bigger than s terminator. Resin is for anything larger than that and for display pieces. Finecast is for those models you really want to buy just so you can enjoy throwing then in the bin.

 Grot 6 wrote:

FIGURE companies use resin, or metal. This restic/ finecrap alternative based boardgame piece plastic is spastic-suckfest-tacular at its best and pretty much by now everyone is past the novelty and into the blind rage of trying to work with something this craptastic.

I think there are alot of folks who would disagree. Some companies are still working out some of the kinks of pvc based figures. However, Reaper -one of the definitive miniature figure companies- is doing alot of good stuff with the material under their 'Bones' brand and if their sales are any indication, gamers seem to be agreeing. Mantic also is producing some very good miniautes (sometimes held back by the concept, but still) and others are doing the same.

Not that there haven't been some missteps, and metal is still my favorite for most things ,but I've got quite a few Bones and Restic figures that are every bit as good as their metal counterparts.

Also, PVC vinyl isn't a new thing. It's been a model kit medium for many years, just mostly (though by no means only) in larger scale models.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Really? I've found that after a day or so soaking in simple green plastic still requires scrubbing but metal the paint just falls off.

Anyway I think that all the materials have a roll to fill, plastic is for masses of posable line models who will die by the fistfull. Metal is for characters and individual game pieces no bigger than s terminator. Resin is for anything larger than that and for display pieces. Finecast is for those models you really want to buy just so you can enjoy throwing then in the bin.

Depends on the primer. Not a materials expert, but certain primers mixed with the more porous surface of plastics can make removal of paint extremely difficult. I have had a wide crap shoot on stripping plastics and resin, but metal is almost always easy except for deep and narrow crevices.

Also, after using both Simple Green and LA's Totally Awesome, I cannot recommend the latter more as it's cheaper by volume and is far more effective at stripping models.

In the old days you could dump a metal figure into a pot of paint stripper and dissolve everything off it including any plastic parts, without harming the metal. Unfortunately it is no longer legal to manufacture those sorts of super strong paint strippers.

 TheKbob wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Really? I've found that after a day or so soaking in simple green plastic still requires scrubbing but metal the paint just falls off.

Depends on the primer. Not a materials expert, but certain primers mixed with the more porous surface of plastics can make removal of paint extremely difficult. I have had a wide crap shoot on stripping plastics and resin, but metal is almost always easy except for deep and narrow crevices.

Also, after using both Simple Green and LA's Totally Awesome, I cannot recommend the latter more as it's cheaper by volume and is far more effective at stripping models.

As for Plastics, it's true, some primers just adhere really well to plastic. I think it's because certain spray primers and paints have chemical solvents in them that are so harsh that they fuse to the plastic. Also, some enamel paints stick really well. These can be a bear to get off, and sometimes you just decide to leave a bit of primer residue on and reprime.
Metals are tough enough that for really hard finishes, you can put them in chemicals that would melt plastics (Acetone, MEK, Oven cleaner, etc) to clean away the tough stuff.

As for which cleaner to use, I've tried everything and stripped around 1000 figures (metal, plastic and others) or so in the last few years. I'd recommend Purple Power. It's almost as cheap as LA, but works better than LA or Simple Green. It also has -among others- the 2butoxethanol chemical that green used to have, but dropped from the formulation in 2012. It's available at most any auto parts store or Walmart. Like the other two, it's safe for metal, resin or plastics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In the old days you could dump a metal figure into a pot of paint stripper and dissolve everything off it including any plastic parts, without harming the metal. Unfortunately it is no longer legal to manufacture those sorts of super strong paint strippers.

In the USA, you can still buy Methyl Ethyl Keytone (MEK) . It's what engineers are joking about when they say "Methyl Ethyl Death". Dangerous as heck, but when I have a metal fig with a stubborn finish, nothing else works as well.

Love that stuff!

 Eilif wrote:


Love that stuff!

Sounds fun?

I'll try Purple Power after I work through my LAs. I bought $4 worth which means I can strip all the 40k minis and still have some left.

 insaniak wrote:

We wrote:
I think metal gets a bad rap - sure its hard to convert but wow, is it easy to strip paint! You can always buy some old metal mini's off ebay and strip em and repaint them. doing that with plastic is a crap shoot and resin/finecast - yea right!

I use the same stuff (Simple Green) to strip metal and plastic. Stripping the plastic is no harder than metal.

90% of the time in my experience. The other 10% it won't come off. It depends on what the person primed and painted them with. With metal, worst case scenario I drop them in brake fluid or acetone and boom, bare to the metal and no damage to the metal. You can't do that with plastic.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In the old days you could dump a metal figure into a pot of paint stripper and dissolve everything off it including any plastic parts, without harming the metal. Unfortunately it is no longer legal to manufacture those sorts of super strong paint strippers.

You can get Nitromors in most high streets that will do this. All paints including enamals wil slough of in minutes.

Don't breath in the fumes.

Don't get it on your skin.

Wear rubber not PVC/latex gloves.

Don't work by candle light!

Nitromores isn't what is was, they've changed the formula. It's used to look like wallpaper paste and work a treat. Now it's bright green and I was very disappointed last I used it as the removal was quite poor.

We wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

We wrote:
I think metal gets a bad rap - sure its hard to convert but wow, is it easy to strip paint! You can always buy some old metal mini's off ebay and strip em and repaint them. doing that with plastic is a crap shoot and resin/finecast - yea right!

I use the same stuff (Simple Green) to strip metal and plastic. Stripping the plastic is no harder than metal.

90% of the time in my experience. The other 10% it won't come off. It depends on what the person primed and painted them with. With metal, worst case scenario I drop them in brake fluid or acetone and boom, bare to the metal and no damage to the metal. You can't do that with plastic.

Eh, I've had almost 100% success rate with Super Clean.