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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.

I personally avoid plastic because I find resin and metal to be superior in terms of detail. Most companies (all I think) I buy from use resin or metal. The only plastic ones I use are usually historic kits and GW if I have to. But I can only answer that question. So I think its safe to assume resin is fairly cheap to work with.

I know plastic moulds are expensive initially but not much more than that sorry.

The big expense with plastics is the cost of creating the mould - and it's a BIG expense. So plastic historically has been reserved for high-volume sellers, with everything else done in the 'more expensive per model but ridiculously cheap to make a mould' metal.

'Fine'cast was a response to rising metal costs. GW shifted to cheaper resin, cast in spincast silicon moulds (metal is spincast in vulcanised rubber) to cut costs, and passed on the resultant retail price increase that is an unavoidable result of cutting manufacturing expenses to their customers.


The cost of making steel moulds for plastics production has come down dramatically in recent years, though, which is part of the reason for GW slowly expanding more and more of their range into plastic, and also why there are all these 'garage' companies sprining up with plastic minis as well all of a sudden.

Eventually, GW's entire range will be plastic. You lose a little bit of fine detail compared to metal simply because of the limitations of having a steel mould... but they've come a long way from the original RT beakie marines...

So Aesthetically speaking. The resin can have better detail? From pictures it looks very similar to the point I cant really tell the diference. I've never been displeased with the gw plastic kits. I always found the metal stuff (again, gw) to be really restrictive in terms of modelling options. With multi part plastics and resins it seems to me (although i have very little experience here) plastics and resins are easier to chop, change and modify over metal.

I see alot of hate for the gw "fine cast" is this because gw resin is inferior to the resin from other companies? Or are people just set in their ways?

Johnson & The Juice Crew wrote:
So Aesthetically speaking. The resin can have better detail? From pictures it looks very similar to the point I cant really tell the diference. I've never been displeased with the gw plastic kits. I always found the metal stuff (again, gw) to be really restrictive in terms of modelling options. With multi part plastics and resins it seems to me (although i have very little experience here) plastics and resins are easier to chop, change and modify over metal.

I see alot of hate for the gw "fine cast" is this because gw resin is inferior to the resin from other companies? Or are people just set in their ways?

Ahhh, fine cast is like the worst example available for resin products. FW isnt a great example either. They are both awful and unfinished out of the box to a terrible level.

Even then though, FW infantry models made of resin are superior to GW guadsmen made of plastic.

Once you have owned models from a ton of companies you start to notice trends and one trend I noticed is resin has the amazing detail compared to most plastic models.

It's because it was an inferior material that suffered with appalling quality control, resulting in some people requiring numerous replacements in order to get something merely acceptable.

Not the behaviour of the "manufacturer of the best toy solders in the world."

Resin is currently the superior material in terms of ultimate quality, but plastic is making huge steps forward.

Finecast was NOT resin in the conventional sense

Polyurethane and Tin hold a similar level of detail, though resin will generally be higher detail. Both of these are able to have detail in more areas than Polysytrene or Polyvinyl Chloride.

Johnson & The Juice Crew wrote:
I see alot of hate for the gw "fine cast" is this because gw resin is inferior to the resin from other companies? Or are people just set in their ways?

Many of the initial Finecast releases were terribly casted (lots of bubbles and other miscast issues), the current releases have a much bigger Quality Control in place.

Johnson & The Juice Crew wrote:
So Aesthetically speaking. The resin can have better detail? From pictures it looks very similar to the point I cant really tell the diference. I've never been displeased with the gw plastic kits. I always found the metal stuff (again, gw) to be really restrictive in terms of modelling options. With multi part plastics and resins it seems to me (although i have very little experience here) plastics and resins are easier to chop, change and modify over metal.

Yes, good resin can have better detail than metal. 'Fine'cast is not good resin.

I see alot of hate for the gw "fine cast" is this because gw resin is inferior to the resin from other companies? Or are people just set in their ways?

It's an inferior grade of resin, being used in a way that resin isn't really designed to be used, and for the initial release they were rushing it out with little to no quality control. And the results were terrible.

They appear to have largely sorted out the casting issues, but it's still not a good resin for gaming models as it warps when it is warmed or under constant pressure (from sitting in a carry case, for example).

As an example my Finecast Bel'Akor, which was a largely decent cast, suffered substantial curvature of the sword blade because a carrier bag was left resting on it.

It required heating to reform.

 insaniak wrote:
The cost of making steel moulds for plastics production has come down dramatically in recent years, though, which is part of the reason for GW slowly expanding more and more of their range into plastic, and also why there are all these 'garage' companies sprining up with plastic minis as well all of a sudden.

Well, another reason GW can do so much in plastic is it's all in house. So they're not paying the exorbitant cost of tooling a metal mold, they're just paying a tool maker a (rather exhorbitant, if my toolmaker friends wage is any evidence) wage to be on staff and make them. Their plastic production is more down to their own capacity to make the mold and csat the needed inventory, rather than the mold tooling cost itself these days.

I dont see what the obsession with plastic is, resin and metal is fine, and you get some of the best detail, pose's and sculpts in both metal and resin

Metal is fine.

(Most) Resin is fine.

Plastic.. has limitations because of the difficulty of creating undercuts, but when properly designed it is my favorite material. (One of my complaints in regards to 'one pose' or 'mono pose' plastic models is that it is a lot easier to not have problems with undercuts if you have several overlapping pieces - like the old plastic Empire halberdier and swordsmen set, which included tassets.)

Finecast... was just plain terrible - an inferior material with poor QA. The only redeeming virtue was not one that the public enjoyed - it was wicked cheap to produce... yet GW charged more for it.

Mantic, by comparison, doubled the number of models in a box for the same price, when they switched to restic.

Finecast was a fumbled marketing roll following a failed materials engineering roll.

Restic (PVC, usually) can be good, bad, or anywhere in between. I actually like restic, but it is a finicky material, and the parts are often small.

The Auld Grump

 azreal13 wrote:

Resin is currently the superior material in terms of ultimate quality, but plastic is making huge steps forward.

Resin is my favourite material, but what you can mean by 'quality' varies. Resin certainly allows for much more detail and precision in molds, but it's also worth keeping in mind that it's not nearly as rugged as plastic.

 mitch_rifle wrote:
I dont see what the obsession with plastic is, resin and metal is fine, and you get some of the best detail, pose's and sculpts in both metal and resin

Ease of conversion and therefore less effort required to do something half-assed. Cheaper to replace in case you feth it up.

Whereas with metal or resin, you need to do more work to clean it up and prep it before hacking it up for half-assed conversions (and they often cost more, so you are p*ssing more money up against the wall).

I dunno man, I find resin just as easy, if not easier, to convert than plastic. Metal, on the otherhand, is a different beast entirely and I'd prefer metal only on pieces I wouldn't want to convert.

Metal is in a sense a legacy material, having been used for casting wargame figures since Victorian times. It has a few advantages over resin and plastic. It is easier to work with and any failed casts can be recycled immediately. You can cast single figures to order if required without any wastage of materials.

The main drawback with metal is difficulty and expense of mass production, which is where polystyrene wins. Many companies produce fairly small amounts of figures, though, and have no use for polystyrene.

As for detail and conversion potential, the smaller scales -- 15mm and below -- probably work better in metal than plastic or resin, partly due to the greater strength of the material but you would not bother to convert such small figures. Conversely, metal is hopeless for large vehicles.

That said, there are lots of 1/72 scale plastic figures on the market. They are usually monopose. Some of them are moulded in multiple parts requiring assembly, which makes them fiddlier than similar metal castings.

Resin is a half-way house between metal and plastic. The raw materials are not cheap and cannot be recycled. It is good for small production scale. You can make multi-part kits that assemble easily with superglue.

It is worth noting that there are several types of plastic. The most common is polystyrene. ABS and PVC are also used for some models. These have a slightly greasy feel and do not take paint quite so well as polystyrene.

 mitch_rifle wrote:
I dont see what the obsession with plastic is

- More durable. Falling off a table will snap resin and dent/bend metal but likely leave a plastic miniature unharmed.
- Better conversion prospects than metal as cutting metal is much harder.
- Works with plastic glue for solid bonds.
- Plastic is much more frequently multi-part poseable which helps individualise miniatures. Metal and resin are more often static posed or cost substantially more for multi-part.
- Plastic is much cheaper.
- Plastic is easier to work with for large kits if you compare for example a Forgeworld titan to a Dreamforge leviathan. No warping or miscasts to worry about.

 Yonan wrote:

- More durable. Falling off a table will snap resin and dent/bend metal but likely leave a plastic miniature unharmed.
- Better conversion prospects than metal as cutting metal is much harder.
- Works with plastic glue for solid bonds.
- Plastic is much more frequently multi-part poseable which helps individualise miniatures. Metal and resin are more often static posed or cost substantially more for multi-part.
- Plastic is much cheaper.
- Plastic is easier to work with for large kits if you compare for example a Forgeworld titan to a Dreamforge leviathan. No warping or miscasts to worry about.

A lot of those benefits of plastic apply to resin too.
- A resin snap will be a clean break, which will superglue back leaving almost no trace of a break. Some resins, the superglued break will be stronger than the rest of the resin.
- Same with resin
- Well, that's what happens when a glue is formulated to melt the material
- Purely a design choice. Forgeworld does plenty good multipart, poseable resin infantry, and GW have shown how great you can make single pose plastics
- So is resin, though plastic edges it out on massive production runs
- This is pretty much the big downfall of resin.

In the same theme as the OP....


Why do other companies aprat from GW have such a problem with mold lines etc? Is it simply a casting issue or is restic really that awful?

I am putting off Deadzone because of my dreadball purchases....

I work in an injection molding factory, mostly making mobile phone parts, and good molds are practically indestructible. And after seeing the imperial knight kit there is only 20p worth of plastic in it and that is being generous

The Division Of Joy wrote:
In the same theme as the OP....


Why do other companies aprat from GW have such a problem with mold lines etc? Is it simply a casting issue or is restic really that awful?

I am putting off Deadzone because of my dreadball purchases....

Huh? GW figures do have mold lines what are you talking about?

GW has mold lines out the wazoo. They're part of the deal when making two-part moulded anything.

FW is famous for it (not just mould slippage lines, but other errors).

Metal has higher detail. Finecast has a higher price.

 heartserenade wrote:

The Division Of Joy wrote:
In the same theme as the OP....


Why do other companies aprat from GW have such a problem with mold lines etc? Is it simply a casting issue or is restic really that awful?

I am putting off Deadzone because of my dreadball purchases....

Huh? GW figures do have mold lines what are you talking about?

Bad ones too.

I think the only model I have ever had that didn't have mold lines was an amazing quality demon I got as part of a very limited run from a small company doing display pieces. It still had *some* cleaning required, but yeah, I don't think it is at all possible to make models without mold lines.

 chromedog wrote:

 mitch_rifle wrote:
I dont see what the obsession with plastic is, resin and metal is fine, and you get some of the best detail, pose's and sculpts in both metal and resin

Ease of conversion and therefore less effort required to do something half-assed. Cheaper to replace in case you feth it up.

Whereas with metal or resin, you need to do more work to clean it up and prep it before hacking it up for half-assed conversions (and they often cost more, so you are p*ssing more money up against the wall).

Ease of conversion is certainly a valid concern with metal. However, it used to be the case that companies would sculpt tons of different models so conversion was less necessary. (This was possible on account of the molds being cheaper than plastic molds) Then GW got lazy/greedy and started to offer only a few sculpts. I personally would much rather have a professionally sculpted figure than a conversion. I miss the days of 50+ different goblin sculpts, and 50+ different forest goblin sculpts, etc.

I fail to see how an £10+ single plastic mini is cheaper to replace if I feth it up, compared to pretty much anything else.

At the risk of triggering another GW Price Moan, that is because GW price their cheap plastic kits at the level of boutique metal and resin figures.

The new trend is for monopose plastic character figures that by the posing and amount of detail on them are difficult to covnert, but cost more than the older more flexible kits.

 spaceelf wrote:

Ease of conversion is certainly a valid concern with metal. However, it used to be the case that companies would sculpt tons of different models so conversion was less necessary. (This was possible on account of the molds being cheaper than plastic molds) Then GW got lazy/greedy and started to offer only a few sculpts. I personally would much rather have a professionally sculpted figure than a conversion. I miss the days of 50+ different goblin sculpts, and 50+ different forest goblin sculpts, etc.

Might've been a slight problem with that, too.

http://life-in-miniature.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/a-gamble.html?m=1

That is an interesting article.

Companies like Essex Miniatures and Dixons still have models in production that I recognise from the 80s and 90s.

Presumably they have preserved their original masters and make new moulds as required.

I am speaking of metal wargame figures.

The Division Of Joy wrote:
In the same theme as the OP....


Why do other companies apart from GW have such a problem with mold lines etc? Is it simply a casting issue or is restic really that awful?

I am putting off Deadzone because of my dreadball purchases....

My Dreadball models had the worst mould lines I have ever seen.
Deadzone was bad, but as bad as the worst GW I've had. Those GW models were Finecast. The Finecast Eldar Autarch's cloak was so thin and badly cast it had holes in it. The same model's hands couldn't hold the weapons properly, and even liquid greenstuff couldn't line it up well.
Finecast's worst flaw I find is that it bends when in storage. I've packed them to hold the weapons and long parts steady, but they still twist and bend.