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"The detail far surpasses metals..."

Yet to be proven...

H.B.M.C. wrote:"The detail far surpasses metals..."

Yet to be proven...

...by someone other than GW's finest scientists.

People always say Finecast has better detail. The fact is, once they've been painted they look nearly exactly the same, but because metal is white the detail is harder to make out unpainted.

Except metal isn't littered with bubbles and spots like some sweaty teenagers' face.

TrollPie wrote:People always say Finecast has better detail. The fact is, once they've been painted they look nearly exactly the same, but because metal is white the detail is harder to make out unpainted.

Some have pointed out crisper edges and such.

On the one hand, I wonder if the 'finer detail' some have reported is just the nature of the resin vs. hot metal: I.E. it's better at filling in small details and doesn't contract or round off raised lines when cooling like metal can.

On the other hand, I wonder if it's the natural result of new molds. New molds tend to be crisper, and from the reports there may be a lot of mold tearing so they may have to make molds more often.

Balance wrote:

TrollPie wrote:People always say Finecast has better detail. The fact is, once they've been painted they look nearly exactly the same, but because metal is white the detail is harder to make out unpainted.

Some have pointed out crisper edges and such.

Only on unprimed models thus far. On every side by side of primed models thus far, the only way to tell the difference has been the air bubbles on the Finecast model.

Well if you really wanted one I'd just suggest carefully looking over the model in the blister before purchase to make sure it's not messed up.

This does not really help. I bought 3 Haemonculi through my FLGS and all 3 of them were messed up. The backsides of the daggers they hold were all just mal-formed globs of resin. I sort of salvaged one of them but it looks pretty messed up. I called GW this morning and they were cool enough to send me 3 more no questions asked. However, I sort of hate that because I would have really liked for them to see it themselves so they know the sort of crap they are sending out. Anyway, can't complain about 6 Hammies for the price of 3. I will just cut their arms off and stick Wych weapons on them.

Its actually pretty funny because finecast is really just costing GW more money.

The whole 'Finecast has far better detail' marketing is really disappointing. While it's technically true from a casting standpoint, once a model is painted, unless it's done by a really, really fething good painter, you're not going to see gak of a difference.

There's other angles they could have taken the marketing in that wouldn't have annoyed people as much.

Like, talk up the fact that the models are easier to convert. 'Did you like this awesome character model but wish you could make it your own? Get some clippers and snip the head off and do a head swap!'. 'Like the Honour Guard models but don't collect Ultramarines? Get a hobby knife and carve those chapter markings off!'.

There's other things they could have concentrated on too. Ease of building some of the more awkward models like Ahzag or Belakor? How about the fact that some models are no longer ridiculously top heavy, and now they'll be able to play around with model ideas that in metal would have toppled the second they were based?

Basically, they took the dumbest thing to market for finecast - detail of the cast, which really only appeals to really good painters who will notice once there's a couple of layers of water thin glazes on the model.

I'm almost afraid to get Finecast. I've not been very impressed with it.

Kilkrazy wrote:To be fair to GW, the UK has over 50 years experience in polystyrene model kit manufacturing. Plus widespread expertise to be drawn on from the USA, Japan and eastern Europe. The question ought to be why it took until 2009 for GW to get their models up to the standard of the Frog kits of the mid 1950s.

Whereas Finecast is a complete departure. There isn't another model company in the world using this material for moulding figures AFAIK. GW had to pioneer a new technique from the ground up and instead of a soft launch of a few models, they decided to change half the range in one go. it isn't surprising they are having trouble.

Actually, I tend to be fairer to GW than many. I think you make a good point about plastic manufacturing, but you've overstated it somewhat - GW's plastic kits generally reached a high standard well before 2009, although their vehicle kits have only reached the level of precision of the Asian kit manufacturers in the last couple of years (I'm amazed that you remember Frog though!). But I think it's hard to excuse the mess they've made of Finecast, other than to put it down to lack of adequate staff to do proper quality control given the quantities they needed to produce. As far as I can see, Finecast is just a resin variant. The techniques for casting resin are not new, and GW has all of FW's experience to call on. That in itself raises the question of why it's taken FW so long to attain some sort of consistent quality (the answer, apparently, is that they moved their resin casting to China where there are people with real expertise in resin casting). Given all of this, it's hard to understand how they ended up releasing such sub-standard product. I think they will get the quality up to some sort of consistency (assuming there's not a fundamental problem with the resin they're using), but this debacle has undermined their credibility in the one area where they had been pretty consistent - the quality of the models.

aka_mythos wrote:

Swordwind wrote:
+1 to this. I was an insane Lego collector when I was younger, and every single time Lego tried a new material, every single time there was a new big set, it was always of a high quality. I still have those sets, they still do as they are intended to do, and if anything did break they have great CS. Why can't GW be more like Lego? :(

In fairness to GW, LEGO is regarded as having some of the most advanced injection molding equipment in industry as well holding the actual tolerances of their molds to high standards. There is little to no drafting angles on their parts. At the same time legos are geometrically less complex, with the volume of legos produced orders of magantude higher in volume than anything GW produces.

Touche my good man.

Blood Angel 17 wrote:Its actually pretty funny because finecast is really just costing GW more money.

It'll only be funny until next year's price increase, when prices go up far in excess of 25% to recoup the cost of all the replacement boxes that had to be shipped out.

Heh...

Tailgunner wrote:The techniques for casting resin are not new, and GW has all of FW's experience to call on.

...somehow I don't think that would have helped them. Or maybe that's precisely why they're having problems in the first place.

Tailgunner wrote:but this debacle has undermined their credibility in the one area where they had been pretty consistent - the quality of the models.

As I've probably said before, that is really the greatest shame here. Most of us really hate the price we have to pay for this stuff, but I at least could feel comfortable knowing that, while I was dropping a lot of money on the product, I was almost guaranteed to get one that was fairly high quality (I am of course not talking about certain Beastmen or Daemon sculpts here ), with no real defects other than what the norm is for miniatures (mold lines, flash, etc.). Now it feels like a real gamble.

Dakka sources inform me that GW resin is designed to melt and release cancer-causing chemicals that also render all those that spend less than £1000 per annum on Warhammer sterile.

OK, I think we're all set here...