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These look great. Wonder how much the boxed sets will retail for?

 HisDivineShadow wrote:
As in my experience translucent plastics dont work with plastic cement, I'd vote no. I'd rather the arms be securely glued on.

There are plastic glues for clear parts

It seems to me that you could make the blue/clear plastic sword blades on a separate sprue, and have them "inserted" into the hilt of the sword using a "snap-fit" style of connection.

Having worked with lots of models with clear parts I'd say no.

Clear plastic is a different material that is much more brittle then the opaque variety, it chips and mars much easier when being removed from the sprue as it's a weaker material. It also holds less detail as the edges tend to round out, clear components are always a step down in detail level from the rest of the kit. Paint doesn't tend to work as well on top of clear plastics it doesn't bond well and any light entering the plastic tends to flow through the material making thin spots in the paint very noticible. When doing canopies you have to paint the edges on both sides in order for it to look right and they both typically need heavy layers of paint to avoid light showing through.

You'd have similar problems with light entering the blade, it would project up into the hilt and hand. The rear blade guard, hilt, hand etc would need extra amounts of paint to help combat light showing through and extra layers of paint means the finer details get flooded out. (and they will be soft to begin with in clear)

While in theory a clear blue part might appear good, in reality it'll end up looking like a cocktail spear. The edges won't catch light in the manner that'd make it look anything beyond a shiny piece of plastic, and any mold lines you clean off will give you a dulled or scratched look on the surface. You can't give a clear part any highlights as it just looks like smears on clear plastic so in order to give it any high lights or under tones the whole part will need to be painted. (which defeats the point of being clear) It doesn't help give the model any sense of depth and weight, where a properly painted sword will.

Due to the mold set up cost it's not worth doing a separate mold for just the blades, and having the arms done in clear plastic would be a terrible option due clear plastic being a lower quality and having subpar working properties.


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I agree, clear plastic works fine for things like the enclosed Necron weapons, or canopies, but it would be a bad idea on things that project like swords. Think of all the broken BFG flying bases...

Although the comment about cocktail spears might help in the end for those who really want clear blades...

I also vote against clear arms (since the blade is too small to do separately). Necrons show how cheesy that can look. Just hard plastic is good enough... don't get sidetracked

I've been convinced - I change my vote to "No!"

I remember hearing once that injection polystyrene can be cast in many different colors, and that dyes must be added to it to turn it grey. If this is indeed the case, you could simply do a run in a translucent blue, or green, etc. out of the same mold. That being said, Paulson likely knows more about this than I do, and if you must change the chemical composition of the plastic, or cut a new mold, it is definitely not worth it.

All I'm hearing in here is that some of you want me to feel guilty when I use a spray-primer on my already-assembled models.


Oh no. The Japanese model kits are bad enough for that.

They can inject it with a clear/blue styrene. it would not have the same light transmitting effects as you get from the more brittle acrylic plastics you find on clear bases but it would bond just as well as any other HIPS component in the model and it will be nearly as tough... the question is does it truly add value or is it just a gimmick? I am leaning to the latter and given the extra mold costs and production issues, if it is not something that truly enhances the figure, why mess with it?

An upgrade pack of clear resins in various colours might be the best way to handle it.

Squig speaks wisdom. A future "accessories pack"-like kit for the Val'kir would be an awesome place to include such a thing. If people are fine with grey, they buy the standard. If they want fancy, they can snag an upgrade kit too. Not sure how viable that would be economically, especially right this second, but it sounds to me like the best long-range goal.

Yep, save that for a possible future, make them "normal" for now. It wasn't in the scope of the KS, anyway.

I agree as well. clear resin later down the line, if there is enough demand, but for now... GET ME MY DAMN SHINIES!!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Shot of 15mm Mortis here! Unfortunately not high res, but Justin said he'd upload the high res version and link to it later this week.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1084069684/tablescapes-by-secret-weapon-miniatures/posts/707739

I'm a little surprised one of those 15mm Mortis hasn't shown up on my doorstep for painting.

Looking sweet though!

Unless I'm going crazy, this is the first we've seen of them? But they're painted!? (by WGF, that pic is from China) Justin at Secret Weapon spilled the beans!

Might as well show us closeups of an unpainted one now, Mark

 RiTides wrote:
Unless I'm going crazy, this is the first we've seen of them? But they're painted!? (by WGF, that pic is from China) Justin at Secret Weapon spilled the beans!

Yes, I thought I was going crazy myself. I thought 'Hold on, have we seen those yet? Did I paint a 15mm already?'

I just know WGF is going to drop five kits on me at once to be painted for GenCon or something, with three weeks to finish them
I'm not complaining too much

We need some updates of physical models and renders! Black Widows!

Agreed! Apparently Mark is holding out on us and the factory is rolling along

Would they build models from test shots, though? Since they are so far away, they might have just been roughly put together for a "money shot"?

...yet they would take the time to paint such test builds?

I'm trying hard not to make a comment about labor's worth being relative to cultures and giving the impression of progress as well.

...fair 'nuff. I believe most labour at WGF is relatively skilled and commensatorily valuable, but you're right about the marketing value

Well at least some of them are probably gamers and/or modellers too,

so if there are some test shots of such a cool kit being built (to check parts fit) they may well end up painted by one of the staff on their own time anyway

This goes back to my theory that Mark is holding out on us . He must be subscribed to this thread, someone get his attention and get him to fess up!

Or, here's an idea... Mark has a life and family and isn't grafted to his computer waiting for his kickstarters to come in so he'll have stuff to paint :-P

Nah, I still hold to my theory that Mark has a secret lair filled with computer monitors displaying all of the various forums discussing the awesomeness of his product, while he sits in the middle twirling his mustache in evil glee, preparing to launch the next phase of his plan with us as his loyal minions.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Nah, I still hold to my theory that Mark has a secret lair filled with computer monitors displaying all of the various forums discussing the awesomeness of his product, while he sits in the middle twirling his mustache in evil glee, preparing to launch the next phase of his plan with us as his loyal minions.

Mark is Alpharius.....or is he Omegon?

Love the Mortis pics, so looking forward to getting them. Before ordering the missing stage 2 parts, I wondered if there is any new info on stage 3 shipping date?