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 pancakeonions wrote:
I HATE resin.

I would pay a gazillion bucks more to get HIPS. Anything over resin. So awful to work with. Hate, hate HATE it.

Whew. I need a cigarette.

Don't beat around the bush. Are you trying to say you don't like resin??? lol

I guess you've had some bad experiences. Personally I've not had a problem with resin. Well, 'good' resin I should say. There are definitely some sub par materials that companies try to pass off as resin, restic....or (shudder) finecast. So I can understand folks that are put off if some of those crappy materials were part of their experience.

I would take finecast any day over Forgeworld resin or early Spartan Games resin. Maybe even over Raging Heroes and Trollcast. Every bad Finecast experience I've had was also solved with a call to customer service or a visit to the local GW, options unavailable in most other resin lines.

The other thing of plastic in the past few years from GW is how they "cut" the plastic figures for sprues, Who ever does this for GW is a true artist. They pay more attention to where the figure goes together and hides many of the cut lines. I have
not seen this much in other companies in plastic or resin. But recently I was putting together the Blackstone Fortress figures and the way they went together was smart and allowed for better detail.

I wonder how much of that is manual and how much is done in software? Some of the more recent metal miniatures for Infinity have also been cut in unusual ways too.

 Genoside07 wrote:
The other thing of plastic in the past few years from GW is how they "cut" the plastic figures for sprues, Who ever does this for GW is a true artist. They pay more attention to where the figure goes together and hides many of the cut lines. I have
not seen this much in other companies in plastic or resin. But recently I was putting together the Blackstone Fortress figures and the way they went together was smart and allowed for better detail.

More than once I've paused mid assembly to admire how well this was done, particularly in the really elaborate Death Guard dudes I've been getting through Conquest. It's like watching somebody solve a really clever crossword clue.

HIPS all the way btw.

It does make painting the things more difficult, as you need to fully assemble the model rather than leaving the arms and weapons off until you’re finished.

A lot of that work is done in the parting process by the manufacturer and depending on the complexity of the model it can take longer than cutting the actual mold. Really complex (or poorly designed) models can take days to properly part out! It is done through software but takes a lot of time and effort to make sure angles are correct, undercuts are resolved, etc. It is an art of its own really. GW has been doing it so long they know how to design a mini properly from the ground up so there is not so much work needed on the back end. But less experienced companies (like myself) don't always take into consideration the complexities of angles, pull direction, etc so really depend on that expertise by the manufacturer to take a 3d model from digital to physical. I think it really is an under appreciated aspect of the process.

I don't mind resin, but as I usually own both sides of any game, I can't stand resin as anything other than the minis I will be personally using, as I can't trust any of my buddies not to hamfist resin minis and break them.

It's bad enough worrying if I will drop them myself and break little bits like swords, knives and hair extensions, or ankles of dynamic figures.

HIPS Plastic and pewter models rule for how robust they are. I have seen plastic eldar figures, as thin as they are, bounce from falls that would devastate even a robust resin Orc.

For me purely from the working with material stand point:

Plastic over everything

Metal over resin...

Resin if absolutely no other choice...

If it's a game with a small model count I don't mind it being resin. But if you're trying to start a "big" game (in either model count or a franchise you intend to be around for a long time) you'd better invest in plastic. But really as long as it's not metal I'm pretty OK with either.