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 paulson games wrote:


WGF has been massively backed up due to Wyrd and another client, until that's cleared out they've stopped taking on any new work and it appears it's also impacted delivery time on a lot of people that are already in the Que. I've been trying for like a year just to get a quote with them for my own stuff and they've been so full to the gills they aren't even available to provide quotes and aren't returning basic inquiry emails.

HIPS mecha? Game over man. I'm really crossing my fingers now so you could possibly get in the que.

Regarding the lateness of this project, it does seem that WGF is poorly equipped to deal with the time frames of KS projects. I will certainly never back anything with WGF doing the producing. It is still amazing to me that they haven't managed to increase capacity to keep up with demand after such a long period of sky high demand. With the proper capacity, WGF could literally be pulling in every KS miniatures project out there, and making a dang killing on it. Instead, they are sinking every project they touch with their poor time table management and apparently woeful under staffing or lack of sufficient capital.

I'm not too bothered by the wait. Seriously, a few years isn't so bad in the grand view of things. I would totally pledge for the next WGF-backed kickstarter, if I wasn't too busy beheading the other immortals and absorbing their quickenings.

WGF are the princes of the gaming universe. They have no rival. No manufacturer is their equal. They're taking us to the future of our 1/56 world.

EDIT: *Guitar riff*

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I'm not too bothered by the wait. Seriously, a few years isn't so bad in the grand view of things. I would totally pledge for the next WGF-backed kickstarter, if I wasn't too busy beheading the other immortals and absorbing their quickenings.

WGF are the princes of the gaming universe. They have no rival. No manufacturer is their equal. They're taking us to the future of our 1/56 world.

EDIT: *Guitar riff*

I think you need to loosen your sombrero bob, or check the expiration on the tequila because your having a bad flashback.

I think the problem with WGF expanding their capabilities is if the demand will continue to be at a high level.

Right now you have 3-4 KS projects, pushing out a TON of sprues, plus a few paying customers. The hold up seems to be with the machining side. If they were to expand there, what happens when those projects are done in the machining stage. You now have tons of equipment standing there costing you money.

How many more new HIPS lines are there really going to be in the future? The only big names not doing it are mantic (well, doing it worth while) and P3. The HIPS kickstarter projects are all from guys with big names and history behind them, and most of them are already working with them.

What does WGF actually do though? What equipment does WGF actually own? What kind of staff does WGF employ? Who is tooling the molds? Where is the manufacturing taking place?

I'm honestly curious, but these are also good questions to have answers to if you are trying to figure out what is going on with WGF's production.

It is a plain fact that right now, no matter what material you are producing miniatures in, manufacturing capacity is stressed. This is very especially so with HIPS and especially so with hand cast resin, but still true for 'spincast plastic', spincast metal, and PVC.

The market has been expanding rapidly and production capacity the world over simply hasn't caught up. I would speculate that Kickstarter is a big part of that equation because with a crowdfunding platform you can collect money prior to production, so the production lag time is not 'behind the scenes'; it is right in front of people's faces.

We aren't living in a world where every company deals with all of the production issues on the front end, completes a production run, and only then puts a miniature up for sale on a website where customers can see it. Plenty of companies still do that, but plenty more do not, largely thanks to crowdfunding.

Don't forget that one of the very the first 'big' miniatures kickstarters, Kingdom Death: Monster, still hasn't delivered. This is the nature of the beast. If you want dozens of stretch goals, if you want to see big, million dollar Kickstarter campaigns, you're going to have to wait on the back end. Kickstarter is a blessing for sure, but it is also a curse.

And honestly, if you don't need to wait what seems like an inordinate amount of time for pledge fulfillment on a big KS project, it is probably because the company didn't need to use Kickstarter in the first place.

Everything from design to shipping is handled in house.

One of the mods visited in the last couple years.

sparkywtf wrote:
Everything from design to shipping is handled in house.

One of the mods visited in the last couple years.

Can you point me to the thread and/or provide some additional details?

weeble1000 wrote:

sparkywtf wrote:
Everything from design to shipping is handled in house.

One of the mods visited in the last couple years.

Can you point me to the thread and/or provide some additional details?

Here is the thread.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/552663.page

Not just any mod- the mastermind behind Dakka, legoburner (who is co-owner with yakface, the only programmer, and generally a citizen of the world, as seen by his traveling to visit a miniature manufacturing company in China!).

So you're all saying that I can make a mint by buying a HIPS machine and opening my own shop?

hmmmmm....I do have a machinist cousin for the molds....hmmmmm...

Kickstarters are a rough cornerstone to plant your business on. Simply from a manufacturer standpoint the products made in the miniatures industry are time consuming with relatively small runs of shots. This makes it anything but a panacea of profit.

If you could make a widget that requires 30 hours of CAD time and monthly runs in the tens of thousands -or- A miniature, that requires 100 hours CAD time and runs in the thousands… As a manufacturer, which would you choose?

Add to this the deadlines and the structure of KS with its many ‘incentives’ to lure backers and you have ever ballooning projects with fresh faced, unaware creators trying to make nearly impossible deadlines on shoestring manufacturing budgets. (I include myself in this category)

No doubt, there is ‘some’ money to be made, I guarantee you it will be hard earned money.

 NoseGoblin wrote:
Kickstarters are a rough cornerstone to plant your business on. Simply from a manufacturer standpoint the products made in the miniatures industry are time consuming with relatively small runs of shots. This makes it anything but a panacea of profit.

If you could make a widget that requires 30 hours of CAD time and monthly runs in the tens of thousands -or- A miniature, that requires 100 hours CAD time and runs in the thousands… As a manufacturer, which would you choose?

Add to this the deadlines and the structure of KS with its many ‘incentives’ to lure backers and you have ever ballooning projects with fresh faced, unaware creators trying to make nearly impossible deadlines on shoestring manufacturing budgets. (I include myself in this category)

No doubt, there is ‘some’ money to be made, I guaranteed you it will be hard earned money.

Yup. Can't exalt this enough. After much thorough discussion, my business partners agreed to do whatever we can to avoid going with Kickstarter. If it means starting small, starting slow, doing contract work to offset costs, etc. that's better than going to Kickstarter and risk making a big mistake, in my opinion.

When I was running numbers I found that the costs to go from zero to being ready to run a KS campaign with a chance of being decently successful are pretty staggering these days. A modest KS shooting for 10K-30K can be done more easily and cheaply, in my view, but A) better to have an established business before doing that, and B) if you 'only' need 20 grand, there are other ways to raise the money.

The way KS has developed, you are immediately putting yourself into direct competition with large, established companies in a platform wherein prospective customers expect you to act like a large, established company. It is a lot like designing a product to put the shelf of a retail store as opposed to a product you are offering for sale directly. In short, with Kickstarter in many ways you have to go big or go home, and this drive to go big is what can land you in trouble.

It gives me much less heartburn to buy all of the supplies and machines I need to manufacture what I want to make, develop the products in house, closely control production volume, and put out a product knowing exactly what the costs are, because they have already been paid.

With KS, you've essentially already sold the product at a price point that you think will let you turn a profit. But even if you've already gotten to the point of being ready to pay for a production run, there are still lots of unknowns. Once the project is funded and completed, you are on the hook, and you have to make good regardless of what it costs, or you can watch your business go down in flames.

sparkywtf wrote:
Everything from design to shipping is handled in house.

It depends. One could think of WGF in two parts- the USA side and the Chinese factory side, that is part of a larger company. WGF 'house' kits are designed and 3D sculpted in the USA, tools machined and injected in China. From my understanding, Wyrd does the 2D concept art in the USA, and the 3D sculpts are done in China. Other companies do their own concept and modeling.
The Chinese parent company factory does more than miniatures, and like Mark said, runs of products in the tens of thousands. The US 'branch' that does design and serves as intermediaries for USA based clients has little to no say on how the Chinese parent factory side of WGF operates. WGF is a company within a company. I don't think it is mini companies bumping other mini companies- it's when Samsung needs 1,000,000 cell phone cases that someone gets delayed.

 Dr Mathias wrote:

sparkywtf wrote:
Everything from design to shipping is handled in house.

It depends. One could think of WGF in two parts- the USA side and the Chinese factory side, that is part of a larger company. WGF 'house' kits are designed and 3D sculpted in the USA, tools machined and injected in China. From my understanding, Wyrd does the 2D concept art in the USA, and the 3D sculpts are done in China. Other companies do their own concept and modeling.
The Chinese parent company factory does more than miniatures, and like Mark said, runs of products in the tens of thousands. The US 'branch' that does design and serves as intermediaries for USA based clients has little to no say on how the Chinese parent factory side of WGF operates. WGF is a company within a company. I don't think it is mini companies bumping other mini companies- it's when Samsung needs 1,000,000 cell phone cases that someone gets delayed.

That is putting it much better than I did.

That last few sentences I feel are very important. Miniatures are a great way to keep the machine running during slow times, but they aren't paying for those machines.

 NoseGoblin wrote:
Kickstarters are a rough cornerstone to plant your business on. Simply from a manufacturer standpoint the products made in the miniatures industry are time consuming with relatively small runs of shots. This makes it anything but a panacea of profit.

If you could make a widget that requires 30 hours of CAD time and monthly runs in the tens of thousands -or- A miniature, that requires 100 hours CAD time and runs in the thousands… As a manufacturer, which would you choose?


No doubt, there is ‘some’ money to be made, I guarantee you it will be hard earned money.

If you charge the same for both jobs, then obviously you choose the 30 hours of CAD time. My understanding is that injection molding companies charge based on how much time it takes to properly mill your mold, so the more options on a sprue, the more individual sprues, etc. the more you are charged.

Miniatures having small production runs is actually favorable to the manufacturer because it puts the constraint on how much you can produce on the area that is easy and relatively cheap to expand (labor). Imagine that your machines are pumping out product night and day, and you only have a couple of engineers, who have plenty of time to do all of their jobs because they are just running basic shapes through mold split. In order to expand you need to get more milling or injection machines. These sorts of expansions are costly because of limited factory space, you either have to take out a loan or pay for the whole machine all in one big chunk. These sorts of expansions are also permanent because it is difficult to sell off used machinery if demand slows. This is the company that is making lots of 30 CAD hour parts with large production runs. There are lots and lots and lots of these companies. You have lots of competition, which will inevitably drive down your prices.

Now consider company B that has mold engineers that are up to their eyeballs in plastic monsters, titans, and troops. The machines aren't running day and night because your bottleneck is the mold engineers. You need more labor to make full use of all of your machines. This type of expansion is easy because you don't have to pay for labor all at once, much of the work can be done remotely if you start running out of space to put all of the engineers, and it isn't permanent. If demand dries up, you let engineers go. This is the company that is doing miniatures with small production runs. You have maybe two or three competitors in the world, one of whom still can't do digital sculpts (Renedra). I may be underestimating the cost/ease of finding and training a mold engineer, but let's get real, it isn't theoretical physics or something and we are talking about China where wages will be relatively low.

Company B has a shot at making actual profit due to being in an oligarchy, and it is easy to expand and contract based on demand. I would much, much rather be company B than company A.

Not exactly, not in my experience or in the conversations I have had with manufacturers. The mold costs and file prep costs a fairly fixed. A 6x8 sprue costs the manufacturer roughly the same materials cost regardless of the complexity of the part, only when we stray into slide core do we see a large divergence of cost to the company placing the order. The mold split is often assumed into the mold price, so the CAD time is required is more often than not taken into account, at least in my experience.

If I wanted a widget made that was a fairly simple design but utilized the full 6x8 mold or a 6X8 packed with miniatures, the latter requiring much more engineering time but the costs to me would not be rising in proportion to the complexity of the mold components and time required to go through mold split.

Molds are not where manufacturers make their bread and butter, it is in the per-shot price. Most manufacturers quote a low mold cost in order to gain the business in shots. Charging what they need to cover the initial mold costs and making the true profit after the mold goes into use. At the end of the day large and regular orders pay for the machines, not cutting new molds for a never ending cycle of customers.

In the end, shots are king, the more shots on a regular basis, the more profit a manufacturer makes. We are despite our size a very niche industry, if you are moving 10k of an SKU per year you are doing well. When you compare this volume to another industry it would be miniscule. Make toys for happy meals, bottles for drinking water, containers for fast food and you might make a little less per shot but your volume would be FAR higher by a factor of 100X or more. As this is the area that a manufacturer actually pays for their overhead, it is a pretty simple equation as to which is an easier path.

I do agree that having all your eggs in a single basket can be problematic but most manufacturers would prefer to have their overhead covered by a few large accounts than by a massive number of smaller ones.

 NoseGoblin wrote:
Not exactly, not in my experience or in the conversations I have had with manufacturers. The mold costs and file prep costs a fairly fixed. A 6x8 sprue costs the manufacturer roughly the same materials cost regardless of the complexity of the part, only when we stray into slide core do we see a large divergence of cost to the company placing the order. The mold split is often assumed into the mold price, so the CAD time is required is more often than not taken into account, at least in my experience.

If I wanted a widget made that was a fairly simple design but utilized the full 6x8 mold or a 6X8 packed with miniatures, the latter requiring much more engineering time but the costs to me would not raising in proportion to the complexity of the mold components and time required to go through mold split.

Molds are not where manufacturers make their bread and butter, it is in the per-shot price. Most manufacturers quote a low mold cost in order to gain the business in shots. Charging what they need to cover the initial mold costs and making the true profit after the mold goes into use. At the end of the day large and regular orders pay for the machines, not cutting new molds for a never ending cycle of customers.

In the end, shots are king, the more shots on a regular basis, the more profit a manufacturer makes. We are despite our size a very niche industry, if you are moving 10k of an SKU per year you are doing well. When you compare this volume to another industry it would be miniscule. Make toys for happy meals, bottles for drinking water, containers for fast food and you might make a little less per shot but your volume would be FAR higher by a factor of 100X or more. As this is the area that a manufacturer actually pays for their overhead, it is a pretty simple equation as to which is an easier path.

I do agree that having all your eggs in a single basket can be problematic but most manufacturers would prefer to have their overhead covered by a few large accounts than by a massive number of smaller ones.

Wow, thanks for the information. I am absolutely dumbfounded that they charge both jobs the same, and try to make money off of volume sales of polystyrene. That seems like a losers game. They see miniature sales as just something you do when you can't pull in a bigger client. This makes the delays all make lots of sense.

I am pretty confident that Renedra charges on a per part in mold basis.

That WGF charges just based on mold size not difficulty is still just absolutely jaw dropping and fascinating. I am absolutely floored right now.

Gallahad, I can't speak to mold cost, but it is common practice for basically any molding company to make their profit off of the shots, not the mold itself.

Some companies discount the molds more and charge more per shot, some charge more for the mold and less per shot... but in the end, the money is in making the parts from the mold, not making the mold- for basically any manufacturing company.

 Gallahad wrote:

I am pretty confident that Renedra charges on a per part in mold basis.

That WGF charges just based on mold size not difficulty is still just absolutely jaw dropping and fascinating. I am absolutely floored right now.

I may be wrong, but I think Renedra uses a hand pantograph process so the complexity makes a huge amount of difference, since a technician is essentially tracing a 3D object.

WGF is computer milled and I assume is a lot more time efficient.

Just guessing here.

 RiTides wrote:
Gallahad, I can't speak to mold cost, but it is common practice for basically any molding company to make their profit off of the shots, not the mold itself.

Some companies discount the molds more and charge more per shot, some charge more for the mold and less per shot... but in the end, the money is in making the parts from the mold, not making the mold- for basically any manufacturing company.

What is surprising is that they don't have some sort of pricing mechanism in place to distinguish between high skill/employee time molds and low skill/employee time molds. i.e. they charge the medical company wanting one million widgets the same as Dreamforge who wants one thousand. Usually I would expect to see some sort of price discrimination going on. They may try do this with some sort of sliding scale of per shot costs depending on how many you order, but that is still just trying to spread out what WGF (erroneously) treats as similar mold cut costs for both the McDonald's and Dreamforges of the world.

 Gallahad wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
Gallahad, I can't speak to mold cost, but it is common practice for basically any molding company to make their profit off of the shots, not the mold itself.

Some companies discount the molds more and charge more per shot, some charge more for the mold and less per shot... but in the end, the money is in making the parts from the mold, not making the mold- for basically any manufacturing company.

What is surprising is that they don't have some sort of pricing mechanism in place to distinguish between high skill/employee time molds and low skill/employee time molds. i.e. they charge the medical company wanting one million widgets the same as Dreamforge who wants one thousand. Usually I would expect to see some sort of price discrimination going on. They may try do this with some sort of sliding scale of per shot costs depending on how many you order, but that is still just trying to spread out what WGF (erroneously) treats as similar mold cut costs for both the McDonald's and Dreamforges of the world.

I think they do work it on a sliding scale., but it has been my experience that the costs are not commensurate 1 for 1 with the time needed in engineering, at least at the level I am operating at.. RTides has it right IMO, they will work their profit into the shots and discount the tooling if it gets a healthy account.

My point is really more about apples to apples. Low shot customers vs. high shot customers can be two very different things. You need to look at things like KS accounts as one example and huge accounts as another. If I came to WGF and said I want a million shots yearly, and could guarantee X # of years, they could plan on that business and staff accordingly. Bringing in twenty freeform operators for a single Kickstarter would be a fast track to oblivion for any manufacturer.

Should also be noted that there are prototyping companies as opposed to manufacturers as well. The prototypers will create a mold and assume they will only produce a few thousand copies with that mold. Sometimes they use other materials - but often it is a steel mold...just like a manufacturer would use. They will charge more for more complex molds, but generally charge less for each shot on the molds.

Most their customers are engineering companies who need a 1000 widgets to test to failure for a particular design or a toy company that needs to get products in front of focus groups. They will offer a lot more variables in terms of fit and finish as well as mold design (some aluminum molds are designed for 1000 shots before they start to fail...1000 might be enough for some products over the life of the product).

It is a short game though as opposed to a long game - and generally speaking, if you end up going into full scale production volumes...the prototyper will end up sending your mold to a manufacturer as opposed to producing the production runs in house.

Very true Sean, This is an example of a company that does short runs for just such a purpose https://www.quickparts.com/Home.aspx
I have not used them but I recall looking at their services a few years back.

As you say, small runs or a test audience or quality assurance and testing before full production.


Back to work for me... I have box art to render and photos to take for the twenty man Valkir set.

You dirty dog teasing us at the end with box art.

Yaaay more insight into the production side of the hobby, always nice to know more about it. Not as nice as Valkir, but still nice!

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Owning a few of your resin kits, do you think they would benefit that much from plastic production? Aside from the pressure it would take off your shoulders? After having received some Kingdom Death, I can honestly say you and them are neck to neck quality wise, with all other resin I have received being miles below. (or 1.6*kilometers below)

It's largely an attempt to save on the labor end and it'd also allow me to reduce the cost of the kits. Not sure there's any inherent benefit to using plastic in terms of model quality itself. Plastic would allow for me to break things apart further and offer stuff like poseable legs where it gets difficult to offer in resin at a reasonable price.

Plus some of us customers have an irrational preference for plastic.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Plus some of us customers have an irrational fear of resin.

Fixed that for you Bob.

 Conrad Turner wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Plus some of us customers have an rational hate of resin.

Fixed that for you Bob.

Fixed that for you Conrad.

mostly kidding, some resin out there is fantastic and I do not mind having models in that material.

I hated resin when all I knew of it was Forge World and Finecast. A friend of mine got me a Russian mini a few years back, and ever since I bought Paulson's, plus the KD stuff, I've been a convert. They are so light, and allow quality products at a much lower entry point for the producer.

That being said, I lurv me some quality poseable plastic.

(The elephant in my room is Raging Heroes. I only got the freebies in resin, and mine were all mould slip cases.)