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Ok guys I might buy a resin model or two for my necrons since the codex and FAQs ream us hard.

Now I hear little good about FW. I hear the prices are astronomical and the quality is execrable.

That aside what are the pitfalls of resin models? Do they really melt in a hot car? Are they shatter prone? I've never owned a resin model before so assume I don't know and am asking people who do.

I have a few resin minis, I cant say I have dropped to see if they shatter and I dont have them in a hot environment to see them melt,

Honestly, once resin is set it will not dissolve due to heat, the only thing I could possibly think of is, if you have say a sword or antenna even a weapon that stick out could possibly slightly bend but due memory should straighten out when its cooled down, unless you tightly pack it egg crate foam so it reforms

forge world are alright. they are a bit naughty with prices but for the most part is is usually worth it for the extra size and detail you are getting.
The main difference with resin models is they need more tidy up. mold lines, flash, gates etc. this is normal (most resin model companies put a disclaimer about resin being for older/advanced modellers) but probably why most people complain unreasonably about forgeworld stuff. you may have a little bending, but this can be rectified with warm water and gentle pressure. any parts that are overly warped or damaged should be replaced by forge world if you contact them.

First up remember that, being the internet, complaints rise to the top a LOT more than compliments. Also note that many recent FW models have had complaints mostly levied at the artist doing the painting rather than the actual quality of the sculpt. You also get a raft of complaints from people who have just never worked with resin and don't know what to expect.

It's a little old and I've added a few things and changed some others, but the core of this article that I wrote gives some basic overview to working with resin and a few methods such as filling holds and pinning which can help out a lot
https://warminiatures.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/relthoza-vaxiss-ground-attack-leviathan-assembly-guide/


In general with resin:

1) Clean off the flash/sprue from the model. Depending on the model sometimes there can be quite a bit, other times not much. Just take your time, go slow and work at it. A good scalpel blade works well for this, as will any standard hobby knife. I prefer scalpel blades because they are very thin and thus can get into smaller and tighter spots than some other knives or tools.

2) Give all the parts a bath in warm water (not boiling hot) with a tiny bit of soap. Use a worn old toothbrush to agitate and scrub the surface. Again work steadily and carefully and go over all the parts. This is important because the resin can have release agents on the surface and if you don't remove them glue and paint might not affix correctly.
Often the model can have a waxy/shiny feel to it and you can often feel once you've washed it off.

3) Treat joins like you would for metal - ensure a smooth flush connection; score the joining areas on both surfaces; apply a small amount of superglue.
If required use pinning (as noted in my article above) to add further support to joins.

4) Any metal or plastic parts that come as part of the kit, again, affix with superglue and treat as normal. Heck I'd probably wash the plastic parts too even if they didn't need it and metals don't do badly with a wash either.

5) As noted above you can bend resin to repair it if its bent out of shape a bit. HOT water and gentle pressure. Note that for resin warming and small movements and cooling then warming again for another very small movement is best. Dont' treat it like you might metal where you want to make one bend and done - for resin lots of little motions whilst getting it hot is important.

Some people have used hair dryers to heat their resin - note if you do this remember you're getting it hot NOT melting it. If you go that way if there's a strip of sprue in the box play with that to experiment before starting on the part.

6) Keep an eye on where the bubbles are and the warping. Any massive loss of detail or extreme warping take photos of the issue and email them to Forgeworld for replacement parts. Photos not only helps prove your case to them, but also shows them the nature of the actual error and thus can allow them to better prevent or notice it in tehir own production and packing. They might request proof of purchase and the packer ID number (if one is included in the box).



Personally I've got a box of wolf-rats and a malanthrope and couldn't be happier. FW makes some great sculpts and whilst plastic from GW has gottne close, there's still an edge to design and detail that resin has over plastic. Plus they make some really neat and creative models. Necrons have some very neat critters in teir centipede beasties and their titan!

Resin by itself isn't a problem, unless you heat it sufficiently to make it soft by accident. That could happen if you leave your army in a car in summer, which would make thin pieces droop. The good news is you could bend them right back with applied heat.

Painting wise, preparation is much more important than with plastic. You want to remove mould release agents leaving a slick coat on the model (hot water, dish washing detergent, nylon or brass brush) and you may want to slightly sand the very smooth surfaces that result from liquid resin being shaped by a soft silicone mould. Then prime and paint as normal.

Now, finally, it's important to remember that many different types of resins are being used to make miniatures, and those have different properties relevant in production process and properties of the final product. Note that resin dust definitely isn't safe to inhale or ingest. For that reason alone be careful and happy everytime something isn't resin.

The opinion against resin is mostly due to Finecast, which is a compromise made to allow continued use of moulds designed for metal casting - which therefore also have thin parts that are ok with metail - but use them with resin. Casting minis with liquid resin is a craft that either is or is very close to an art. For Finecast most of the craftsman's skill has to go into compensating for models unsuited to resin and moulds adapted to resin (with extra channels).

As properties go, the softness of the finecast resin is interesting in that it allows easy shaping and cutting, but it also happens to be brittle, so you need to carefully clip parts away from the model and gently shave stubs away with your exacto knife.

Finecast models are far from unuseable however, but you need to be prepared to do some carving, whittling, sanding, work with putty or other filler and you may need to reinforce some parts with brass rod or paperclip wire. That is certaiinly more involved than just clipping something free, removing mould lines and plastic cementing it together.

As long as you know what to expect, you'll have fun with resin models - even if they should be Finecast. Note that Forgeworld doesn't use finecast, but good quality casting resin, which is harder and lends itself better to files, saws and sandpaper.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
I hear the prices are astronomical and the quality is execrable.

You hear lies. Prices are expensive, quality is not that bad. Most FW kits require about as much cleanup work as GW plastic kits, and the people complaining about mold lines and such on FW kits aren't holding GW's plastic kits to the same standard.

The Nightshroud is a decent kit. I had no problems with it.

It really depends on what you want to get. What Necron kits are you thinking? I've seen a few good plastic conversions of some of the resin kits.

I haven't gotten to try any real Forgeworld kits, because the one time I tried to buy one, the seller tried to pass me a bad bootleg. I've also had wonderful bootlegs too, though. Judging by them, the Forgeworld models are very high detail and probably worth it. I'll actually buy something from them tonight to be sure. If there are quality problems, as others have said GW maintains a very nice returns policy and getting a replacement skills be no issue. Resin probably earned a lot of its negative press over GW's finecast products, which were cast by an untrained drunk in a garage using improvised tools. They replaced my bad finecast models with good ones and let me keep the bad casts, which are useful to me later now that I have the skill to fix them.

Resin is more brittle than plastic but seems to have better detail (based on the sculpts, of course, so I'm only judging the ambitions of the sculptors). Unlike plastic, it never melts when I drill into it. It doesn't respond to the welding cements. The dust can be an issue. If you ever go third party, everyone works in resin so it becomes unavoidable. Ultimately I wouldn't say that it's better or worse than plastic, just different.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gael Knight wrote:
The Nightshroud is a decent kit. I had no problems with it.

It really depends on what you want to get. What Necron kits are you thinking? I've seen a few good plastic conversions of some of the resin kits.

Maybe a tesla ark and or a tomb sentinel.

Forgeworld really depends on the model as for quality. Some older kits like the 2 Grey Knight dreadnaughts I had to do for a commission were terrible.
Newer kits I have received have been very nice in casting, and over all fit and finish. As for durability...they hold up fine...but if you drop them say onto a tile floor all bets are off. Expect to be crawling around under tables to look for bits that went flying.

Wagguy80 wrote:
Forgeworld really depends on the model as for quality. Some older kits like the 2 Grey Knight dreadnaughts I had to do for a commission were terrible.
Newer kits I have received have been very nice in casting, and over all fit and finish. As for durability...they hold up fine...but if you drop them say onto a tile floor all bets are off. Expect to be crawling around under tables to look for bits that went flying.

And honestly a lot of modern GW plastics are in the same boat with a lot of thin details, small connection points and large models - especially for Age of Sigmar. Your standard marine is a pretty beefy model; it can take a lot of dropping and mostly your only risk is to the paint or a high detail base. The Slaanesh fiends sitting on my table right now - all spindly tails and claws and tongues - loads of little thin parts that would easily snap if it landed wrong.

For anyone who thinks ForgeWorld is expensive, I recommend to give casting yourself a whirl. That allows you a clear first-hand look at the cost of the silicone for the moulds and the resin for the models. Not to mention the skill required to actually get good casts. ;-]

It really depends with FW.
Generally even if you get unlucky, just send them an email with the pic and you will get a replacement.

Of course there are the intricacities of working with resin to look at, like you should never breath the dust in,etc.

Also washing before painsting or glueing but after you cleaned the bits up in slight soaped water.

 Stephanius wrote:
For anyone who thinks ForgeWorld is expensive, I recommend to give casting yourself a whirl. That allows you a clear first-hand look at the cost of the silicone for the moulds and the resin for the models. Not to mention the skill required to actually get good casts. ;-]

Smaller companies produce higher quality, more consistent resin models than FW at half the price

It's overpriced, simple as that

Cynista wrote:

 Stephanius wrote:
For anyone who thinks ForgeWorld is expensive, I recommend to give casting yourself a whirl. That allows you a clear first-hand look at the cost of the silicone for the moulds and the resin for the models. Not to mention the skill required to actually get good casts. ;-]

Smaller companies produce higher quality, more consistent resin models than FW at half the price

It's overpriced, simple as that

Not really:

10x Victoria Miniatures is $49.99, approximately £38
https://victoriaminiatures.com/collections/regiments-of-the-galaxys-finest/products/hexenheim-storm-troopers-10-man-squad

10x Krieg is £44:
https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Warhammer-40-000?N=913715131+2256478364&Nr=AND(sku.siteId%3AGB_fw%2Cproduct.locale%3Aen_GB_fw)&Nrs=collection()%2Frecord%5Bproduct.startDate+%3C%3D+1555335180000+and+product.endDate+%3E%3D+1555335180000%5D&view=all

Quality of the sculpts is similar and, in my experience, so is the quality of manufacture (I’ve had nothing worse than minor bubbles and mould lines from both, typical of resin). So the FW might be slightly more expensive, but not twice the price.

 Jadenim wrote:

Cynista wrote:

 Stephanius wrote:
For anyone who thinks ForgeWorld is expensive, I recommend to give casting yourself a whirl. That allows you a clear first-hand look at the cost of the silicone for the moulds and the resin for the models. Not to mention the skill required to actually get good casts. ;-]

Smaller companies produce higher quality, more consistent resin models than FW at half the price

It's overpriced, simple as that

Not really:

10x Victoria Miniatures is $49.99, approximately £38
https://victoriaminiatures.com/collections/regiments-of-the-galaxys-finest/products/hexenheim-storm-troopers-10-man-squad

10x Krieg is £44:
https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Warhammer-40-000?N=913715131+2256478364&Nr=AND(sku.siteId%3AGB_fw%2Cproduct.locale%3Aen_GB_fw)&Nrs=collection()%2Frecord%5Bproduct.startDate+%3C%3D+1555335180000+and+product.endDate+%3E%3D+1555335180000%5D&view=all

Quality of the sculpts is similar and, in my experience, so is the quality of manufacture (I’ve had nothing worse than minor bubbles and mould lines from both, typical of resin). So the FW might be slightly more expensive, but not twice the price.

Well there are so many models out there you'll always find exceptions. There's equivalent models that are actually more than twice the price. Three times the price in fact, such as the £160 FW Bloodthirster. You can get a similar (arguably better) models from creature caster and heresy miniatures (and probably several others, big demons are popular) for £55.

I think it's pretty fair to say it averages out to about twice the price as others

Cynista wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:

Cynista wrote:

 Stephanius wrote:
For anyone who thinks ForgeWorld is expensive, I recommend to give casting yourself a whirl. That allows you a clear first-hand look at the cost of the silicone for the moulds and the resin for the models. Not to mention the skill required to actually get good casts. ;-]

Smaller companies produce higher quality, more consistent resin models than FW at half the price

It's overpriced, simple as that

Not really:

10x Victoria Miniatures is $49.99, approximately £38
https://victoriaminiatures.com/collections/regiments-of-the-galaxys-finest/products/hexenheim-storm-troopers-10-man-squad

10x Krieg is £44:
https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Warhammer-40-000?N=913715131+2256478364&Nr=AND(sku.siteId%3AGB_fw%2Cproduct.locale%3Aen_GB_fw)&Nrs=collection()%2Frecord%5Bproduct.startDate+%3C%3D+1555335180000+and+product.endDate+%3E%3D+1555335180000%5D&view=all

Quality of the sculpts is similar and, in my experience, so is the quality of manufacture (I’ve had nothing worse than minor bubbles and mould lines from both, typical of resin). So the FW might be slightly more expensive, but not twice the price.

Well there are so many models out there you'll always find exceptions. There's equivalent models that are actually more than twice the price. Three times the price in fact, such as the £160 FW Bloodthirster. You can get a similar (arguably better) models from creature caster and heresy miniatures (and probably several others, big demons are popular) for £55.

I think it's pretty fair to say it averages out to about twice the price as others

Just looked at both of those; the Creature Caster models are very nice (https://creaturecaster.store/uk/product/lord-of-slaughter/), the Heresy Miniature (http://heresyminiatures.com/shop/index.php?main_page=popup_image&pID=374) is much more simplistic. Not a bad model, but not to the same level of detail. Things is the scale shots show that the FW model is about 50% bigger than the Creature Caster option and about twice the size of the Heresy Miniature, so you’re not really making a fair comparison there.

Another comparison model for Heresy is the Netherlord (similar in size) and that is 140GBP;
http://heresyminiatures.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=103_95&products_id=413

 ingtaer wrote:
Another comparison model for Heresy is the Netherlord (similar in size) and that is 140GBP;
http://heresyminiatures.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=103_95&products_id=413

Oooo, very nice not the Balrog!