Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've been assembling the new Stargrave kits recently and just thought I'd comment on my favourite part of the design.

Is it the brilliant modularity and excellent weapon options? is it the generic yet distinctive design elements within the range? No it's the fact that the arms which are meant to be attached in pairs are labelled in a place on the part where it won't be visible n the finished modl. Believe me it makes assembling the kits far far more easy... Not a hugely exciting post but as there are a few kit designers/commissioners who do post on here I thought it was worse mentioning. Do you have any favourite simple design elements you'd love to see more regularly?

Oh definitely it's a great feature. I've seen it one some GW kits, the Mark III Marine backpacks are in 2 parts, labeled A and B. I wish they'd do more of it.

The cross compantability not just among the 3 SG sets but also with the Frost Grave kits is fantastic and saves a lot of time. TO compare to GW again, I was working on a daemon prince and realized I had a chaos spawn head that would be perfect. But the spawn head was an outey, and the prince head an inney. Easy enough to solve with a knife and file but so unnecessary. And I see it all the time with heads, shoulder joints, weapon attachements... and these days with kits cut in all sort of strange ways it's even worse.

Basically I want Legos. I want parts that fit well across kits as much as possible. I want to make my own stuff, not stick 24 parts together in the right way just to make one infantry model.

Another thing I've not seen in a long while but liked was ball joints at the shoulder so arms could be fit at different angles. GW Eldar guardians had them, so did the Void plastics but I'v not seen it since.

I agree with the labelling part massively, but disagree when it comes to wanting complete interchangeability. Humanoid shapes do not lend them selves to standard nouns and fittings. So it’s always a compromise, standardise shapes and comparability but have less realistic humanoid positioning (like the old spacemarine kits) or monopose but realistic and varied posing taking into account all te possible ranges of human pose-ability. It’s obviously a spectrum and you can go more or less in either direction. In more recent years I think GW have got it right, new marines for example have much more natural looking torsos and posing at the expense of a bit of comparability. But it works and looks, over all better, to me. They have gone too far with the new ORK boyz who look fantastic but have little to no variation in builds.

The model pictured above pays the price for that interchangeable ness by looks of it, I am not familiar with the kit but the build looks pretty fixed at the waist. So he’s stood upright and twisting left or right but with deviation on the verticals axis at all.

I believe back to the original point, the labelling he do it on there scions as well and I found it very helpful. I am a big fan of shipping off all the bits I need and cleaning them. Makes it so tricky when you then have to pair arms up again.

The Star/Frost Grave models have 1 piece for the legs and torso, with ball joints for the neck and flat mounts for the arms.

I didn't like the 1 piece bodies at first but after seeing them with the 2000s Empire troops I grew to like them, you can get much more natural poses that way and for most sets being able to swap torsos is not a great benefit (looking at YOU Cadians). The Necromunda sets have managed to get some really good running poses and still have modular arms.

The Dark Angel robed vets, Goliaths and new Death Guard have 1 piece legs and torso with a separate chest which works well, especially for beefy guys.

I generally like interchangeability in plastic kits. If it's fantastic artistic sculpts and anatomically correct pose I want I'll buy a monopose figure metal or vinyl figure. For HIPS plastic kits I want to be able to mix, match, etc. Doesn't mean I'm entirely against one piece torso/leg sections, but I at least want to be able to position and swap arms, heads, weapons, etc. I've got more figs than I need, but the way the various NorthStar plastic kits are interchangeable is very appealing.

Otherwise, what I'd really like to see in plastic kits is more clever sprue designs. I've seen some resin casters make casting gate's that are bits of rubble or tech for bases. Why can't plastic sprue be the same? Surely round sprues could have little rings to make them into pipes? Why can't GW style trapezoidal-profile sprue have ridges and rivets on the short sides to make them useful as reinforcing elements for detailing wall? Any square or rectangle-ish sprue could surely have woodgrain on it.

Designing the sprue so clip points are hidden on the finished model. The current Tyranid range has some kits where if you're using plastic cutters it's very easy to end up with odd looking flat spots on what should be organically curved or bumpy surfaces.

It's one thing to get the sculpting tools out to fix that on a big monster, quite another when you're putting 60 Termagaunts together.

 Eilif wrote:
Why can't GW style trapezoidal-profile sprue have ridges and rivets on the short sides to make them useful as reinforcing elements for detailing wall? Any square or rectangle-ish sprue could surely have woodgrain on it.

One reason is that the goal for the sprues is to get the plastic to flow as smoothly as possible to the parts, so smooth sprues means smooth flow. Also, you can't expand and contract the diameter of sprue repeatedly without impacting the way the plastic cools. Resin can get away with it because it's a chemical process and isn't dependent on pressure to fill the mold. With plastic if you need to fill the mold as fast as possible so that the plastic doesn't cool down too soon. If it does, then the whole sprue doesn't get filled.