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 sukura636 wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Well we know right now that detail won't be visible since all the detail is 0.1mm wide recesses.

100% accurate measuring by eye. We don't 'know' that at all .

Ah well you may be right and the skeletons are 3" tall

Aside the comically large spear, skellies look nice. That gives me another boost of hope for a medieval ones aka Undead ones to get their update too.

That spear is definitely gigantic. I suppose even skeletons might want to compensate for something.

I like the skeleton horse.

Oh shizz, plastic Empire of Dust! I’m pumped!

Between them and WGA’s upcoming Egyptians, I’ll be able to make Tomb Kings, fantasy Egyptians, and space Egyptians. If the armor pieces, greaves and bracers are big enough, I can even fit them on some chainmail dudes to make legally-distinct not-Jaffa. I shall call them Haifa. Haifa, kray!

The detail looks good to me, and I’ve been pleased by Mantic’s recent plastics. But yeah,big spear.

They look awkward to me. Solid cavalry though. Price will make or break those kits.

The Skellies look almost good, but Mantic are doing that thing that I don't like again where they over design weapons and shields.

Horrible, overdesigned miniatures in the bad way.

Is like someone tried to guess how egyptian stuff actually looked using only Babylon 5 as a reference.

 Galas wrote:
Horrible, overdesigned miniatures in the bad way.

Is like someone tried to guess how egyptian stuff actually looked using only Babylon 5 as a reference.

Do you mean Stargate?

Yes. I keep mixing the two.

 Galas wrote:
Horrible, overdesigned miniatures in the bad way.

Is like someone tried to guess how egyptian stuff actually looked using only Babylon 5 as a reference.

The non-Egyptian models aren't Egyptian enough. That's a new one.

I don't ask them to look Egyptian. I ask them to look good.

And those renders look like some amateurish job. The egyptian inspiration is obvious. You can work up to separate from your inspiration , of course, not just copypaste it. But when you that you should try to make something slighly unique and good looking.

I'm just impressed by just how comically thick and oversized that spear is, it looks so ridiculously awful

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
I'm just impressed by just how comically thick and oversized that spear is, it looks so ridiculously awful

Yeah, unless it is some representation of the magic item/whatever I cannot even imagine how stupid the entire EoD spearmen unit will look.

Maybe it's a perspective problem in the 3D render and the plastic miniatures won't look that big ?

Otherwise, maybe Mantic Games wants to go back to the old GW Tomb Kings skeletons, when they were comically oversized as well. Since they have so many previous GW veteran players as customer base that are so fond of nostalgia, it's not necessarily a bad move.

Sarouan wrote:
Maybe it's a perspective problem in the 3D render and the plastic miniatures won't look that big ?

Otherwise, maybe Mantic Games wants to go back to the old GW Tomb Kings skeletons, when they were comically oversized as well. Since they have so many previous GW veteran players as customer base that are so fond of nostalgia, it's not necessarily a bad move.

They had simple weapons and shields though. The shields and Khopeshs were great.

 StygianBeach wrote:


They had simple weapons and shields though. The shields and Khopeshs were great.

Still oversized, though. And they were Chaos Warrior skeletons - in Khemri, seemed like they were quite giants of a man when alive.

GW Tomb Kings miniatures always had very weird proportions, honestly.

yeah, the old spears were oversized:


with those, this could still be because of the render, or are just a first test for the plastic molds (the arrow is oversized as well) and as I have worked with Victrix Saxons on December, a little bit oversized is better than realistic sized spears as those break to easily

I don't mind a bit of exaggeration on size, especially with skeletons. I'd rather have leg and arm bones that are a bit thicker than the kind that snap if you look at them wrong (deathrattle skeletons)

But there are limits to that, too.

I'd tend to have the same mind than Kodos : I think it's the 3D render that looks exaggerated and it's certainly so that the print is sturdy enough. It may be indeed for a test print, not the final release.

I'll wait to see the actual plastic clusters before judging.

That said...since Mantic Games tend to be closer to 28mm than 32 mm and the skeletons themselves tend to be easily thin, it wouldn't surprise me if the weapons are indeed a bit out of proportion to make sure the miniature is sturdy enough.

Agreed that shafts need to be thicc
Been doing historicals lately and realistic pikes stress me out.

There will be historical Egyptians on the market soon enough for everyone who wants simpler, more realistic weapons. I prefer my fantasy minis to have fantastical weapons. You can always swap them out with historical bits if you need to, but if everyone made ‘realistic’ weapons there would be no good options for people who like fantasy.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 sukura636 wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Well we know right now that detail won't be visible since all the detail is 0.1mm wide recesses.

100% accurate measuring by eye. We don't 'know' that at all .

Ah well you may be right and the skeletons are 3" tall

Speaking as someone in the industry, indirectly involved in certain plastics production (and having talked extensively with people in more direct contact) Blackfang is either correct or close to correct.

Based on mantic's previous sprue plastic kits, the detail, especially on those shields and the torso armor, looks like it will come out somewhat flat.

Someone mentioned earlier that the detail on the Abyssal dwarf plastics gets softer towards the sides of the model, aka close to where the plates of the mold meet.

This tracks with what I have seen in person. it also tells me that their plastics injection machine is either not getting enough pressure to close the mould properly, or the engineers who tooled the mould made the details towards that midpoint softer.

Why that would happen I have no idea.

Honestly why they have not switched plastic engineering providers I don't know.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sarouan wrote:
Maybe it's a perspective problem in the 3D render and the plastic miniatures won't look that big ?

Otherwise, maybe Mantic Games wants to go back to the old GW Tomb Kings skeletons, when they were comically oversized as well. Since they have so many previous GW veteran players as customer base that are so fond of nostalgia, it's not necessarily a bad move.

not from the angle they have that screengrab from.

I take render images every day. if the spear looks overlarge chances are it is over large.

 McDougall Designs wrote:

Honestly why they have not switched plastic engineering providers I don't know

As far as I know they have done this twice

 kodos wrote:

 McDougall Designs wrote:

Honestly why they have not switched plastic engineering providers I don't know

As far as I know they have done this twice

Their GCPS Rangers models in HIPS were very poor. I just painted up a pack, and bought them without much thought because they were new and thus... would be good. They were awful to paint, and very disappointing. It was exactly the problem you noted above - they get all mushy and distorted around the middle, where the two mold edges meet. And even the details at the front and rear were still poor (where theoretically they have no excuse for lousy details). It was impossible to tell what was what, where to add highlights, and how to paint these guys. Super bummed that they're still, years down the line, having some of the same problems with their models.

Not a fan of those skeletons. The spear looks far too clunky, and the Khopesh and bow are too ornate, which makes them look more like ceremonial weapons.

Also, aren’t there already a glut of plastic skeletons on the market? OK these ones have faux Egyptian imagery, or at least are trying to invoke that style... but, skeletons with rags clinging to their bones can be given Egyptian style weapons and shields to get that look.

Do like their Ushabti however, those look solid and should paint up nicely.

I got a sprue of the Abyssial Dwarves and a box of the Bassilean men at arms, and I think while the designs are solid (although again I would prefer more simple weapons and shields) the details are far too small.

I've been working on some Rift Forged Orcs for a forthcoming video, and I'm encountering a lot of what you guys are mentioning.

The core center of the model is solid, while the details get softer and less defined the further out you get. Some of the outside edges of the armor are almost non existant.

I don't recall having things seem so bad with the northmen plastics, but definitely had similar thoughts with the plastic salamanders, to the point I had no idea what exactly I was painting!

That all said I'll still be giving the dusty bones a good look.

That's a bit disappointing about the Abyssal Dwarves, I've got them in mind for a small project at some stage.

Still, I'm not exactly a top tier painter so it'll probably come out alright in the end, but it is disappointing when mushy detail means you can't quite work out what things are supposed to be.

I have a bunch of their original plastic Undead and I have to say they're really sharp minis, I dunno that I had any problems of this sort with them.

Probably comes down to hiring rando budget CG artists who don't understand the physical limitations of injection molding?

Their artist is good and knows the difference for the materials

But as for the other post, Undead, Salamander and Northern Alliance were all made by different casting companies