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 Polonius wrote:

 Buzzsaw wrote:

I hadn't really thought about this, but that's true: since the work is being done by freelancers, there must be photos, even if only for supervisors at Mantic to give the okay on. Any reasonable work product setup would require the artists to check back in on the elements in question.

To imagine the alternative is... gobsmacking. The only way there could not be WIP and final photos would be... if they had either a) implicit faith in the sculptors, or b) no interest or ability to demand changes.

I've reached this point in my thinking as well.

Whoa... that's a good point. Huh

The thing about this - to my mind at least - is that it implies that Mantic themselves have little confidence in their sculpts and models. And definitely so before paint - which misses the point that paint can turn people off - such as the naked werewolves.

The funny thing is that decent unpainted shots can often look better than their "finished" shots. Case in point the Basilian foot knights. The painted ones just look like a blob of infantry painted blue, silver and black with little detail or posing properly visible - while the shots on Remy's blog show them to be some very nice knightly sculpts.

It isn't a good thing.

Mantic really needs to address and fix this, if they want to seriously be considered for what I think they want to be considered.

Or, you know, something like that.

 Buzzsaw wrote:

b) no interest or ability to demand changes.

This was obviously my interpretation. It certainly fits into the narrative they've developed since their Storm of Kickstarters began. They seem to believe that quality is somehow unrelated to the success of their product. Either that, or they believe their fans are so desparate for more Mantic prodect that we'll buy any crap they shovel our way, so they might as well save money that might otherwise be spent on better sculpts or hiring an art director. It would be much more offensive if I didn't believe that Ronnie really just has no idea how he and his company (and their products) come across.

I find it almost comforting to imagine Mantic Towers as a sitcom about clueless middle management whose business practices are so divorced from reality that it matters more to the audience than to the characters what sort of business they're in. (And we won't even find out until the 6th season or so when the show jumps the shark.)

Schmapdi wrote:
At this point though, why not just have a Basilean army using Perry troops instead of MoA?

I like the M@A models, other than the heads, and want to have a fantasy human army rather than a historical one. Basilieans are definitely firmly in the fantasy camp, the shields and weapons are really cool designs.

The heads look like they came out of a stock human 3d model without taking into account that you need larger noses and ears on 28mm miniatures or it looks really weird. They're really quite nice minis and then you look closer and go "oh god, the faces".. it's like the Deadzone enforcer captain head that everyone hated put on every model in the unit:



Here's an example, 100% accurate human facial features on a stock 3d model... looks fine on the screen, but copy that 1:1 on to a 28mm 3d model and it will look terrible, the nose will look tiny, mush into the face and you'll be left with a largely flat oval:



I'm fairly certain this is where the men-at-arms sculpting went wrong, since I've seen the same mistake on faces on other minis from the same sculptor (deadzone enforcer captain, deadzone plague zombies). There's also some issues with the open mouthed ones where the face looks stretched rather than having the jaw rotate on its axis, and overall it looks like the facial expression sculpting was just a "use the push putty tool in Zbrush until you mash the face into something that looks about right" job.

A lot of 3d sculptors make this mistake, not exaggerating the small details enough because it looks fine blown up on the screen.. I seem to recall something in the Kingdom Death KS about the creator constantly having to argue with his 3d sculptors about making the details chunkier and more prominent to make sure they translate properly to 28mm models.

Tim got back to me and I found out what I'm getting finally. Yay. 20 Battle Sisters and 20 Paladin Footguard plus the normal stuff.

You know, looking at the detailed pictures they just sent out for the sisters, the one has her arm flat down her leg. Do the same with your arm. Their arms are microscopically too big. Less than a millimeter too big. I'll be okay with them. I'm loving the Basilean pictures.

You could probably GS the noses to be a little larger with minimal difficulty if they bother you but they look good to me. After looking zoomed in at those Men at Arms for a while, the main thing that I find problematic is the lack of a design on the chest, but that's probably intentional so you can use transfers right? Or maybe just to paint heraldry... damn I really want some now.

 Taarnak wrote:
Examples please? I keep seeing this bandied about, and I'd like to see some examples of it.

This is speculative on my part, and I can't speak to general industry practice, but from comparisons of concept art to finished sculpt Privateer Press appear to demand such from their sculptors, as do Corvus Belli and Studio McVey. Googling for, say, "Sedition Wars concept art" should provide plenty of examples.

e.g. Skaldi Bonehammer from Hordes:

Two points, though: First, that such constraints don't rule out sub-par executions, such as the infamous Kayazy Assassins, and second, that this is all something of a red herring. The issues with Mantic's sculpts arise not from a failure to conform exactly to the concept art but rather from either a failure to conform to it at all – or, at least, to the art shown to backers – or an unwillingness to demand that flaws in sculpting be corrected before acceptance – and even the first of those is not necessarily fatal.


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Bossk_Hogg wrote:
Those wings look like a photoshopped background or some kind of cut out. They dont have any sense of depth, unlike the mini. Does anyone have an unpainted image?

This is a render, but it shows what's going on with the wings:

These were shown on the mantic blog recently, so I can now release my photos...

They look quite good.

So it makes perfect sense that we weren't shown them before they closed the last round of Kickstarting.

They're nice models; bit finnicky to clean up and you really, really need a hairdryer to bend the wings so they'll rank up and to repose the tails for variety, but nicely detailed.

I got my 2nd wave stuff through a couple of weeks back and have started painting some up. Here are a couple of shots of stuff I haven't seen in their finished form online yet:

First up the skeleton dog handler:



and secondly the dwarf berserker brock rider



First off let me say that I am pleased with them for the price I paid on the kickstarter. Both are characterful models. Both look fine on the gaming table.

BUT. They really aren't top quality casts. The concept was good, the sculpting was fine. The casting is sub-par. Somewhat blobby and certainly not what I would describe as "crisp".

I don't think the quality is up to their pre-kickstarter resin casts - I have some restic Wraiths and some restic Revenant Cavalry, and both are pretty much on a par with good metals, and the early Mantic metals were indeed well sculpted.

Pic of Wraiths for comparison:



I've still got a lot to paint up of my kickstarter order so I may be over-reacting, and if so I will report that, but what I have seen so far has disappointed me somewhat. I don't feel "ripped off" in any way. I think Mantic have done a bang on job in getting decent miniatures out to me at a bargain price and on time. They managed the production and packing and communications very well. Better than Reaper, for instance, in that regard.

I do think their QC on restic has suffered though - these are not up to the standard of equivalent metal casts, and show some areas where the casting is rather mushy (such as around the scabbard on the skeleton, and on the dwarf's left bicep where I couldn't work out what was muscle and what was armband, for instance) and details hard to work out. They are absolute beggars too for mold lines. Some of the worst I have experienced in that regard. Bending wasn't an issue though as any bent parts sorted well in hot water, and stayed (so far) sorted.

The real difficulty for me going forward though is retail price> For instance one of the models I was most looking forward to was the new lady Vampire. I haven't got a photo to show you, but I must admit to being a tad disappointed. The fine detail just wasn't fine enough. Her face was OK for a tabletop mini, but was definitely not "top quality" moulding. Now I got her for free, and she's OK. But IMHO she isn't worth the £6.50 full retail I would have to pay for her now. That is 30% or more higher than the price I would have to pay for a top drawer sculpt from Hasslefree in metal

So if Mantic are only producing average quality, and are not the cheapest, I really don't see their competitive advantage. Sure they are cheaper than GW, but lets face it, who isn't these days?

So, I think to sum up, I am a "little disappointed". Although, to be fair, maybe I was expecting too much at this stage.

Certainly, with this and with my Reaper kickstarter (still no delivery :( ) I have learned a few caveats with Kickstarter in general. Do I regret it? No. Will I be amending my expectations downwards in future. Yes.

The brock riders are pretty good. I'm doing the studio jobs for those at the moment.

The brock rider is cool, thanks for posting it! Shame about the casting quality (although are you sure it was a problem with casting, not sculpting, etc?).

Harpies also look creepy... which I think is what they were going for

As a whole the harpies look good, but I really don't like the design of the tails coming out of the back at the wings. It might just be the angles of the pictures, but it looks off to me.

I like my Brocks, but I feel the 10 I got for $25 was a fair value. Any less for a similar price and I'd start questioning. That's not to say they're bad: they aren't at all. Jut not 5 for $20 or $25 quality. I can see how people would e unhappy with the vampiress. I have no use for her, so I don't care, but her dental damage needs help.

 RiTides wrote:
The brock rider is cool, thanks for posting it! Shame about the casting quality (although are you sure it was a problem with casting, not sculpting, etc?)

Yes, I''m sure the sculpting is fine. I do think the casting is to blame. Coupled with the humungous mold lines, the impression I've been left with is that the model seems ever so slightly "melted". I'm no expert on casting but I've seen comments by others on similar issues that indicate that maybe the model was taken out of the mold too early, before it had cured properly and so the material "sagged" ever so slightly before it fully hardened. So sharp edges aren't sharp, but a little rounded and fattened, and detail isn't just as quite as crisp as it should be in a perfect world.

Now I've seen far worse, don't get me wrong, and there is still a goodly amount of detail to see and the models are surely characterful, fun to paint, and look good enough as a tabletop army.

It's just i wouldn't pay a premium price for them as I would say for Hasslefree, or Heresy Miniatures or something (at least from my experience of their models).

So an update is out for the Basileans: Paladins are plastic (I thought they were restic!) and this is awesome, and most Basileans are "pious", meaning they can recover wounds-it's like an army wide "heal," that each unit casts on themselves. Oh yeah! Can somebody not at work post the update for all to see? Otherwise you gotta wait a few hours for me to do it.

No , paladins are restic, mantic just calls restic plastic as standard.

*twitch* Why would they do....ugh.

Because it is accurate?

Restic is plastic.

It's the love child of resin and plastic. It's like an Arnold Palmer. Half iced tea, half lemonade. I wouldn't call it iced tea, and I wouldn't call it lemonade. I'd call it an Arnie Palmer, a half&half, or the proper name. Only referring it to half is incorrect. I don't mind restic, I just prefer plastic and got more excited at what I thought was a change from great to FANTASTIC! That's all. It's still inaccurate.



First person to tell me I made an 'apples and oranges' comparison gets a wiffle-ball upside the head.

Restic may be plastic, but it is not the same material that the industry calls plastic. Calling restic "plastic" is misleading. "Sprueless plastic" works fine and the distinction is enough not to give customers the wrong expectations.

Do you complain about Privateer's plastic not being 'true plastic' as well?

 Cyporiean wrote:
Do you complain about Privateer's plastic not being 'true plastic' as well?

YES, very vocally. I bought some of their kits when they first came out and found out that they had none of the strengths of "true" plastic, but were more annoying to clean and glue than metal! I have also had casting or packing issues with more than 50% of their restic kits. I don't buy PP stuff much anymore.

I find PP's restic is even worse quality and harder to work with than Mantic's.

And, really, if we can all use the term "restic" and understand each other, then they can use it, too.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Restic may be plastic, but it is not the same material that the industry calls plastic. Calling restic "plastic" is misleading. "Sprueless plastic" works fine and the distinction is enough not to give customers the wrong expectations.

^This.

TBH, just calling it PVC would be best, that's what it is.

Anything else is just a trade name, and "plastic" is about as broad a term as you can get... it's like using "wood" to describe both MDF and mahogany, technically accurate, but not a detailed enough descriptor.

Mantic used to be happy to use the term resin plastic, but have avoided it recently since they got a lot of people asking "so is it resin like finecast then?".. they had restic minis out before finecast even existed, back when resin was an indicator of high quality..that perception has changed somewhat with the release of finecast and mantic no longer wants the "resin" part to be associated with their minis since the majority of wargamers (and particularly the ones mantic would like to sell to) have never bought any resin other than citadel finecast.

Regardless of what they want to call it... "restic" is a much more established word for that material in the wargaming community... and as you say, "plastic" is too generic.

Saying something like PVC would be fine, of course, but just "plastic"... not so much (imo).

 scarletsquig wrote:
Anything else is just a trade name, and "plastic" is about as broad a term as you can get... it's like using "wood" to describe both MDF and mahogany, technically accurate, but not a detailed enough descriptor.

If you sold me a "wood" coffee table and I found out it was just MDF, I would be rather annoyed.

Mantic used to be happy to use the term resin plastic, but have avoided it recently since they got a lot of people asking "so is it resin like finecast then?".. they had restic minis out before finecast even existed, back when resin was an indicator of high quality..that perception has changed somewhat with the release of finecast and mantic no longer wants the "resin" part to be associated with their minis since the majority of wargamers (and particularly the ones mantic would like to sell to) have never bought any resin other than citadel finecast.

People don't avoid buying restic because it's called restic, they do so because it is restic. It's more expensive per unit, it warps, production rates do not scale like proper plastic does and it's more prone to casting flaws. Deliberately trying to hide behind the good name of proper plastic is even worse than doing so out of ignorance.