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 The Shadow wrote:
However, if I knocked a metal infantry model off the table, it would be far more likely to break than its finecast counterpart.

I've abused metal infantry figures for about 15 years now, some of which have lived in plastic bags and metal tins throughout 4 house moves. At worse they've lost a bit of paint or had a bent weapon which I can fix in about a second. With my finecast infantry I'm genuinely worried they'll break in my foam mini's case. Like for like I'd much rather be dropping metal figures than finecast.

I've never actually bought any finecast? Is the QA still as bad as it was when it first came out?

If its been two years, then that means no GW models purchased for at least two years! How time flies when yr having fun.

Hmm, well, to be completely fair metal did have it's share of problems. The larger infantry models (especially for fantasy) were prone top having gaps that needed filling etc. There were miscasts aswell, clainming there weren't is just silly.

However, equally saying metal mistcasts were just as prevalant as with finecast is well, somewhat obtuse to say the least. Metal miscasts have increased at GW last few years, I'll admit to that, so part of the problem might not just be the medium but Quality Control in general that GW seems to not be able to do.

In the end, finecast is lighter, and metal is was more solid, resitant to the wear and tear on a battlefield that finecast can't really stand to much. Downside, yes it does chip easier, but to be completely honest, I've been playing for quite a long amount of years and after all that time the models I actually primed and varnished properly still proudly stand unchipped, so how much is that downside worth?

All in all, only one thing I keep on wondering with debates like this. Why are we even talking about finecast versus metal, rather than wondering why GW is so utterly incompetent that they can't do everythign is plastic? If Wyrd can make a box of what arguably are 6 character models in pretty dynamic poses as a small company, why the hell can't the producer of "the best toy soldiers" in the world follow suit.

I personally haven't really had any bad experiences with Finecast. So far I've had a DE Lhamaean and Archon with minor flaws such as warped weapons and horns (archon) but nothing a little heat won't fix. The DE wracks I got recently were spot on!


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 Gertjan wrote:


All in all, only one thing I keep on wondering with debates like this. Why are we even talking about finecast versus metal, rather than wondering why GW is so utterly incompetent that they can't do everythign is plastic? If Wyrd can make a box of what arguably are 6 character models in pretty dynamic poses as a small company, why the hell can't the producer of "the best toy soldiers" in the world follow suit.

Very much in agreement with this!

I have been in the hobby for 15 years and I much prefer fine cast granted I only have 6 fc models but I have never had to return them. My biggest gripe with metal is chipping. And metal model that falls either on a plastic board like the realm of battle board or on the floor is guaranteed to chip. This happens even when I coat it with varnish. 2 nights ago my son knocked 60 plastic and 1 fc dark elf miniatures from my gaming table in a Godzilla moment and there was not a single scratch. My 15 executioners with varnish had edge chipping on the cloak, face, swords came off.

 Ouze wrote:

 Breotan wrote:
Oh, but there are problems with the material. It doesn't tolerate heat well at all. I had the 25th Anniversary model in a display case and the sunny summer day was enough to cause the banner pole to droop over so the banner was touching the base

JFC. That's equal parts outlandish and horrible.

Is it, uh, in an attic or something? I mean, how hot can it get in Seattle?

That's just it. It never got that hot. The figure was in a glass case exposed to direct sunlight during the day and, over the course of the summer, that's all it took. Still, the other stuff I've got in Finecast has held up rather well. The Skaven Doom-flayer was much easier to put together because it wasn't metal. But still, stay away from the Mangler Squig if you want to remain sane. There isn't enough pinning in the whole world that'll keep that thing upright.

Makes since to me. I avoid it like the plague were I can. Makes since that somebody that does this as a business would as well.

My problem with finecast is the quality. Non of my local stores will carry or support finecast becuase of the hassle involved. That's directly from the store owners mouths. I have to drive hours just to find a store that sells it. Once I'm there I have to rummage through a stack of blisters trying to find a fig that I feel confidant enough as a beginning hobbiest to repair and paint. Repairs and filling gaps is normal for any modeling hobby within reason.

My biggest problem with finecast though is it degrades very fast and ill explain. It gets very hot here in the spring and summer. Say I have a finecast and I've gone through the trouble of finding/fixing and painting it. All of that is worthless the first time it tops over 100f and the models wilts and is ruined. Metal won't do that. Yes it can chip and yes they can break but I would think it would be a very rare thing for a metal model to be ruined beyond salvage. The other issue is getting the models. With no locals stocking finecast I'm at the mercy of my local ham fisted postal service which combined whith finecast doesn't work out to well.

Ill stick with metal if of eBay were I can. And break down and do finecast when I have no choice. One example would be the ork big guns. Sure I can find them on eBay but I'm not will to pay 80$ for 1 gun model at a time. At that point I'd rather deal with finecast.

 Grot 6 wrote:
Finecrap is still crap.

It hasn't gotten any better, your standards have just grown gak glasses.

And.. to metal? That.... gak is better?


No way. I'm calling you on it and I'd like some pictures of this fine quality gak on a stick.

Pretty much.

I have a theory on the finecast defenders but it wont be popular.

If you notice, good painters are saying finecast is crap where as bad painters will just prime and dry brush it and be happy with it, all the while calling everyone else whiners (or the like), essentially their standards for poor quality is non exsistent. Its like people telling me Mcdonalds is good for you as long as you portion it properly, sure you could, but the amount of effort involved is silly where as you can just go the easy route and just eat something healthy.

If anything this just adds more weight to the "battered gamer sydrome", where we just have become numb to how GW treats us as if its normal, and should be expected and accepted.


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Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
I've never actually bought any finecast? Is the QA still as bad as it was when it first came out?

If its been two years, then that means no GW models purchased for at least two years! How time flies when yr having fun.

In my experience it has a 66% miscast rate, even now I find it hasnt gotten any better. What I have noticed is GW employees are getting more anal about returning it, and I know for certain fact they were handed a policy telling them to deter the return of finecast by attempting to sell and demostrate liquid green stuff, as well as down play how poor the quality is. I've personally seen a kid get out talked of returning his finecast because of how loud and obnoxious the employee was being.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 MajorTom11 wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 MajorTom11 wrote:
Sigh... I am still in wonder that Finecast has people defending it... what are we? 2 years in? The opinion of both stores and the professional painting community is nearly universal that it adds hours of frustrating prep or returned product for little to no gain.

I am under the impression that people still loving finecast and claiming it is better than metal (barring models that were too heavy as metals to put together easily) have to be either:
A) Insanely, insanely lucky with their purchases
B) Completely and totally immune to evidence
C) The absolutely most amazing marketing audience ever and I should be taking their names down.

Yes you could say the above is condescending but we are well past the point in the evidence cycle in my opinion where the matter was particularly up for debate anymore. Finecast may have been good if it wasn't for the atrocious lack of QC and casting consistency, as it stands, the risk of getting a dud model even if the number is only 20% makes it a giant pain and a big risk to pros and stores, and frankly, if you have standards, the average gamer as well.

Here's a tip mate, if you're about to type out "you could say the above is condescending"(a charitable characterisation, frankly), and you're a mod on a forum on which the number one rule is "be polite", that's probably the point to move your mouse away from the post button and close the tab.

And here is a tip for you sir, you could say the above is condescending. It doesn't mean it is. I need no reminders from you about the rules of this forum thank you very much. The fact that you actually agreed with me, that restic in and of itself is not the problem in principle, it is GW's shoddy quality control, makes me laugh a bit, are you not then condescending yourself? I have a problem with people who 2 years in still think they can seperate the issues, restic and quality control, when it comes to finecast. We can no longer call it phase 1 or growing pains, so the quality control in my opinion must now be taken as an intrinsic, static issue with finecast until something changes. If finecast was well cast, and the models designed/converted to it were made with the material's strength in mind (both aesthetically and structurally) I would have absolutely not problem buying it. In fact it is much easier to convert which is great!

However, personally, I prefer metal if I don't plan on converting. Ya it has it's own liabilities but overall, at lest you were pretty much guaranteed to know exactly what you were getting into most of the time. That however of course is up for debate according to personal preference. I however don't think bubbled and misaligned casting are up for debate at all... they suck. Some people, not saying you mind, but some people defend it even with those flaws, and point to liquid GS and other things as if they were some kind of reason not to be annoyed that you have to either make a return or work for an hour or 3 just to get started on the model with a basecoat.

Just because there is a MOD tag next to my name doesn't mean I don't have personal opinions, and nor does it mean I am being extra rude or rude at all for giving a general opinion. There was no name calling, I simply expressed my disbelief that anyone, 2 years into this crap, would still either be pretending the issues don't exist and/or that they don't matter. I think that is a pretty objective observation at this point. Stores don't carry it, either because they got fed-up previously or because GW now wants to avoid sending finecast blisters due to the huge expenses of the multiple returns... Now GW wants to sell the blisters direct as much as possible so they can take a greater profit and absorb the return costs a bit better. A significant portion of the community (gamers) avoid it either by reputation or experience. Pro painters as we see are jumping ship at an astounding rate. All I'm saying is can we at least not pretend there is no issue here, even if you personally like the stuff lol!

For the record, I do use FC myself, usually when I will be hacking the model up for a lot of conversion (blood angels and space marines), if I plan to just do a simple tabletop and leave it at that (my necrons) or if I have no choice (Open day model 2012). So far, I would say about 30% of the 20 models I have were acceptable. 50% had relatively minor issues but took at least half an hour to correct them, and 20% were wtf happend bad. I know what I'm getting into when I make a purchase though, especially online. I can definitely say that I miss metal for the thinner bits like swords etc...

Of course being a mod doesn't mean you can't have a personal opinion, what it does mean is that you should probably put a bit more thought into whether or not to post opinions which are confrontational, because that mod tag does mean that the rest of us have to be extremely wary about how we respond to you in comparison to any other poster. And as for your post, no, you didn't actually flat-out call anyone an idiot for disagreeing with you, you just implied that the only people who can disagree with you are irrational idiots who'd buy a polished turd if it had GW branding on it.

The "evidence" as you put it is still anecdotal, and while a large amount of anecdotal evidence deserves to be taken a bit more seriously, it doesn't change the fundamental nature of it; neither I nor anyone I game with has had significant issues with Finecast in over a year, but in that time I have seen several stuck-in-their-ways old metal-loving grognards march indignantly into the local GW and demand that they get their money back for models with issues so minor they would take minutes to deal with, certainly less time than the same people would be willing to spend scrubbing and filing and pinning and gap-filling the same miniature if it were in metal. So, the only "evidence" that I can actually confirm is A; I prefer restic to metal, even if I would prefer real resin, B; neither I nor anyone who's opinion I can confirm as valid through direct observation has had to return a Finecast model for some time, and C; many of the complaints I have seen about Finecast in situations where I can actually examine the miniature have been completely unreasonable.

Now, is it possible that I and my friends, who collect numerous different races and order Finecast models from both GW and online retailers in substantial numbers, have simply been miraculously untouched by the wave of horrifying blighted "Finecrap" miniatures that GW has been selling everywhere else but where we shop? Perhaps, but is that a more likely scenario than a substantial proportion of the online furor about Finecast being due to a mixture of pre-existing anti-GW sentiment, people viewing their favourite old metal models through rose-tinted glasses despite them being a right pig to assemble and prep, people who've never worked with resin/restic minis before being unwilling to learn new techniques, and people who were burned by Finecast early on and haven't touched it since or who have been inordinately unlucky? Well, you and quite some other have evidently already decided the answer to that question, and that I am a gullible fool if I disagree with you, so I don't suppose there's any point in trying to argue the point really is there.

I'll give you one last nibble, I see you are playing the old 'your evidence is anecdotal but my group of friends and our experience is valid' and also the classic 'I am going to give a 4 paragraph argument but throw in you will not change your mind and will be mean to me in your next post so I will just sit here and be the victim' card as well. The cherry on top, the 'I will say the precise opposite as you with as much conviction, but when I do it is moderate and not an attack' finishing move. Good for you lol.

Let me spell it out for you as I see it one last time:

1st - I don't think you think the Mod tag next to my name means you should be afraid of me, I think you think it means you can be a tough guy and attempt to bait me because you would love it if I went nuts so you could go 'see! look he is a tyrant'. I think you think you've got a win-win here lol, fight the power and all that. Unfortunately I am just participating in the discussion, offering an opinion, just because you don't like it and feel it is an attack doesn't make it so, though I am sure we are all impressed at you taking a stand against my horrible, terribly insulting and notably unique perspective. I note you choose to single me out when many, many others are saying the exact same thing, sometimes more strongly worded than mine.

2nd - The 2 groups with the highest standards, and massive experience with all manner of models in a professional capacity, shop owners and pro painters do hold more weight with me than you and your friends. It's not an insult, it's logic man. I will take the bonified expert opinion of people who deal with this stuff for a living over any average painter/gamer/hobbyist, and I think that is a completely objective and justifiable. This is the part that I knew may be taken as condescending by some. But if you think it is condescending to value superior experience, knowledge, statistics and business acumen on a much broader scale than an average person could bring to the table, then the problem is on your end. Sorry.

The fact of the matter is that I can only conclude, based on 2 years of evidence, that anyone who is having overwhelmingly positive finecast experiences is one of the three things I mentioned, incredibly lucky and got almost all good product, has lower standards or is particularly susceptible to marketing. Are these insulting? Again, only if you choose to make them so because of your own insecurity.

1. Incredibly lucky: Good for you, you have beaten the curve and not experienced any problems. You have a perfectly justified opinion based on personal experience that the product is good. However, you are still projecting your experience on many others and acting as if your good experience cancels out the horrible time others have had, and also disregarding outside data in the forming of your opinion. Reasonably speaking, taking all things into account, finecast should still be considered hit and miss. You didn't get any flaws to see personally though, and that has to be considered to as you can only form your opinion based on what you experience and learn...

2. You have lower standards than some: You are a tabletop kinda guy, a gamer first or you enjoy painting but are not willing to invest 30 hours into each model. This is completely ok. Not everyone is going to approach everything they paint with Golden Demon standards! Not everyone regards their minis as art, or display pieces. To some they are game models and that is perfectly, totally reasonable and fine. A bunch of bubbles or missed detail is not that big a deal... your models spend more time in foam travelling than in a display case, so light and chip resistant are extremely, extremely important to you. This makes total sense and is I think by far the most common scenario for finecast supporters. It's only an insult if you think you have Golden Demon standards... since the greater body of pro-painters say it is terrible for them, then you have to consider that you may indeed have lower standards then. You see the flaws but don't care too much, and think they are no big deal.

3. You are susceptible to marketing: Well, that is the whole point of marketing, to pre-form the opinion of the audience and also to take away obstacles to postive reception. There are points about finecast that in practice or in theory are superior. If you value the benefits over obvious flaws right in front of your face, you value system is skewed towards the theoretical positives rather than the practical ones you are holding in your hand. This is based on the assumption that you indeed have bad finecast, and still cannot really bring yourself to see the flaws as flaws, more that they are 'worthy sacrifices' to the theoretical quality altar. An entire industry exists all over the world, making billions a year because this can in fact work. Are you saying that people who are suceptible to marketing don't exist? I can assure you it is objectively provable this is not the case.

These 3 points are based on the supposition that you accept that the store-owners, public outcry and pro painters are not engaged in some kind of hysterical hallucination, or enacting a vendetta against GW. So obviously if you place no value on the evidence of the other side then there will be a deadlock of opinions. It happens lol, welcome to the internet. You don't need to attempt to make a witch-hunt out of it.

MarkyMark wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
However, if I knocked a metal infantry model off the table, it would be far more likely to break than its finecast counterpart.

That depends entirely on the model. If the model is large but with small joins, then the joins are more likely to fail on a metal model... though realistically if you're using decent glue it takes a lot to break metal joins on infantry sized models.

If the model has any thin shafts or thin anything, metal is likely to bend where finecast is likely to snap. One of my friends who was very careless with his models was constantly dropping his metal models and the spears just bent and he'd bend them back again. Not great because the paint would come off where it was bent back and forth, but better than completely snapping IMO.


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MarkyMark wrote:
Personnaly I have around 20 finecast models, nearly all characters and I have had to return 1 and have a few issues with another one, and that is it rest have been fine. The one returned (pedro) was missing his arm so mis packaged rather then other issues and belial has the tip of his sword missing.

I prefer finecast to metal, but you know what its my opinion from my experince .

You must have amazing luck or be very good at cherry picking models. I can randomly pick 20 models off the shelves at my local GW and see a significant proportion with serious flaws and pretty much all of them will have small bubbles if nothing else.

Cherry picking nope, all ordered online or in store at 4tk for a few of the models

Curiously enough Mark and I live quite close together and as I've said earlier I haven't had any problems either. Perhaps we have conscientious retailers in this part of Southern England though I doubt it as the few I bought were from GW and a well know indie.

-Loki- wrote:

 jah-joshua wrote:
unfortunately, as long as Finecast sells there is no reason for GW to change...

There is actually. Finecast has always been a stop gap to a full plastic range. That's why we're now seeing things like generic characters as single pose plastics. Granted, Fantasy is getting the lions share of these, but they're making their way to 40k every release.

I think this will be the case but I can't help but remember most of the casting problems I have seen in the last decade has been mold slip on plastic sprues. Its all swings and roundabouts really.

I've never really had a problem with fine cast. It holds the paint better than metal does and the details are sharper (check the big mek in my gallery, for example).

Let me just point out that 2 out of 20 models is still a pretty bad percentage. Even 3 out 60. That's 5-10% of the product you sell being defective. What company would sell a product that will turn out defective 5-10% of the time?

I totally get why commission painters in those countries won't accept Finecast: it does take a lot of prep time if it is a defective product (and I personally wouldn't want to roll with that if there's a 10% chance of it being defective) and fiddly little bits won't do well. Fortunately for me no one has commissioned me to do Finecast yet, and I will make sure first that it's a good sculpt with little or no defects before accepting.

That's a terrible photo, you can barely make out anything.

 notprop wrote:

MarkyMark wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
However, if I knocked a metal infantry model off the table, it would be far more likely to break than its finecast counterpart.

That depends entirely on the model. If the model is large but with small joins, then the joins are more likely to fail on a metal model... though realistically if you're using decent glue it takes a lot to break metal joins on infantry sized models.

If the model has any thin shafts or thin anything, metal is likely to bend where finecast is likely to snap. One of my friends who was very careless with his models was constantly dropping his metal models and the spears just bent and he'd bend them back again. Not great because the paint would come off where it was bent back and forth, but better than completely snapping IMO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MarkyMark wrote:
Personnaly I have around 20 finecast models, nearly all characters and I have had to return 1 and have a few issues with another one, and that is it rest have been fine. The one returned (pedro) was missing his arm so mis packaged rather then other issues and belial has the tip of his sword missing.

I prefer finecast to metal, but you know what its my opinion from my experince .

You must have amazing luck or be very good at cherry picking models. I can randomly pick 20 models off the shelves at my local GW and see a significant proportion with serious flaws and pretty much all of them will have small bubbles if nothing else.

Cherry picking nope, all ordered online or in store at 4tk for a few of the models

Curiously enough Mark and I live quite close together and as I've said earlier I haven't had any problems either. Perhaps we have conscientious retailers in this part of Southern England though I doubt it as the few I bought were from GW and a well know indie.

-Loki- wrote:

 jah-joshua wrote:
unfortunately, as long as Finecast sells there is no reason for GW to change...

There is actually. Finecast has always been a stop gap to a full plastic range. That's why we're now seeing things like generic characters as single pose plastics. Granted, Fantasy is getting the lions share of these, but they're making their way to 40k every release.

I think this will be the case but I can't help but remember most of the casting problems I have seen in the last decade has been mold slip on plastic sprues. Its all swings and roundabouts really.

All mine bar, 2 or 3 were from GW as they are special order models rather then those avaliable to the retailers with better discounts.

If it matters at all, I started 40k 7 or 8 months ago so all my buys have been in that time frame,

I have never had a problem with finecast. I also have not bought any because of the problems that I have seen. Just recently someone I know purchased a finecast hydra that was horribly miscast.

This being said, I do not quite understand why professional painters would turn down finecast. If someone paid me for something I would do it. Maybe they are not charging by the hour, or charging for prep. That, or the painters do not like to fix models. I think that it would be the customers prerogative to supply the painter with a model that they are satisfied with.

Some of it might have something to do with quality. If your paying some guy 1000's of dollars to paint your army and then your character models go all bendy in transits from heat, who are you going to blame? Not to mention it through a off their timing. You have to remeber that they do this as a job so try have to crank out these armies fast. If they have as much trouble getting good cast as we do the. Their projects keep getting stalled.

I said I wasn't going to buy any more finecast models, and then immediately went back on my word for the new Tau release, and I'm really regretting it now. I've spent hours filling in bubbles in Farsight, and I haven't even started on the crisis commander, but I'll have to call GW customer support at some point to get replacement thrusters, due to some very noticeable mold slip. If I was a less meticulous fellow I may prefer this to the metal, as bubbles are easier to overlook than the typical razor-sharp metal flash spikes that most GW metals have, but I'd rather pin and trim than re-sculpt details.

I can completely understand metal models being more expensive on ebay. I've bought a few used finecast models, and, personally, I'd have to do some serious thinking before I'd buy another one. Several of the ones I've got seem to be mixed badly in addition to the usual bubbles.The models are practically disintegrating as I work with them in some cases, sheets of resin sloughing off with a dusty layer underneath. That is not something I've ever had happen with a metal model, or even a decent resin one.

 spaceelf wrote:
I have never had a problem with finecast. I also have not bought any because of the problems that I have seen. Just recently someone I know purchased a finecast hydra that was horribly miscast.

This being said, I do not quite understand why professional painters would turn down finecast. If someone paid me for something I would do it. Maybe they are not charging by the hour, or charging for prep. That, or the painters do not like to fix models. I think that it would be the customers prerogative to supply the painter with a model that they are satisfied with.

The problem is you'd have to (generally) pay more for it. Most decent standard commission painters seem to aim for around 20 to 30 minutes time in prep and assembly per single figure, regardless of paint job standard. In most cases (metal, pressure cast resin, plastic, restic etc) this is on average all that's required.

An unpredictable material makes quoting for that very difficult. For example, I spent over six hours working on a single Finecast Captain Stern, which in turn was the best of NINE models I went through over the course of several weeks. If I had to charge for the time, you'd be looking at around (conservatively) £150 before the primer went on. The best Finecast I've handled did take around 30 minutes of work (over a couple of hours) in retraining the sword to be straight, and which was the first off the shelf. Unfortunately the first example seems to be the more common, but even by cherry picking in store (difficult now that much of the Finecast range is 'direct only') it is extremely easy to miss critical flaws that only become apparent when working on the model.

When running a business of any sort, this sort of unpredictability is not desirable. Not so much that people don't want to do that work (although it is equivalent to having to hammer out dents in a car you've been paid to paint), but that you can't easily say you need to do the work until you've booked the job. Customers tend not to like price changes after booking in the upward direction.

 Cryptek of Awesome wrote:

Metal has issues but I've never opened up a metal blister and had the model pockmarked full of holes - or pieces so thin you could see through.

I have. From a variety of companies. maybe not the translucent part, but that's more to properties of metal than anything else, I think I have seen some issues with completely missing thin pieces, as well as torn molds so casts have extra chunks on them, misaligned molds, and similar issues.

Haven't bought any FineCast myself, but I've heard the quality has been improving. Is this incorrect?

Resin-style processes seem to be a bit more finicky than metal cast, both of which are much more finicky than plastics molding....But plastics require a lot more 'up-front' design time and expense, which needs to be amortized over the entire project.

 Balance wrote:

 Cryptek of Awesome wrote:

Metal has issues but I've never opened up a metal blister and had the model pockmarked full of holes - or pieces so thin you could see through.

I have. From a variety of companies. maybe not the translucent part, but that's more to properties of metal than anything else, I think I have seen some issues with completely missing thin pieces, as well as torn molds so casts have extra chunks on them, misaligned molds, and similar issues.

Haven't bought any FineCast myself, but I've heard the quality has been improving. Is this incorrect?

It's a mixed bag. I haven't seen too many problems with sculpts designed to be using the Finecast mixture but have seen problems with the metal ones that have been converted over.

Admittedly, I usually try to use up my own bits for characters and the like before resorting to a Finecast character/unit so I haven't had a huge exposure recently. The most recent one I worked on was Darkstrider from the Tau line and he was pretty clean. Two pockmarks on a part of his trousers that took a few minutes to fix (minus the drying time for the green stuff).


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winterdyne wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 WarOne wrote:

 Trondheim wrote:

UltraPrime wrote:
Never had a serious problem with Finecast. Much prefer it over metal.

This sums up my experience with Finecast, and if some painter banns it I hardly care to be honest.

This is merely a market dictating terms on how they handle commissions.

From their experience, Finecast appears harder to work with given that there are a few flaws (bubbles and miscasts, not like the whole thing is a riddled swiss cheese plastic husk). These commissioners are paid by the job and if these jobs take too long, it comes out of their bottom line by how many commissions they can accept.

Yeah...that's not true at all. It's not even an extra ten minutes of repairs, and I don't do this for a living like they do.

This is just the OP(who runs "masterminis.blogspot.de") hawking his site and linking to advertisers/partners.
It happens quite often with this individual.

But on topic?
I haven't heard of these "commission painters" before. What great exposure they're getting now!

I know all of them. Some of them do work for several major miniature manufacturers, not just private commissions. They've all been going for years. Their experience pretty much matches mine, and in terms of repair time, Finecast is usually (not always) much much more. When you're in the game of building / painting toy soldiers for a living, time is money. Time you have to spend on fixing stuff is time you either have to charge for or lose money on.

Kanluwen; you are talking utter tosh.

I have never heard of any of these commission painters. That's totally on me not doing some research--but it still does not change the key point I was attempting to convey: That the OP is yet another one of the people who use Dakka as traffic for his blog/website in the guise of "starting conversation". He dumps a post on Dakka riddled with links to his blog and a few other sites, then seemingly doesn't return until he has another post and needs a new surge of traffic.

That's a pet peeve of mine and I really dislike it. It shouldn't matter so much to me, but it gets quite irksome to see someone trying to use Dakka(or any forum for that matter) as their own personal captive audience without having to resort to actually advertising on the website.

If you've never heard of bogun or fantasy games painting, he is only the top rated painter on cool mini... No one of note lol.

I don't visit CMON, so yeah...

Well then it's no surprise you haven't heard of them then is it? He has won tons of awards including demons... I don't think it's fair of you to say part of your annoyance is that never having heard of these commision painters lends an air of illegitimacy for you if they are actually quite famous as far as these things go lol. I don't call Stephen hawking a quack because I've never heard of him while at the same time taking part in a thread about eminent physisists lol...

 Yodhrin wrote:
[

Now, is it possible that I and my friends, who collect numerous different races and order Finecast models from both GW and online retailers in substantial numbers, have simply been miraculously untouched by the wave of horrifying blighted "Finecrap" miniatures that GW has been selling everywhere else but where we shop? Perhaps, but is that a more likely scenario than a substantial proportion of the online furor about Finecast being due to a mixture of pre-existing anti-GW sentiment, people viewing their favourite old metal models through rose-tinted glasses despite them being a right pig to assemble and prep, people who've never worked with resin/restic minis before being unwilling to learn new techniques, and people who were burned by Finecast early on and haven't touched it since or who have been inordinately unlucky? Well, you and quite some other have evidently already decided the answer to that question, and that I am a gullible fool if I disagree with you, so I don't suppose there's any point in trying to argue the point really is there.

Yes its a online furor, and top commission painters can have the luxury of banning what is probably one of their biggest source of income ( painting of GW products)... but then again you and your friends have a better perspective...

 MajorTom11 wrote:
Well then it's no surprise you haven't heard of them then is it? He has won tons of awards including demons... I don't think it's fair of you to say part of your annoyance is that never having heard of these commision painters lends an air of illegitimacy for you if they are actually quite famous as far as these things go lol. I don't call Stephen hawking a quack because I've never heard of him while at the same time taking part in a thread about eminent physisists lol...

You shouldn't call him a quack because you've never heard of him. You should call him a quack because he turns his speech synthesizer to 'Duck Mode' every Halloween. Crazy bastard that Stephen Hawking.

 MajorTom11 wrote:
Well then it's no surprise you haven't heard of them then is it? He has won tons of awards including demons... I don't think it's fair of you to say part of your annoyance is that never having heard of these commision painters lends an air of illegitimacy for you if they are actually quite famous as far as these things go lol. I don't call Stephen hawking a quack because I've never heard of him while at the same time taking part in a thread about eminent physisists lol...

I don't think you quite grasped what I was saying.

My annoyance isn't that "Oh I've never heard of these people!". It's that the OP has a history of doing exactly what he has done. He posts what amounts to a link to his blog and then leaves, without ever bothering to engage the forum in discussion unless it directly involves him and his site. Look at the posting history he has and you will see what I'm referring to.

I'll leave it alone now, but if you'd like to continue the discussion Tom--I'll gladly continue it in PMs. I'm not trying to derail the thread or start up a witch hunt. It's a pet peeve and it irks me to no end, no matter who does it.

Yes Khan we get it, its all a big obscure plan to give these "commission painters" (you never heard of before but are as famous as they can get) a big exposure... Makes sense.

It's newsworthy and worth discussion regardless of his continued participation Kan. You don't need to perpetually participate in a topic, even your own, to make it valid. So what if he links to his blog? He puts up a conversation starter, it's not like its just a link. Plenty of people and businesses promote here at dakka, it's one of the big pluses of the place in the community. Not sure what offends so much about that?

'What great exposure they're getting' derails your point. Especially when they really, really don't need the exposure.

The point is, that very high level painters are refusing to work on the material.

Now, an apology for those I may inadvertently insult; this is not intentional, not personal, merely an observation, and one from the point of view of a professional who takes pride in the standard their work.

Those that 'prefer Finecast', 'think it's OK', and 'don't have a problem with it' (paraphrased, any similarity to actual quotes unintended) are, on the whole and by all appearances, Not Very Good Painters or Modellers.

Poor focus, badly lit pictures of 'sharp detail' abound. Paintwork that ranges from childish to 'very basic tabletop'. Find me someone with an average CMON score of 7.5 or better who agrees with the 'it's not gak, really' standpoint and I will post a public retraction of this statement. Maybe it's lack of experience. Maybe it's poor eyesight. Poor judgement? Or simply a different idea of what is an acceptable standard.

We are fed pictures (in magazines / the web and by all manufacturers) of models finished to a high standard. Very often the painted examples (most of the time done by freelance commission guys - only GW use in house painters AFAIK) we see are preproduction casts and may be unrelated to the actual product we buy. This is false advertising.

If I bought a (modern) Ferrari and took it to the test track, I'd want it to go 120mph without vibrating itself to pieces, and without having to refit and rebalance the suspension myself. If I couldn't drive it myself, I wouldn't want to have to pay the driver I hire to do the suspension work either.

 MajorTom11 wrote:
It's newsworthy and worth discussion regardless of his continued participation Kan.

Is it really though? It boils down to "Hey guys, I have a new blog link. It's about something that stopped being newsworthy two years ago when Finecast was crap then and is still crap now. But hey, since some big names who I know personally started refusing to take commissions it's news!".

You don't need to perpetually participate in a topic, even your own, to make it valid. So what if he links to his blog? He puts up a conversation starter, it's not like its just a link.
Plenty of people and businesses promote here at dakka, it's one of the big pluses of the place in the community. Not sure what offends so much about that?

Sure, plenty of people and businesses promote here at Dakka.

How many of them just dump a news article whenever they feel like it in whatever damn forum they feel like? This was originally posted in News and Rumors. It's neither of those.
When he was doing a "giveaway", he posted it in the Swap Shop.

The fact that he has so few posts and almost all of them amount to blog plugging is what "offends me so much". If he can't be bothered to actually post here enough to develop a reputation beyond yourself, Winterdyne, and other individuals who do commission work/know of him (and his cohorts) from CMON or other forums?

Then there's a problem.