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Anyway, Forgeworld quality varies greatly from time to time. My Decimator only came with some minor faults that could be easily fixed and re-fitted.

morgoth wrote:

And welcome to the ignore list. You know nothing about anything and you keep on running your mouth anyway. Whatever your JD scores may be, Mercedes > Ford, at every level.
There is no Ford car to compete with an SLS, and I don't think Ford has anything to match my C220.
Fiesta, Focus and S-max are poor quality cars for the poor, maybe above some of the worst like Fiat indeed, but not seriously contending with car makers from München.

Not sure if trolling, or if he has no clue what he's talking about.

 Peregrine wrote:

So who knows better: the FW sculptor (who gets paid to do this stuff) that says "titans take months to design and sculpt", or the random forum poster with no scratchbuilding experience who assumes it should only take a couple weeks because "that's how experience works"?

Tell you what: We'll make a bet.
If I can get someone to build ME an Eldar Titan with equal detail to the ForgeWorld ones, for say 3K€, you pay for it and I keep the Titan.
Just find a way to have that bet formalized and your money put on escrow, and I'll find a way to get that Titan for free.

 The Grumpy Eldar wrote:
Anyway, Forgeworld quality varies greatly from time to time. My Decimator only came with some minor faults that could be easily fixed and re-fitted.

morgoth wrote:

And welcome to the ignore list. You know nothing about anything and you keep on running your mouth anyway. Whatever your JD scores may be, Mercedes > Ford, at every level.
There is no Ford car to compete with an SLS, and I don't think Ford has anything to match my C220.
Fiesta, Focus and S-max are poor quality cars for the poor, maybe above some of the worst like Fiat indeed, but not seriously contending with car makers from München.

Not sure if trolling, or if he has no clue what he's talking about.

All I'll add to this is the only other time I've seen this poster this active in a thread, it was over in Tactics where they argued that there wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with the Waveserpent in terms of game balance....




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morgoth wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

So who knows better: the FW sculptor (who gets paid to do this stuff) that says "titans take months to design and sculpt", or the random forum poster with no scratchbuilding experience who assumes it should only take a couple weeks because "that's how experience works"?

Tell you what: We'll make a bet.
If I can get someone to build ME an Eldar Titan with equal detail to the ForgeWorld ones, for say 3K€, you pay for it and I keep the Titan.
Just find a way to have that bet formalized and your money put on escrow, and I'll find a way to get that Titan for free.

Cool, I'll adjudicate, and if I deem the finished article to be a pile of gak, or consider it unsuitable for mass reproduction or contravene any of the other criteria which FW would need to consider that a one off, bespoke sculpt wouldn't have to take account of, Peregrine gets his money back doubled

Deal?

 Azreal13 wrote:
Deal?

Of course, if you throw in a free Lamborghini if I win, and you get a certificate of trustwothiness from HM, no problem.

 The Grumpy Eldar wrote:
Anyway, Forgeworld quality varies greatly from time to time. My Decimator only came with some minor faults that could be easily fixed and re-fitted.

morgoth wrote:

And welcome to the ignore list. You know nothing about anything and you keep on running your mouth anyway. Whatever your JD scores may be, Mercedes > Ford, at every level.
There is no Ford car to compete with an SLS, and I don't think Ford has anything to match my C220.
Fiesta, Focus and S-max are poor quality cars for the poor, maybe above some of the worst like Fiat indeed, but not seriously contending with car makers from München.

Not sure if trolling, or if he has no clue what he's talking about.

Both, quite possibly. They backed themselves into a corner by talking about car manufacture as if they knew anything, when they clearly dont.

Hell, they even had Mercedes in Munich...sure people in the huffhouse would be interested to know who theyre apparently working for now....

morgoth wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Deal?

Of course, if you throw in a free Lamborghini if I win, and you get a certificate of trustwothiness from HM, no problem.

WhY would I need to do anything of the sort? I'm just the judge, you're the one throwing around wild speculation you can't/won't back up with any sort of fact.

Just to provide some context, I know that Rob from Mierce mentioned in one of the Kickstarters that a single 28mm sculpt costs four figures GBP (around £1500 IIRC but not 100% of exact figure) from one of the top flight sculptors that they use. Even if one were to consider the FW sculptors are salaried, the sheer difference in man hours required would out your budget under pressure before you even start.

It wouldn't surprise me if you can find someone who can knock together a Titan that externally looks just as good for a few grand. I think getting someone who can sculpt the interior bits, pilots, etc and then turn it in to a silicone mould ready for casting resin parts, you might struggle to find someone capable of doing that willing to do it for so little money.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It wouldn't surprise me if you can find someone who can knock together a Titan that externally looks just as good for a few grand. I think getting someone who can sculpt the interior bits, pilots, etc and then turn it in to a silicone mould ready for casting resin parts, you might struggle to find someone capable of doing that willing to do it for so little money.

I don't think the interior bits would be that much of an issue tbh.
The titan is like sculpting a WTF scale miniature, the interior bits are more like sculpting a 28mm scale vehicle.

The silicon molds are another story though, I wouldn't be surprised to see someone asking another grand or two to make high quality reusable molds.
But then, that's not part of the IP, and that's something the Chinese have to do just as much as ForgeWorld.


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 Azreal13 wrote:
Just to provide some context, I know that Rob from Mierce mentioned in one of the Kickstarters that a single 28mm sculpt costs four figures GBP (around £1500 IIRC but not 100% of exact figure) from one of the top flight sculptors that they use. Even if one were to consider the FW sculptors are salaried, the sheer difference in man hours required would out your budget under pressure before you even start.

Really ?
A guy who sells miniatures telling you it costs a ton to make them ?
That sounds a lot like software vendors who tell me they put 40 man years in their product - never mind that their company did not spend a quarter of that on programmers.

You can't expect a miniature sculptor to be salaried tbh, the guy would have to churn 50+ miniatures a year to be kept busy full time, especially considering how so many of these miniatures are copy/paste in large part...


Point being: the "IP" of the original FW sculpts did not cost that much, and would not cost that much if it had to be re-created.
It's not the reason FW is expensive.

Morgot, I don't know where you're getting your info from, but miniature making for mass production is expensive as all hell.

And FW can't "copy/paste" parts as they do resin casting, which requires a physical master to make the mold, unlike plastic casting where a machine can create the steel mold needed from a computer input of what the sprue looks like.

That means all duplication is done by hand.

morgoth wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It wouldn't surprise me if you can find someone who can knock together a Titan that externally looks just as good for a few grand. I think getting someone who can sculpt the interior bits, pilots, etc and then turn it in to a silicone mould ready for casting resin parts, you might struggle to find someone capable of doing that willing to do it for so little money.

I don't think the interior bits would be that much of an issue tbh.
The titan is like sculpting a WTF scale miniature, the interior bits are more like sculpting a 28mm scale vehicle.

The silicon molds are another story though, I wouldn't be surprised to see someone asking another grand or two to make high quality reusable molds.
But then, that's not part of the IP, and that's something the Chinese have to do just as much as ForgeWorld

I'm not saying the interior bits are any harder to sculpt than a typical 28mm figure, I'm just saying that I imagine people who can sculpt models of the quality that FW puts out (opposed to just a random garage hobbyist who can knock together a plasticard titan) would probably charge you a decent amount of money per hour to do it. Maybe you could still find someone willing to do it for so little.


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 ClockworkZion wrote:
That means all duplication is done by hand.

Not strictly true. You often see models, metal and plastic alike and long before the days of CAD models, where the sculptor would make a master body, recast it, then use that as the basis for other models. You see it heaps where a certain model might have 9 variants, but it's actually the same 3 basic models just with different details.

EDIT: Actually I guess that's still by hand so maybe I'm just tired and talking out my backside But yeah, it's not like they're resculpting things, they just cast duplicates and modify them as needed.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Morgot, I don't know where you're getting your info from, but miniature making for mass production is expensive as all hell.

And FW can't "copy/paste" parts as they do resin casting, which requires a physical master to make the mold, unlike plastic casting where a machine can create the steel mold needed from a computer input of what the sprue looks like.

That means all duplication is done by hand.

What I mean is that a big part of the making a new master is not about making anything new.
The vast majority of FW's work is to make molds of conversions, and sometimes to make molds of scratch built.
Sure the Tau Manta's outside is largely original, maybe not the engines, maybe not the cockpit, maybe not ... surely not the insides, etc.
On Imperial vehicles the hull panels often don't seem to be original either, leaving not so much in the way of actual "sculpt from scratch" work.

Mr. Eldar Vampire Raider has a plan in his mind.
First, he gets a cast of any other Eldar thingy with a Pulsar.
Gets two pulsars, gets rid of the rest of the kit.
Then, he's like mhhh... what about a falcon's head ?
Takes a falcon sprue, the bits he likes, removes the rest.
Then he scratch builds the wings, sticks the falcon and pulsar bits on it, green stuffs around for texture, details and so on.

That's for a very special FW item.

How it works for - yet another - imperial FW item.

Gets standard guardsmen.
Sculpts new heads.
Sends to be made into a mold.

Gets standard guardsmen.
Adds MOAR SKULLZZZ.
Sends to be made into a mold.

Gets standard Leman Russ.
Sculpts a new gun.
Sends to be made into a mold.

Gets standard Imperial Knight.
Scratch build / sculpt new dickshield.
Sends to be made into a mold.

You do know they do a lot of original stuff that they can't base off other other models too, right? The Spartan Assault tank for instance, or any of their Titans. And I doubt they chop model kits apart like you claim. Especially since some of their products predate the plastic model kits.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
You do know they do a lot of original stuff that they can't base off other other models too, right? The Spartan Assault tank for instance, or any of their Titans. And I doubt they chop model kits apart like you claim. Especially since some of their products predate the plastic model kits.

Then they chopped the FW apart to create the plastic model kits Still a nice saving.

Is that Spartan Assault tank not almost a standard Land Raider ?

The titans, like the Eldar Vampire Raider, are part of those works where there had to be a lot more original sculpting yes.
But then, the imperial Titans aren't that detailed, a lot of the parts are just like one sheet of bent plasticard + rim + rivets, or just PVC tubing / ABS rods of various diameters.

I'm not saying it's not a lot of work though, I just don't think most of the imperial stuff would be hard to re-create or very time consuming, especially if you have heaps of standard models on hand, resin casting tools, ...

morgoth wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Just to provide some context, I know that Rob from Mierce mentioned in one of the Kickstarters that a single 28mm sculpt costs four figures GBP (around £1500 IIRC but not 100% of exact figure) from one of the top flight sculptors that they use. Even if one were to consider the FW sculptors are salaried, the sheer difference in man hours required would out your budget under pressure before you even start.

Really ?
A guy who sells miniatures telling you it costs a ton to make them ?
That sounds a lot like software vendors who tell me they put 40 man years in their product - never mind that their company did not spend a quarter of that on programmers.

You can't expect a miniature sculptor to be salaried tbh, the guy would have to churn 50+ miniatures a year to be kept busy full time, especially considering how so many of these miniatures are copy/paste in large part...


Point being: the "IP" of the original FW sculpts did not cost that much, and would not cost that much if it had to be re-created.
It's not the reason FW is expensive.

The ignorance you're showing at this point is really staggering.

For a start, nearly all of FW/GW's sculptors are salaried. That's what their design studios are comprised of, miniature sculptors, painters, authors etc who have sacrificed a percentage of their creative freedom and the rights to what they create in exchange for a regular, stable income.

Secondly, why on earth would I doubt what I was told by someone WRT the cost of production when all the figures they offer support that, and are in line with what other similar manufacturers do? Especially when I have some small personal experience in the area of artists and commissions and know that the figure given is neither unrealistically high nor uncommon, especially when you're talking about "celebrity" sculptors.

Regardless, how about providing some sort of evidence that supports your assertions rather than attacking the veracity of mine because reasons.



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Honestly, starting with an argument I fundamentally agree with and executing your points so badly that I end up taking the opposing standpoint to you is an especially splendid style of fail.

Congratulations.

morgoth wrote:
Is that Spartan Assault tank not almost a standard Land Raider ?

No, not really.

morgoth wrote:
The titans, like the Eldar Vampire Raider, are part of those works where there had to be a lot more original sculpting yes.
But then, the imperial Titans aren't that detailed, a lot of the parts are just like one sheet of bent plasticard + rim + rivets, or just PVC tubing / ABS rods of various diameters.

If you think just because the materials are simple that it makes construction simple there are a lot of scratchbuilders who will want your head.

morgoth wrote:
I'm not saying it's not a lot of work though, I just don't think most of the imperial stuff would be hard to re-create or very time consuming, especially if you have heaps of standard models on hand, resin casting tools, ...

I don't really think you get it all that much. There is a lot that goes on. We probably don't even see a third of the stuff they try. The failed prototypes, the things that don't cast properly, the kits that turn out to be too complicated to build...there is a lot of trial and error into producing everything. You really can't assume, based on the apparent complexity (or lack there of) in a model's design how long it actually took to make.

So the Spartan is just another Land Raider, but with different track units, sponsons, upper and lower hulls?

That tank shares so much with the Land Raiders I don't understand how you don't see it.
Scratch building that with an LR kit on hand would take maybe 25% of the time of doing it from scratch.

I know it's not easy to scratch build, I create stuff all the time.
Just saying, I believe it's a lot easier to make your own Imperial Titan than your own Eldar Titan from scratch.

I see a lot of failed prototypes that made it to production.

The revenant Titan with its collar mounted jetpack and ugly head, the Imperial ugly titans, Santa Grimnar, ...

Oh, and tracks.


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morgoth wrote:
That tank shares so much with the Land Raiders I don't see it.

I know it's not easy to scratch build, I create stuff all the time.
Just saying, I believe it's a lot easier to make your own Imperial Titan than your own Eldar Titan from scratch.

I see a lot of failed prototypes that made it to production.

The revenant Titan with its collar mounted jetpack and ugly head, the Imperial ugly titans, Santa Grimnar, ...

No goal post moving for you.

We are discussing the practical design and manufacturing aspects of the models, don't be moving it to aesthetics, where you'll then turn around and claim "you're allowed not to like a model."

Whether a model works from a technical view (can it be broken down into components and then mass produced and re-assembled by the consumer) has NOTHING to do with how the model looks or the design choices behind it.

 Azreal13 wrote:
So the Spartan is just another Land Raider, but with different track units, sponsons, upper and lower hulls?

Basically!

Oh, and I've been told multiple times that it's not technically a Land Raider.

morgoth wrote:
That tank shares so much with the Land Raiders I don't understand how you don't see it.
Scratch building that with an LR kit on hand would take maybe 25% of the time of doing it from scratch.

It has a different hull, different tracks, it's bigger, it's wider, has a different engine.....I don't know how you think it's nearly identical to a Land Raider unless you're thinking of the original Land Raider which hadn't been in product in nearly 20 years and is the wrong shape and size:

morgoth wrote:
I know it's not easy to scratch build, I create stuff all the time.
Just saying, I believe it's a lot easier to make your own Imperial Titan than your own Eldar Titan from scratch.

Even so, that doesn't mean it can't take a very long time to perfect that Titan kit.

morgoth wrote:
I see a lot of failed prototypes that made it to production.

The revenant Titan with its collar mounted jetpack and ugly head, the Imperial ugly titans, Santa Grimnar, ...

You're confusing "asthetics I don't like" with "a kit that has technical problems that would prevent it from being mass produced and sold".

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Oh, and I've been told multiple times that it's not technically a Land Raider.

You're confusing "asthetics I don't like" with "a kit that has technical problems that would prevent it from being mass produced and sold".

It's not technically a Land Raider, it just looks like one, acts like one, has the tracks of the old one, the forward assault door of the new one, side plates that look a lot like existing ones, sponsons that are nothing special, weapons that already existed, exhaust tubes that look like previous ones, etc.
But it's not a Land Raider, it's a completely different vehicle. I guess you need that kind of justification when you paid the full price for it.

I think you're disrespecting all scratch builders by pretending there's even remotely as much work in making your not-really-a-land-raider from land-raider bits compared to actually creating something from scratch (even if it's a replica of an existing model).

So no I'm sorry I'm not going to say: this must have taken months. Or even weeks. If your job is to build miniatures, you can surely assemble that in a day from existing parts and all that.
This is of course not the case for some other things, but that Land Raider ? come on.

Honestly I don't see why you're even arguing, the point is that GW / FW does not have any real IP costs that could justify their prices.
I don't see how you can argue against that.

GW had an operating income of 130M last year, do you really think one percent of that, 1.3M went into creating new sculpts ?? At the rate of professional sculptors, that would result in 3250 new models equivalent to a Primarch. They must be throwing a lot of failures AND successes away if that's true.

I'm telling you, the real share of IP in GW/FW is close to nothing, and it could hardly be different, because there's so much more to selling miniatures than just sculpting one new miniature.

What costs a ton however, is printing, packaging, marketing, shipping, more marketing, more and more marketing and more MOAR DAKKAAAAAA.

Anyway, I think you get my drift.

what moar marketing you chump.? seriously GW and marketing, your troll has surely come to an end.

there is no way for me to go and get the existing kits for a LR and make a spartan, they are just THAT different... its like saying a baneblade is the same as my glaive... totally different chasis. and thats only the starting point.

and what if we want to discuss are GW's profits from?how about the existing range? the SM kit for example. it works for them and i bet that they make MORE money from it than they would from a warhound each year. So yeah and as a business you wanna bet that they want to milk past expenses as far as they can. because guess what? every company does that. except GW unlike say Ford/Mercedes can sell a 20 year old sculpt as new and usable, so that keeps their yearly moneys ticking over..

I'm seeing that alot of people are desperately trying to justify costs for sculpting and cost for certain models.

This reminds me of when my city commissioned something like 6 million dollars to an unknown artist so that they could make a statue for our central park. Long story short, the tool artist spent over a year designing what literally looked like a snake piece of gak. He used poor quality materials on the thing too. People were pissed that it took so long to produce an ugly POS statue. They were not pro artists but most of the city folk understood that it was an abusive scam. The artist dissapeared to scam another city...

My point being is that you don't need to be a "pro sculptor or artist" to be able to give an estimate on how much time something should take to create or how much it should be worth. I do not believe it takes months upon months to sculpt. This is just commom sense. It should not cost thousands. Thinking that it takes months and thousands to complete shows that alot of people are out of touch with what a dollar is worth and what an hour is worth. Dont highball just to justify your compulsion to buy something.

As to the Spartan...yeah that may not be a LR, but it looks so similar to one that I think the ones who designed it were lazy.

 ausYenLoWang wrote:
there is no way for me to go and get the existing kits for a LR and make a spartan, they are just THAT different... its like saying a baneblade is the same as my glaive... totally different chasis. and thats only the starting point.

Then you're not really good at craft building.

It's friggin easy to go from LR to Spartan or baneblade to glaive.

 Vigilant wrote:
I'm seeing that alot of people are desperately trying to justify costs for sculpting and cost for certain models.

I'm not trying to argue that they're priced as well as they could be, I'm just think that some people greatly underestimate how much a model costs to make, and how long it takes to make it.

I'll also add that artists rip the public sector off for work all the time, and that it makes a poor comparison with the topic here.

Just two recent, local examples to me, hundreds of thousands were spent on a sculpture as part of a new road route near me, all it ultimately was was some rocks supported by a steel frame to hold them on edge, and a local university spending £150k on 7 (seven) chairs for their graduation ceremony because they're hand made (at least, I think that's the reason they're using to justify it)

As with any market, the suppliers will sell at the highest price they can, but add in the subjective nature, and not small amount of pretension, of the art market and you get anomalies like this.

The miniatures market isn't really comparable because miniatures aren't really art for arts sake, they are created to be sold on a commercial basis, and therefore their development costs need to be at a level where this is possible.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Vigilant wrote:
I'm seeing that alot of people are desperately trying to justify costs for sculpting and cost for certain models.

I'm not trying to argue that they're priced as well as they could be, I'm just think that some people greatly underestimate how much a model costs to make, and how long it takes to make it.

Pennies on the dollar. They may say it took them a gazillion man hours and thousands of dollars. The truth being it was probably significantly less. Things are overpriced because of branding. Thats what you are paying for. Dont sugarcoat it. Nike uses inferior materials but sell for as much or more than my all weather Tony Lamas, that are made from premium materials.

I understand that branding means alot and I'm okay with that. I buy the latest in tech, branding is not the issue. The issue is or was quality.

I think it'ssafe to say that branding is the real reason they command the price they have. It's official stuff. Not because it's hard to produce.

With FW I'd actually argue their pricing has to do with them expecting to sell lower numbers of models when compared to GW main and so they aim to recoup development costs over a smaller number than GW does.

That's just an assumption on part of why they price like they do. GW main on the other hand is a different beast.

Resin molds also degrade faster than plastic molds do as well IIRC. So once they make a set of molds there is only a limited time before they have to make a new set.

This is why sometimes seemingly random items will be temporarily listed as out of stock on the FW website. Its basically means they're making another mold set at the moment.

Yep, a resin mould degrades shockingly quickly. Takes a whole to redo.

I've noticed a distinct lack of evidence from.morgoth still. Nothing to substantiate their claims, just waffle.

Yeah well, if the chinese can make a Revenant Titan for $60 with shipping and make a profit on it, I believe FW is making huge profit on theirs (about $240).
And considering the price difference... the whole surface of the FW titan could be covered in Eldar runes, and four set of weapons provided, all flash and moldlines removed, and why not zenithal primed already.