"Vendors: Post a Pic of Your Source Material " Topic

It's a delight to see the number of different periods and ranges that are now marketed. But with this upbeat fact, there is a downbeat caveat.

There are periods/wars that offer collectors limited (if any) information concerning the colour and cut of uniforms, and the kits and weapons used by soldiers.

Wouldn't manufacturers benefit in posting images pertinent images for customers? Moreover, wouldn't it be great if they could cite source material that hobbyists could find on there own?

Yes, I'm suggesting a color-by-the-numbers for novices of an epoch… to get them started. Several wars interest me, but I'm readily aware that access to archives, etc., isn't feasible. The guys sculpting the figs are referencing something! Help us out and it's guaranteed such information will increase your sales.

What do the rest of you think?

Mike MacGillivray

Even if you can't post images (they may be copyrighted after all) a bibliography would be easy enough to do…

One nice thing about the Askari Miniatures website is that they do something like this, providing illustrations for use as a painting guide. link
A slightly wierd feature is that you have to go through the sales program and "Buy" the painting guide for $0 USD USD. However, I've done it a couple time, and the system doesn't go wierd on me and insist on my credit card number or give me grief about not actually spending money there.
Grelber

By vendor, I assume that you mean the manufacturer. In the USA these are different. SOme manufacturers will be vendors at some shows and small operations may sell their product at other shows.

In regards to source material for sculpts, that will be a different process for many companies.

A. Some, a very few, sculptors own the casting company and may do their own rresearch but others will sculpt what others want. In these cases the 'sponsor' will provide guidelines and maybe some pictures. The casting company will not know the source.

Part 2 of examples.

B. The casting company may use a contract sculptor and a sponsor which is what process was used for the Three Kingdom Koreans 15mm that I had sculpted by Quartermater. I provided pictures from various museums and books for the poses I wanted but I had no control over the final product. The sponsor is just that and has no further input as to casting operations.

C. The sculptor may be in house to the company and sculpt what they want. OR the sculptor will be a contract person located in a different State or country. (My sculptor for War Eagle Designs is in Canada.) I send him pictures and other material but he uses his artistic abilities to produce a product.

D. For War Eagle Designs, The casting company is located in a State different than I am. He simply sends me the number of pounds in castings that I order. Most of my sculpts are based on material that I have gathered, in addition to my magazine articles in Time Portal Passages, there will be museum sites and other pictorial exaamples which I think will assist the sculptor. Some of these may be available to many gamers but not all. (Dissertations and Thesis paers are hard ones to be able to examine.

E. i know a few companies owned by people who are not into researching. They tell the sculptor what they want and it is up to them to do the research and prodcue a product. I have also sold a number of books to sculptors to use as source material. So the casting manufacturer will not know the source material used by the sculptor.

Hi, Mark.

For a time, I wrote congressional reports on East and South Asian countries violating U.S. media copyrights. All for stiff-arming copyright infringement.

Thanks for the link, Gelber. Askari's way of offering painting information is right on target.

Rudy, thanks for the comments. I appreciate there are a number of ways miniature manufacturers operate. I'm not, however, addressing what's being done, but rather, what might be done in future. Your Three Kingdoms 15's are an excellent example of a product that should benefit from painting info. being available at point-of-purchase. And… I'm not suggesting this info. should necessarily be free.

As to how the information's transmitted (webpage, insertions, etc.) is wide-open and needn't be expensive.

The majority of us spend more time and money – upfront – on uniform books and research, than on studying the nature of war during a period. It's backwards.

Hope there'll be more input. Cheers!

Ironically the painting information for my #-kingdom Koreans and Sahel was available before the casting were. LOL!

I included painting data in those magazine articels when I put them in Time Portal Passages.