"@[& 25/28 miniatures (A RANT)" Topic

I started with 25mm. Had lots of one piece castings. The figures started to come in multiple pieces. Damn, one more step before putting them on the table. Now it seems like most all I buy come multi piece. At first the arms had pegs which went into holes in the body. OK, they glued well but it was still an extra step. Now it seems like the makers are too lazy for this. The arms, or heads, or torso have a flat surface which matches another flat surface. You cant just glue them. Now you have to pin them. One piece figures can be made with good poses and I dont need an infinite number of poses which the multipart figures in many instances dont allow anyway. After you assemble a couple dozen and paint them you put them on the table and guess what? Oh! look, an arm, rifle, whatever just fell off. GRRRRR.

Has every Tom,Richard, and Harry got into the sculpting business with limited casting abilities that cause this? I just got some new figures and after looking at the work involved in assembly am going to put them on eBay.

Guess maybe it is time to convert to smaller figure scales which seem to have less of this nonsense involved.

Al

Amen to that Al. I agree 100%. Try assembling 40mm Huron Indians that have separate heads, torsos AND separate powder horn and shot bags!!!

Absoluutely worst "25/28mm" figures had to be the Khemri Blood Bowl team.
They simply cast in metal all those fiddly plastic parts, and then added a few.
So, I had to connect the hip bone to the thigh bone… I was not singin' "Now hear the word of the Lord!" after that. I never finished them.

I never minded gluing spears to open hands, but that was just ridiculous.

Sculptors need to remember that super glue is not really instantaneous, and that "kicker" gives a very fragile bond.

But 'dem bones connected by j.b. weld last forever…

Iowa Grognard,

I wish it were so but I have had mixed results with j.b. weld too. Ive tried just about every adhesive on the market and still find some inconsistencies in the results. Doesnt seem to be anyway to judge what will or wont work in a specific instance either. Anyway, no matter what the adhesive you still have those extra steps of glueing and pinning which takes a lot of time I would rather use for gameing.

Al

I don't know what caused this but looking at the manufacturers that are doing multi-part figures, I'd say it has ZERO to do with "limited" casting ability. Looks to me like the opposite is true.

Maybe what caused it is the demand from people who were tired of cutting metal to reposition arms, do head swaps, etc.

War Crow's figs are really difficult too.
Real small appendages and you have to glue the arms 'just right' so they work with what the other arm is doing.

Too much glue and you loose all the details, and too little glue lets the arm break off when you LOOK at it.

Ditched most of them from my collection. Bummer too. Really great looking figs.

Cincinatus,

Im not sure of the cause. Your hypothesis has as much chance of being correct as mine does. I have noted a big increase in the availability of heads, torsos, shoulder pads, etc. for conversion projects. I just think that scuptors should make figures for wargaming that are durable and if they need to be multipart easy to assemble. I have a bunch of the old Metal Magic Spacelords figures. Most are one piece with some two piece figures. They offered all the poses I need. Make wargame figures. I doubt that there are many of us gamers out to enter golden demon competitions or have armies with dozens of poses.

Al

The arms, or heads, or torso have a flat surface which matches another flat surface. You cant just glue them.

This is why I don't use plastic 28mm either. I don't have the time in my life for to assemble them, and then I have to putty the seams.

BTW the 'multi-pose' thing is a joke. Changing a guy's arms by 10-degrees up or down does not create a "new" pose.

Companies make figures that they think will sell in the market place. I guess if some companies are offering extra heads then they must think that there is a demand for them.

When I get around to releasing American dragoons in my AWI Fife & Drum range, I will probably offer one head type cast onto the figure and also offer a sprue of heads for anyone who wants to make conversions. There are something like 5 different headgear for American dragoons in the AWI, yet you don't need very many dragoons in AWI games as they were largely used for scouting and screening (i.e. things that did not happen during the battle).

If assembling figures is such a pain, then what explains the profusion of hard plastic figures in the market? Cost, I guess.

Personally, I don't like to assemble figures as I would rather clean them up, prime them and then start painting. Assembling heads, arms, legs and equipment is a long and avoidable step.

Changing arms like that may not create a new pose (depends on the definition) but what it does is allow a unit of these guys to look similar but not identical. For some of us that's a huge distinction. Plus it allows for building of different unit types out of the same box which seems a win-win for everyone (manufacturer and consumer).

I understand the benefits don't outweigh the costs (assembly time and durability) for some. You guys are free to not buy the figures. If enough people feel the same way, the multi-part figures will stop being released but just anecdotal evidence suggests they sell well enough to show there's a market for them. Seems to me it just makes the options better.

Allen57,

Neither here nor there in regards to people wanting more or less bitz for their minis, but I'm sorry to hear about your mixed results with JB, as it has yet to let me down in small or large scale. To be clear though, I don't often use Kwik and I still use it in concert with my regular practices.

In the end there are plenty of one or minimal part minis for most periods. You get what you choose to buy after all.

I understand the benefits don't outweigh the costs (assembly time and durability) for some. You guys are free to not buy the figures. If enough people feel the same way, the multi-part figures will stop being released but just anecdotal evidence suggests they sell well enough to show there's a market for them. Seems to me it just makes the options better.

I think the fear is that these become standard or the majority, just as plastic seems to be heading. Folks can choose, but as my son always says: "People will eat the garbage they are fed." Usually, he uses that with entertainment.

I don't disagree with that phrase in the context of entertainment options but that hardly applies to this situation.

I understand that it can be frustrating to see your favorite manufacturers only releasing things this way but overall I think the fear is unfounded.

Are you doing fantasy or historical. I can't say I have encountered many multi-piece historicals yet. A few, mostly have to add the head. Hover, I am with you. I don't want to fiddle with that stuff at all. If I know I figure has to be put together I don't buy it.

I started wargaming in larger scale (1/35th) after I grew out of unpainted Airfix figures. At the time the only thing available were model figures which had a ton of parts to customize. Did not have a problem then do not have one know. There are still plenty of 25/28mm figures that are one piece castings. I wish a lot more figures (ACW for example) came with different heads. Dixon did that on thier range, and in 40mm S&S has seperate heads for almost all the figures. Works well for me.

VR
James Mattes

I like the plastics and some limited swaps make sense – see the hasslefree figures that give you a choice of weapon hands.
I keep a dremel at my painting/prep desk, but would rather not have to pinevery figure I am prepping. I usually paint in batches of around 20 and 20 pinning jobs * number of joints gets real tedious

Don't presume that going to a smaller scale is always the answer.I still can't believe that Old Glory 15s sell phalangites/pikemen that require the customer to drill holes in their hands. Do you think this might have impacted sales?

My AWI standard bearers require a hole to be drilled through the hands, but the figure has a deep dimple to guide the hand drill. Also, if asked, I will drill the hands for the customers if they are not comfortable doing this themselves.

Why complain? If you don't like the newer, multi-part models nearly all the old single piece castings are still available.
You don't have to assemble Warlord's models, you can still get the same single piece castings form Essex and Minifigs that you could all those years ago.

Well seems some people like the modelling aspects of the hobby and some dont, best thing is for makers to give the customer the choice really. Easy to do a couple of different bodies and say 4 heads and assemble them for the production mould and there you are,variations and no assembly.
The point of flat surface to flat surface well made, thats grim, no excuse I can think of not to have pins and holes moulded on to make life easier and no real excuse for poor fit either, I do it in 6 and 10mm scale so 25's a doddle once you workout the differential shrinkage of parts.
L

Hate putting those together. I like my Zulus with attached shields and my horses with attached riders. Just me…

I usually research figures before buying. Unfortunately when I purchased the figures that started my rant I could find nothing that showed them to be multi part with the mentioned flat surfaces where the parts went together.

Agree about the like or dislike of the modeling aspects of the hobby. I do some scratch stuff but really just want to get some paint slapped on and move to the tabletop.

The figures by Essex and Minifigs were never sculpts I like. I disagree thoughabout the availability of the older one piece figs. Better one piece castings seem to me to be becoming rare.

I actually like multipart figs, but it looks like I might not be in the majority. I don't pin, but I've yet to find a foot soldier sized figure part that Rubberized Superglue (Gorilla "impact tough") preceded by a brief scoring of the attaching surfaces doesn't hold in place well.

The simple fact is that wargames figures are going to be handled many, many times and not always gently! They have to be robust and durable and in the main, multipose figures are not designed for wargaming, period. Each joint is a weak point and no glue will be sufficiently strong enough without pinning to survive the rigours of the hobby. Some manufacturers try to keep weapons "to scale" and the result is bent and broken bayonets, rifles, etc and I still wince when I see standard bearers,spear and pikemen cast as a one-piece. We've all been in a game and inwardly curled up , even if the figures are not our own, as shields, lances, flags and various other appendages fall off altogether or are bent at 45 degrees through everday handling, never mind falling on the floor. God bless the figure designers who "get it" recognise that their wares will be handled.

From a Production managers point of view, multi-piece figures are a complete pain in the butt, logistically they can be a nightmare and costings-wise they work out more expensive and i get less in the mould. From a painters point of view i dont like them either as i hate assembling them but i can see from the sculptors persepctive why they are made and from a business decision why Kev makes them.

I watch Kev work most days, if he sculpts a simple single-piece static pose then he gets moaned at for working within the restraints required for single-piece metal castings. These restraints arent set down by him, they are the way figures need to be made in order for the metal to flow into all of the areas with minimum miscasts….even a slight wrong angle on the face may mean chins or noses dont get cast. He is a victim of his own success, the fine detailing he puts onto his sculpts means it is easy for this detail to get lost or obscured if cast wrong.
To add variety to his sculpts and make them more dynamic (bowing to customer demand usually) he has to cut them so that each piece will lay within the mould and cast cleanly. Mostly he cuts along natural breaks made my clothing (wrists, collars etc) which will make it easier to line things up. Sometimes he cant do that and this then leads to flat joints on some of the more delicate figures.

He hates cutting figures up almost as much as i hate assembling them but unfortunately it seems to be a neccessary evil in order to give people what they want.

Well I rather like building models: I prefer it to painting! But i quite like painting too…