"Plastic Figures" Topic

I just got my first Dust Tactics figures which are great. They are very nicely detailed but what got me was that they are cast as one piece that is cleaned, primed and mounted on the base! If they can do that why do other companies such as Perry, Wargames Factory etc. make us assemble everytning? I thought the plastic had to be cast as multiples because of undercuts or somethng?

I buy multipart plastics because they are multipart.

Yes, occasionally, I disagree with the way they are parted out and the pain of assembly. But I never have a clone army of Hoplites, either …

Dunno why you deleted that post, Timmo. Seemed entirely reasonable to me.

My own observation is that joining multi-part figures at the waist can be as problematic as joining them anywhere else – the torso can end up very strangely oriented to the pelvis, depending on what the two parts of the body are doing. Look at the Old Glory 28mm Plains War Indians for examples of what I mean, although these are metal figures.

Typically, arms only join shoulders properly at the angle the sculptor first set, certain heads fit only on certain shoulders, etc. Introducing real variation into a box of multi-part plastics is a major modelling project. Some gamers will want to do it, but many will not. I think that's one reason I see so many partly-built boxes of 'multi-pose' plastics at flea markets.

Dust Tactics aren't one piece; they're tooled on sprues and cut, preassembled and primed at the factory.

I've disassembled many Dust figures (converted lots to be ONI infantry for AT-43) and you can see the mold lines and sometimes where they were attached to the sprue originally.

I think it's because some people like to assemble and convert figures. Pre-assembled figures don't allow for much variety or customizability.

Zippy

I deleted it as I wasn't sure if I was being entirely fair. When plastics first hit the 28mm market I thought we'd see something like the 54mm figures Airfix offered for the 8th Army and DAK. There were enough parts to assemble six figures from a box and these really were multipose.

In essence the post I deleted expressed the view that I'm not convinced by some of the poses that result from the Perry plastic boxes and have noticed an awful lot of less than convincing arm/shoulder joins.

I had expected to buy the Mahdist box but was very disappointed as it only seems to give a rather odd leaning forward pose and is not really multi-part in the way I understand it. I also note that of most plastic Beja I've seen I'm less than convinced by the shoulder joins in areas of bare flesh. I thought this box would enable the gamer to assemble really wild charges of mass packed Beja that look like the drawings the war correspondents made at the time (see Osprey's Khartoum for examples) but that is not the case. In fact for me and it is only IMHO, the metals are rather better in that they actually seem to deliver more variety of pose at a price.

Introducing real variation into a box of multi-part plastics is a major modelling project.

I agree with the sentiment, but not this part of the argument. True, making a significant variation from the original matched pose requires more work than just positioning. But, say, if I have a line of longbowmen, it doesn't take much twisting and turning to make them look like they were trained together, but not cast from the same mold. Much easier (for me) than bending a bow arm at a realistic place while avoiding marring the sculpt.

It's till true enough that sometimes I wish my multiparts would put themselves together and other times I wish my solid figures would bend their elbows a bit…

I would suggest that cleaning, assembling and priming the figures before they go on sale adds to the price of the finished item… it also requires 'finishing' staff and the real-estate to do the work in (cleaning area and spray booth with all of the H&S requirements that go along with it ie extractor fans, additional medicals, protective equipment etc).

I would suggest that the process would be impractical for a lot of manufacturers and not cost effective.

Judge,
Okay I get that. Do you have a blog site where you show some of these activities?

Also I want to mix in some "normal" infantry and maybe other brands into my forces. But I want all the bases to match. Is there a source of the Dust Tactic bases "unpopulated"?

Why not cover over the molded bases, after putting them on stands of 2-3 figures? Many materials can be used to cover the existing bases, and blend them into the finished surface, which can be tapered to the edge of the base. Wall spackling (pre-mixed is much easier to use…) is probably one of the easiest materials to use to blend the bases together, and it takes paint well. Sand mixed with PVA Glue will work, as well. Cheers!

If I'm building a large number of models (say, 100odd Speeeehs Muhreeeens), I want to vary the poses as much as I can. Similarly, I try to make every (15mm) vehicle (or horse-cart) a bit different in terms of stowage.

There's nothing wrong with a limited number of poses if you don't have a lot of models (or are working with ranked figures), but I have a dozen or more converted Infinity minis, just for different poses or weapons.

I don't have a blog for it but here's a link showing some in the AT-43 ONI army

How many DUST bases do you need, I think I have extras