"Will Scale Creep Affect 10mm?" Topic

The other day I was working on some of my old Heritage 15mm "Confederettes" from the 1970's and was struck by how small they are compared to the current crop of 15/18mm figures. They're really a bit smaller even than true 15's, probably actually closer to 12-14mm. That being the case, and given the current rage for 10mm's, I was left wondering whether the tendency for "scale creep" will eventually affect the latter, and leave us with 10mm's that aren't that much smaller than those old 15's from 40 years ago. Any thoughts?

Kallistra are already bigger,but maybe they weren't intended as "tens" anyway. Perrin 10s are the smallest I have, four of their WWII figs will fit comfortably on a 20mm square base,but only three Minifigs.

One thing we're likely to see,in fact are probably already seeing,is "detail creep". This is what happened with 15mm. The earliest figs were almost "recognition models" faces often an oval with a bump in the center. One of the selling points was lack of detail made painting easier. Now you can spend as much time on one as on 25mm.

Right now bogie wheels on some tanks are circles with a bump in the center. How long is that likely to last?

The same thing happened with micro armor.

It already has!

10-15 years ago, when 10mm figures first really hit the scene, the norm was slightly smaller and slimmer figures, like the old Perrin and GHQ figures, that could be based on a 5mm frontage. Nowadays, 10mm figures are most commonly 12mm or N Scale, i.e. 10mm to the eyes and with a per figure width of 6-7mm. Pendraken has the biggest overall presence in 10mm, and has led they way in this – admittedly improving detail and sculpting as well – but new companies like Good Ground ACW have shown that you can stick with the smaller 10mm end of the scale and still produce amazing figures.

Kallistra is just a scale unto itself … no idea why they do what they do.

Cheers,

Christopher

Hopefully there won't be any creep, as it reduces the option to mix and match from different manufacturers. Some of our older ranges were what you might call 'True 10's in that they were 10mm to the top of the head, but they were very slight figures and the detail was usually lacking.

Everything we've done in the last 15 years at least has all been 10mm to the eye, usually 11.5mm or thereabouts to the top of the head. All of our sculptors now work from the same sized dollies for most of their work so the figures are almost all the same size. There'll always be odd ones here and there that might be a little taller/shorter/bulkier, but never enough to make them look out of place.

One exception has always been our Fantasy ranges, which were originally sculpted by a different guy and were a little bigger, being somewhere between 12-14mm to the top of the heads.

The vehicles are now all scaled to 1:150th as well, to fit in with either of the N-Scales (1:144th or 1:160th), allowing folks to look at the railway markets for buildings and scenic items.

On the Kallistra sizing, I'm fairly sure it's because they originally licensed our Fantasy ranges to sell on strips. They then added a Human/Medieval range to match and then subsequent ranges have followed suit.

If I can remember correctly, difficult at my age, Warmaster figures were marketed as 10mm. Most of the ones I have vary quite a bit but some are clearly not 10mm.

Was their ever a true 10mm sized figure?

So,Leon Pendraken,you admit this is all your fault! Very clever.
I have some of your figs,but admit that I'm averse to handling hundreds of single 10mms. A personal quirk,but I prefer strips,especially as I cheat on painting.

But if OG has given up on 10s,as seems likely,I may have to resign myself to fiddling with multitudes of SYW Russians.Getting them to fit on the same base sizes is going to be a b-a nightmare. I can get 30 OG(double rank)on a three inch base. C'est Le guerre.

Just don't make them a more detailed than they already are!

Never quite got the idea of less detail equals quicker painting. No it deosn't, its not the amount of detail that matters but how its done and the painting technique used on it. Good detail well made makes painting faster and the finished result that much better. Problem is so many use the black primer method of painting and that just takes so much more time and complexity and personally I think acrylics are much harder to use and require more skill. Lack of detail just makes it harder to produce something acceptable if you ask me.
Hafen von Schlockenberg lengths of dowel rod and sticky fixers are the answer to your problem of using Pendrakens great stuff.
L

I always stick 15mm and below on popsicle(or "lolly")sticks for painting with a hot glue gun,tongue depressors for 25mm.

I spray prime first,though, to ensure good coverage. 100 figures are 100 "things";100 strip figures are 20 "things". Assuming no cleanup,which I've found unnecessary on either OG or Pendraken, that's 300 "handlings" vs 60 (have to turn each "thing" over once during priming),just to get them on the sticks for painting. Then there's popping them off the sticks,another 100 "handlings" vs 20. A strange calculus,you may say,but I've been accused of strange thoughts before!

Then comes the really fun part I alluded to above: getting the single castings to fit in the same shoulder-to-shoulder density and same frontage as the strip figures. And stand up while they dry. A challenge. I think I've see one person who does this,everybody else spaces them as they do with 15s or 25s. Perfectly reasonable, and certainly less expensive--fewer figures for the same frontage. But not an option if you already have one side on strips, not without major anomalies. And the density and mass effect is what drew me to 10mm, anyway.

I guess the question is one of attitude: are 10s smaller 15s, or larger 6s? If the former,it seems natural to look at them individually. But I tend to the latter perspective--imagine if Baccus were all cast as single figures!

I'd be very interested in how other people approach the problem.