Why no painted miniatures? Or even miniatures?

[DangerousBeans]

Hey all,

Sorry if this has been brought up elsewhere but how come Wyrd are just showing the 3d renders instead of the actual miniatures? And before anyone says it, no they're not the same. I've noticed a considerable amount of detail loss comparing the actual, physical miniatures to the virtual renders.

Photos of even the unpainted, but assembled, miniatures would be much welcomed.

[Tuesday]

The best answer I've seen is "They're really busy right now, and it'd cost too much/take too long to get painted pictures up with the new plastics."

I'm a bit disappointed, personally, since I like to see what a figure will look like with some color on it, and if the details (especially now that they're so fine) will even stand up to multiple coats of paint. And right now it seems I'd have to wait for the release, shipment, arrival and for someone else on the board to open/paint theirs up just to find out whether I really want to work with it enough to buy one.

(Also, the last batch of metal minis released at Gencon never got miniature pictures, either-- which is even closer to buying blind because how do we know what parts of the picture actually got sculpted-- or even what the faces look like in three dimensions? There was a lot more fire on the Colette avatar than I expected.)

I'm probably just picky, though. I know it's not that big a deal in the long run.

[notmikehill]

A lot of the reason that figures were no longer being painted and displayed were due in part to the fact that players disliked the colors on the figures. The alternate Viktoria's and Pale Rider come to mind. All very good sculpts and nice figures, however the paint on them was considered less than satisfactory.

[Tuesday]

I never understood that. If you don't like the colors, you can change them. That seems like a major point of selling unpainted miniatures. You just use the company shots to figure out how pronounced the detail is and what strap goes where on the miniature in your hand.

[Mako]

I think the problem stemmed from the combination of photography and painting. Between both of those, you can totally change how a sculpt looks. Wyrd got a load of abuse for releasing 'rubbish' models which people then said were nice but painted wrong, or painted nice but photographed wrong.

With the switch to digital sculpting, they have instant high quality images of what they're producing that don't have to suffer the variability of photo and paint. It cuts down on the costs of getting things painted and photographed, and avoids the bitching on the forum about the paint job making the model look bad, or the photo being rubbish.

Except of course now they get complaints that they don't have photographs of painted models. They can't win...

[Mister Shine]

I think its twofold: first with the 3d renders they can put it up and say "in 2 months we have this coming up!" as they continue the manufacturing process. Where as before you have to wait for the paint job, make the cards with that image then get that printed, adding more points where delays can occur.

Second, as notmikehill pointed out, the paint job can turn people off. I think a great example is wicked dolls. I HATED the model, I thought they looked like goofy $$$$$$$$$$$$. I was on the verge of not buying the model. Two snips and a brown scheme took them from this

http://wyrd-games.net/shop/images/P/p-16651.jpg

to something I was muchmuch happier with

http://i.imgur.com/tpuLJ.jpg

[Neil of Orange]

I don't see why we cant have the 3D render, the unpainted minis and painted minis shown - but even the unpainted minis would be an improvement.

Big fan of seeing the physical detail, the colour schemes represented by painting and the excellent basing ideas normally shown on the previous incarnations of releases.

[Tuesday]

I think the problem stemmed from the combination of photography and painting. Between both of those, you can totally change how a sculpt looks. Wyrd got a load of abuse for releasing 'rubbish' models which people then said were nice but painted wrong, or painted nice but photographed wrong.

With the switch to digital sculpting, they have instant high quality images of what they're producing that don't have to suffer the variability of photo and paint. It cuts down on the costs of getting things painted and photographed, and avoids the bitching on the forum about the paint job making the model look bad, or the photo being rubbish.

Except of course now they get complaints that they don't have photographs of painted models. They can't win...

I understand the cost and delay argument. Especially with the RPG and plastic conversion chaos on their plate right now, Wyrd can't be expected to get everything we want done on time unless they streamline things a bit.

But really, if people are complaining about painted models wouldn't a good solution be to take a picture of the mini before you paint it and throw that up in the announcement post/store page? I'm not sure what expense or added time that would incur, and it's probably more than I'd expect, but there. Both parties get what they want, instead of one being satisfied at the cost of another, so that Wyrd 'can't win'.

Of course, it's a moot point now (since the plastic rendering-molding process is so much different from the metal sculpting one), so I may as well hush up and get used to it. :1_Happy_Puppet1: It's one of very few drawbacks of the plastic fantastic for me, anyway.

[ork56]

I think that they should hold off showing renders as imho they are not properly representative of a finished mini.

When the mini is cast it can then be shown painted or not, I dont mind. I do agree it seems a little short-sighted of people to 'not like the colours' its not a PPP game after all.

[Mako]

But really, if people are complaining about painted models wouldn't a good solution be to take a picture of the mini before you paint it and throw that up in the announcement post/store page?

Unfortunately, photographing the raw unpainted sculpts (or the greens for that matter) can be just as bad. Remember the hate that candy from aPandora got? Photos from a different angle made it look almost like a different model. The digital ones can be spun until they look right on screen much easier than getting a photo that doesn't have perspective problems. The only way to do it and make everyone happy is to have renders, unpainted and painted models for everything. But having seen a friend of mine prepare photographs for his own range, the amount of work involved in doing that would be staggering.

Don't get me wrong, I like seeing painted stuff. But I don't assume they're accurate until I see the model in the flesh these days, since its so hard to get good shots. I just take the renders with the same pinch of salt and don't really worry about it.

[Tuesday]

But when the renders are so unrepresentative of the models they turn into, it becomes an issue again. None of my plastic minis so far have been near as defined as they appear in the renders. Sometimes the gap between two pieces has more depth than the sculpted-in clothing overlaps (shirt to jacket, etc) right next to it. I can take minis with a grain of salt, but softened detail is apparent at any angle. And speaking of the angle thing-- we only see the renders at one angle, anyway. Who's to say that couldn't be chosen poorly or deceptively any more than a photo could be?

Maybe I just don't get it, I don't know. I'm probably assuming there's less work involved in taking pictures of miniatures for a company than there really is. I just don't like being shown a sharply-defined render at high magnification and having to fly with it and hope that the finished product will actually contain all that glorious plastic detail.

[Mako]

It's a bit of a pain really, isn't it! Nothing actually represents the model truly, except for holding it in your hands. By which point it's rather late to find out it's not what you want!

But no image of any sort is ever perfect, so I can't say I blame Wyrd for using the renders they already have rather than going through the hassle of photos and paintwork.

The only difference between the angle of a photo and of a render is the ease that you can spin the render on any axis to give you the best view. Photos you have to reposition, readjust the focus and lighting, retake the shots, reedit them, and so on. Renders you scroll the mouse a bit and it swings the model round!

[i_was_like_you]

But when the renders are so unrepresentative of the models they turn into, it becomes an issue again. None of my plastic minis so far have been near as defined as they appear in the renders. Sometimes the gap between two pieces has more depth than the sculpted-in clothing overlaps (shirt to jacket, etc) right next to it. I can take minis with a grain of salt, but softened detail is apparent at any angle. And speaking of the angle thing-- we only see the renders at one angle, anyway. Who's to say that couldn't be chosen poorly or deceptively any more than a photo could be?

Maybe I just don't get it, I don't know. I'm probably assuming there's less work involved in taking pictures of miniatures for a company than there really is. I just don't like being shown a sharply-defined render at high magnification and having to fly with it and hope that the finished product will actually contain all that glorious plastic detail.

Regarding the gaps, are you using superglue or plastic cement to assemble your plastic models? Although some of the gaps are bigger than expected, using plastic cement tends to give it a seamless fit, as it melts both pieces together.

So far I have been impressed with the level of detail on some models (like Kang's mustache), but I've found the detail to be lacking in other models (like Hungering Darkness being far smoother than the render would lead one to believe).

Another thing I've noticed, comparing models to their renders and / or stat card art, is that they're reversed. It's not a big deal, but it is a discrepancy.