Metals and plastics

[Mako]

Since this keeps clogging up other threads, (and no one else seems inclined to make it) here's a place to debate which material you prefer. Remember, everything you say is only your opinion, and that applies to everyone else too, so please don't get defensive about disagreements.

I personally prefer resin as a material. Then plastics, then metals. I find metals to require a lot more prep time and assembly, even for medium sized pieces, involves pinning and messing about that plastics and resins don't need. I prefer the ease I can repose and convert plastics, and how my bag doesn't weigh a ton if I have several crews in it.

Plastics these days have detail that is easily close enough to metal, without the latter's common tiny surface imperfections (as a rule), so painting them is no different except in how well the paint avoids wearing or chipping (less pressure required to hold them due to less weight, I guess). While I still pick resin for pure detail, as neither material reaches that level, for a larger group of models plastic does me brilliantly well.

A further note: This is an academic discussion. I have had conversations with the guys at Wyrd, where the phrase "we're not making any more metal models" was used. That's not going to change. This is all about preferences, and giving this discussion a place to happen where it can roam freely.

[faeslayer]

Advantages of plastic miniatures:

-No pinning

-Plastic cement welds pieces together

-Lighter, allowing for more dynamic sculpts

-Paint is much less likely to chip

-Way easier to clean mold lines, convert, etc.

Advantages of metal miniatures:

-Can be traded or sold to obtain superior plastic miniatures

I love plastic, and Wyrd raised the bar with theirs, which are the best plastics I've ever seen (and the reason I'm getting back in!). So, I've thrown in my opinion.

[i_was_like_you]

A further note: This is an academic discussion. I have had conversations with the guys at Wyrd, where the phrase "we're not making any more metal models" was used. That's not going to change. This is all about preferences, and giving this discussion a place to happen where it can roam freely.

Is there a copy of EricJ's original blog post on the subject? As the blogs were shut down, the link to it from Nathan's post on Plastics and Special Editions that year goes nowhere.

Maybe having it on hand, stickied to the top of the Announcements threads, like I believe it used to be, could cut down on the beating of this particular dead horse.

[Phototoxin]

I like what they're doing with their plastics. There is more freedom for uber poses without them falling / needing pinning

[rsteelrose]

In the short 4-5 years I've been playing miniature games. These are the Things I've noticed.

I haven't worked in Resin at all, but the models I've seen have far better detail than any metal or plastic.

1- Weight- This is a good and bad as I see it. For shipping it could be a nightmare if you are shipping a lot of mini's in metal rather than plastic, but a metal mini has a feel to it that plastics just don't have.

2-Painting- I haven't notice a real difference in the way they hold paint, although I have had a lot of my metal models chip, I haven't handled my plastics enough for me to test them. But this topic brings me to my next point.

3-Cleaning- I recently decided to repaint my entire Khador Army and had to clean them. The metals came clean soooooo much easier than the plastics. I can see from this why people say the plastics hold paint better.

4-Detail- In this category I've noticed that metal mini's have a similar detail scale. I think that detail can depend on the company who makes the mini's, but in general, most metal used to make the models has a similar quality, texture and feel. Plastics on the other hand come in a wide variety. The difference in Wyrd's Plastics compared to GW's or PP's is very different. I haven't worked with GW's, but their plastics look like high quality. PP's on the other hand have some flaws and I think that this comes down to the type of plastic used. Its softer and therefore loses some detail when things get really small. So far I have painted 3 different Man-O-War Shocktrooper units, 1 metal, 2 plastic. While the outstanding larger details are better in the plastics, like spikes, heads, weapons and other things that stand out easily. The lower priority areas like feet, boiler grills and sometimes hands get a little fuzzy. I have yet to see one of my Wyrd plastics look bad.

That's my 2 cents.

[Mako]

Huh, that's a good point - cleaning plastics is a bit more of a pain, especially having to be more careful about the stuff you soak them in.

And there is a huge range of plastics, some good, some bad. I think you're right in that some are better, some worse than metals, and metal being more consistent as a general rule.

I guess I can count myself lucky that mostly I deal with Wyrd plastics these days, and those are pretty good in my eyes!

[Anaxiamander]

Is there a copy of EricJ's original blog post on the subject? As the blogs were shut down, the link to it from Nathan's post on Plastics and Special Editions that year goes nowhere.

Maybe having it on hand, stickied to the top of the Announcements threads, like I believe it used to be, could cut down on the beating of this particular dead horse.

I found a copy on the Wyrd Games Facebook page. I've placed it below; if Wyrd wishes to have it removed, I'll do so, though I can't think of a reason for that to happen.

July 31, 2012

From the Blog of Eric J.

Going Plastic

So, if you ever are in a place where you are making metal miniatures as a business, and you have the say those words "we should switch over to plastics" know that you have made a life changing decision. No, not like getting married or having children or even getting accepted to college or that dream job, but it will change things.

So lets go back about a month before those famous words. Here at wyrd central we were sitting and looking at the costs of our minis, the costs of metal, and getting more than a little upset about how the future looked. Straight to the point, the cost of metal has gone up nearly 80% in just the last 2 years, while the cost of our minis had gone up more like 20%, and with metal not slowing down any time soon, we were going to have to push through a rather significant price increase if we were to continue on like we were. Added to that was the fact that we just started producing Avatars which were bigger, heavier, and in all ways more metal than our standard minis. Something had to change!

So we start researching our options. Plastics, Resin, other metals, etc... Luckily we were in a position where we could see what a couple other larger companies had done before us, and largely we wanted to build and improve on the decisions we had seen them make. We knew why they made them, but we hoped we could do better.

So lets look at the options:

Alternate Metals - While we could maintain all our same processes (sculpting, molding, etc...), the price of alternates were going up just as fast, and in general, cheaper metal meant cheaper looking minis...VETO

Resin - Again, resin can be use with all our same processes. We have of course toyed around with Resin in some of our Avatars to keep their costs down, and with fairly satisfactory results, however we avoided any small pieces or complex molds, because of a number of issues that we found cropped up. Many of these issues have been widely publicized in the troubles certain other companies have had with resin minis. Combined with how toxic resin is, how easily it breaks, the fact that the price difference was strangely not that much different from metal... so veto.

PVC based plastic - VERY alluring because in a lot of ways we could still keep a lot of our same process, and while the up front costs are higher than metal we DO get out from under the weight (literally) of metal and those costs... The sticking point is quality here...sadly. Bendy, squishy, doesn't hold the detail well enough. Sadly - Veto

Polystyrene - We have now switched over to all new processes, digital sculpting, plastic injection moulding, etc... SCAREY! It's a big leap of faith to go ALL new when you actually have the old processes figured out. Unfortunately with the previous 3 options veto'd we knew this was our future. On the bright side, we get away from metal! So now comes the challenges:

How do we get these things digitally sculpted when all we've dealt with in the past are physical sculptors... Long story short - we do everything we can to find the best talent (notice I'm not giving away all the details here )

Next: WHAT TYPE of plastic, because it turns out there are a lot of options.

1) A basic standard level poly. This does the trick, holds detail rather well, is cheap. The downside is that it can melt in really hot cars, can bend and break rather easily

2) High Impact Poly. This is a step up from the basic. The plastic is denser, the molecules somewhat woven together to resist breaking, slightly higher melting point. All good things, but slightly more expensive

3) ABS. Now this stuff is even denser, with tightly woven molecules, extra sharp detail, significantly higher melting point, will be VERY hard to break and even when bent, remembers it's original shape. In a lot of ways it has a lot of the strengths of metal, combined with a lot of the advantages of plastic. Drawback - about twice the cost of standard poly

SO? What did we do? We picked ABS, and figured out a way to do it so that we wouldn't have to increase the price to you at all. In fact, not only do we not have to increase the prices now or in the near future, we can now create bigger, more intricate, more impressive pieces without the exponentially increases in cost due to the bulk of metal involved. Additionally it lets us give you a ton of options, alternate heads/arms/weapons without any increase in cost. Win!

If you are thinking (as I did), isn't ABS that stuff my drain pipe is made out of? The answer is yes. It's also the stuff Lego's are made out of, and if you've ever gotten the corner of a lego block in your heal, you KNOW if can hold sharp detail. And just look at that lego logo on the top of each little peg...detail! Of course with a slightly etched surface it's not the perfect reflective feel of lego, so it will hold paint just fine, don't you worry

Anyways, that's a bit about the process of the switch to plastics, and how we ended up at this place and the decisions involved. We knew when we switched, we had to give you all the best we could, in terms of sculpting and materials, as well as price. We're pretty proud of what we've accomplished, and I really hope you all really enjoy the results of our work. I have a desk full of these new models and I seriously can not wait to share them with you all!!

Enjoy! And I look forward to hearing more from all of you what you think.

If this isn't what you're referring to, I'm not really sure. That said, the immense increase in metal costs from even 2010-2012 makes the change to plastic make a great deal of sense, though the new mould costs for plastics is certainly a costly act. Kudos to Wyrd for putting in the work for a tough plastic, though (I've only really had any problems with my EBO mini, Lizzie Borden, and her tiny axe handle).

Edited October 23, 2013 by Anaxiamander
Forgot a note.

[i_was_like_you]

Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you, Anaximander.

Even from this post we're shown that they did their research, they weighed price options, and came to a conclusion that they felt was the best way to proceed. Even if you disagree with their decisions, you have to respect them.

Now, if only we could get them to research other shipping options...

[rsteelrose]

I would totally agree that Wyrd's plastics are the one of the best i've seen

[Tombanjo]

Resins are great for detail but have the same propensity for surface defects as metal, such as bubbles etc. I also thin that they tend to be more brittle, so they may be great for something you put on a plinth and showcase they are great, for gameplay that opens some problems, there is also a degree of hazard from working with them that you don't get from plastics.

Plastics are good for this gaming type of application, depending on the formulation they can be flexible enough to handle a little handling without shattering while carrying enough detailing to be acceptable to the current market.

What I haven't seen is anyone separating the material from the method. I think Resin and metal both used the old school analog sculpting process (I'm sure someone will correct me here) where an artist starts with a sketch and idea and creates and armature and sculpts to meet the goal, for example lets look at Ophelia. we want a badass perdita style gremlin, so we have a sketch, but we build a armature to support the sketch and sculpt from there, getting a stocky figure with proportions in line with the gremlin model. with the plastics comes digital sculpting, where the risk is you are starting with a digital armature off the shelf that looks like a human, you scale it to the gremlin size and proceed to deform it from there to match the idea of a gremlin sized perdita, but because it started with the stock human model it is a scaled and deformed human, not a gremlin from the skeleton out...so we end up with a long, thin legged scalled down human with gremlin features. This trap seems to be a concern that coupled with the plastics can affect the nature of the line

Dave

[RagingRodian]

The problem here is the vagueness of the question, you have to ask what material is better in what context. This is also why there was no real desire to make a seperate thread concerning materials during other threads- you need that context to give a real answer. Why restart a discussion in the vacuum of a "I like metal no I like plastic" thread?

Think about it. What are you trying to make out of the material? Are we talking from a casting/mold making perspective? As a medium to sculpt for? As something to just stick together to game with if you don't care about painting? For resell/investment potential? Looking at it from a local economy vs outsourcing angle? For the relative heft it has in your hand? How well it stands up to abuse? What kind of turnaround time you have between concept and ability to sell? How cheap it is? How expensive it is to make a mold for? Whether you have to assemble it and how easy is that assembly? The overall quality of the finished castings? How it looks in blister packs or boxes while on a retail shelf?

[odinsgrandson]

I find it a little odd that no one is speaking here about the different kinds of metals, resins and plastics that we see in miniatures right now.

And for me, it really makes a difference what they're doing with it.

For example, Wyrd really love those long thin pieces with tiny joins, and they don't mind making even a small mini come in a dozen or more pieces. So their very hard plastic is the way to go (a bendier plastic wouldn't work for them).

On the flip side, Studio McVey is doing some wonderful things with their line of Limited Edition Resin miniatures. The detail that Yanick Hannebo and JAG sculpt for them is actually greater than what would cast in other materials, so resin is absolutely the way to go there.

I find that GW's move toward resin to be uninspired- largely because their resin has more flaws in it than other companies, but also because their miniatures aren't more detailed than their metal counterparts. There is simply no gain here.

Anyway, there's a lot more to be said about the plastic that Privateer Press, Coolminiornot and Reaper are using, but I'm already feeling long winded.

[Nathan Caroland]

[RagingRodian]

Any day that includes a cartoon of a guy beating a dead horse is going to be a good day!

[Dracomax]

You know, this would be a lot more applicable if a full seventh of your models weren't invested in raising the dead...

Also, this guy says hi...