Hi guys,
With the rising costs of tin etc currently experienced worldwide, it got me thinking. How does this affect the long term future of Pendraken as well as other figure manufacturers? I understand GW are rethinking there metal figure strategy possibly in favour of resin. Are things looking bleak for the hobby or will it become a renaissance for us all? What do you think?

I've been wondering about this too. I'd say larger scales would be in trouble first though. 10mm is still a very economic way to collect figures.

Am I right in assuming that resin is a non starter for stuff below 28mm?

I remember when Heartbreaker (think that was their name) Release a range of 10mm fantasy minis in plastic for their soon to be released mass battle game for Chronopia, but GW released Warmaster first and Heartbreaker (?) dropped their release. However, there were some 10mm plastice out in the world for a few brief moments and they looked awesome.

I think 10mm and 6mm will survive the metal crunch for a while. I think converting to plastic equipment to do 10mm or smaller is still too expensive.

Quote from: Blaker on 09 April 2011, 07:21:48 PM

I think 10mm and 6mm will survive the metal crunch for a while. I think converting to plastic equipment to do 10mm or smaller is still too expensive.

Yep, exactly. Resin woyuld be far too slow for mass production. Plastic seems to be the way forward eventually, although small figures just wouldn't have the weight and "heft" of their metal bretheren. Besides, metal price fluctuations tend to be temporary, and even when they are not people adjust. By rights motorists should have given up on petrol long ago, but have they?   

Everyone's feeling the pinch at the moment, with the metal around 50% up on this time last year.  I don't know if the prices will be dropping anytime soon either, as the Chinese are still stockpiling it as far as I know.

As to who would struggle first, it's a double edged sword.  28mm manufacturer's are in a better position initially, as there is a much greater profit margin in 28's.  But then as those bigger figures get more expensive to the customer, folk will in theory start looking to the smaller scales for their gaming, so long-term, I'd hope that 10mm would have a bright future.  We're also in a slightly stronger position as everything in the catalogue is manufactured by us, so no contract casting fees, no mould making bills, etc.

Plastic could be an option, but with initial costs for a box of plastics around the £50k mark, it's not something many people would have the funds to do.  Resin wouldn't be feasible at this scale either.

It's a bit of a nightmare all-round really - but you still won't catch me buying resins / plastics where I can get metals...and, with my only point-of-reference for plastic 10mms being BoFA, they're not a patch on metals...

As long as the plastic 10mm figs don't come in 28 fiddly pieces the need to be glued together...

Bought 4 boxes of 28mm Perry WotR figs last year and lost the will to live having to glue the damned things together.  Didn't even finish the first box before giving up...

Long live metal figures i say.  You keep casting 'em and i'll keep buying 'em.   

Resin costs have gone up as well. They deteriorate moulds very, very quickly, with say twenty shots out of a mould being good. They are also relatively slow to turn around. At smaller scales, say 15mm and below, they would be far too brittle with rifles and legs breaking very easily.

As for plastics, dead easy to do in any scale, as long as you have the upfront investment for tooling and then a gauranteed flow of orders, otherwise they would not be commercially viable. Pose wise they would be limited unless with seperate arms and legs etc or went for very expensive tooling with mulit-action cores etc.

While metal costs may be going up affecting the per figure cost directly. There are a lot of other factors in the total costs not least the massive cost of metal moulds for plastic figures.

There are already 10mm plastic figures available - the Battle of 5 Armies from GW.  This is a big box of plastic goodies. The figures all come in strips. Which helps with painting speed as you really only have 2 sides of the figure to paint. They also rank up very tightly compared to single based figures. Most of the infantry is nice but the cavalry do suffer from blockiness where undercuts should be.

Luddite - I thought the Perry 28mm plastics were quick and easy to put together - but before them I had tried some Tamiyia 1/48th figures which really do have a lot of fiddly bits!

although I think that metal suits 6 and 10mm very well, the level of detail that GW managed to achieve on their Epic ranges were pretty good

Doesn't plastic come from oil? That seems to be going up as well!

Someone is bound to invent some kind of cow dung polypropylene polymer strand that we can make  miniatures out of I bet! 

Quote from: Pruneau on 10 April 2011, 07:41:45 PM
Someone is bound to invent some kind of cow dung polypropylene polymer strand that we can make  miniatures out of I bet! 

At least I'll feel better when somone tells me my paint jobs look like sh*t if they do that

 

Anyone remember the hair roller miniatures?