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Captain Rufus posted:Pkunk armada from Star Control 2 Give me this tabletop game or give me death
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Feb 15, 2017 01:58
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| # ? May 10, 2024 02:06 |
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Because I think the Death Thread should be a place where we mock all lovely games companies and miniatures, I'll share an anecdote about a lovely Mantic model. Today I decided to start priming my Asterian battle force from the recent Mantic Warpath kickstarter. I couldn't find my metal Asterian hero (Ten'ur Go) and then realized it was because he was hiding. The whole model is supported by a single ankle, which is so thin it folded over and his face was kissing my shelf. Now I legit don't know how I'm supposed to prop this guy up without him bending in half again.
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Feb 15, 2017 06:34
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Run a steel pin through the ankle? It's a major pain, but totally doable. I've had to run pins through a few models' ankles before; just the price I pay for buying models because they look good.
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Feb 15, 2017 07:25
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Have him leaning against a wall. Can you give him a little cigarette?
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Feb 15, 2017 07:29
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Guy Goodbody posted:Have him leaning against a wall. Can you give him a little cigarette? Avenging Dentist posted:Run a steel pin through the ankle? It's a major pain, but totally doable. I've had to run pins through a few models' ankles before; just the price I pay for buying models because they look good. These are both good suggestions. I'm loathe to hack his leg in half and try to drill something that tiny (plus I'd have to find a pin that thin to fit), so I think the terrain fixture idea is the best one. He's leaping forward, so a wall and a shrub wouldn't look totally out of place. I might try wrapping the ankle and shin in two part epoxy and hoping that forms a brace when it sets. We'll see.
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Feb 15, 2017 07:57
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If you're in need of tiny pins, you can't do much better than guitar strings (preferably the non-wrapped kind, usually the G, B, and E strings). They're spring steel, which is flexible but retains its shape very well. It's a lot stronger than brass, which is the usual material for pinning. Hell, I've pinned stuff with an .009 string (that's in inches, or about 1/128").
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Feb 15, 2017 08:20
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With with the right equipment pinning is super easy. It deffo follows the old adage of "measure twice, cut once" though.
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Feb 15, 2017 17:38
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Cat Face Joe posted:With with the right equipment pinning is super easy. It deffo follows the old adage of "measure twice, cut once" though. And then get it wrong anyway because pinning is finnicky and stupid and multipart metal minis can go back to 1980 where they belong
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Feb 15, 2017 19:52
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Pinning is easy dawg. Sorry for your lots, etc etc
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Feb 15, 2017 20:00
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This isn't even multipart, just top heavy.
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Feb 15, 2017 20:28
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Avenging Dentist posted:Pinning is easy dawg. Sorry for your lots, etc etc
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Feb 15, 2017 20:45
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Avenging Dentist posted:Pinning is easy dawg. Sorry for your lots, etc etc
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Feb 15, 2017 20:58
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Avenging Dentist posted:Pinning is easy dawg. Sorry for your lots, etc etc
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Feb 15, 2017 21:15
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I don't get the hate for metal minis, metal is way easier to work with, more durable and holds better detail than plastic. Plus most plastic minis just don't look as nice. Even Wyrd who are making by far the most dynamic and well sculpted plastic minis still aren't making stuff that looks as good as metals from Anima. It's because plastic just doesn't hold shallow detail well. In metal and resin you can do things like have really fine edges to armored plates or really finely detailed chainmail while in plastic all of that is going to be super soft edges and get lost under primer and base coats unless you do a fair amount of light putty work to beef them up. I mean, Mantic makes ugly rear end minis, but one of their major issues is just how god drat soft the detail is on everything but they are cheap as dirt so who cares? But when you start seeing the exact same issue pop up in premium priced kits from Wyrd and GW doing poo poo like having muddy definition on fingers you have to start thinking it's a weakness of the medium and that these guys need to either start using the harder more brittle plastics that actual high detail plastic model kits use or they need to start thinking about moving more towards resin/restic like PP.
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Feb 15, 2017 21:44
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NTRabbit posted:And then get it wrong anyway because pinning is finnicky and stupid and multipart metal minis can go back to 1980 where they belong Avenging Dentist posted:Pinning is easy dawg. Sorry for your lots, etc etc
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Feb 15, 2017 21:46
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Some model kits actually come with the pins built in to the pieces, and that makes construction really easy.
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Feb 15, 2017 21:47
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For serious though I used to dislike pinning, but it's because I hadn't worked much with metal mans, so I was a total newbie at it. After building a half-dozen models, it became second nature and now pinning a complex metal mini is about the same to me as assembling a plastic Malifaux figure.
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Feb 15, 2017 21:48
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El Estrago Bonito posted:I don't get the hate for metal minis, metal is way easier to work with, more durable and holds better detail than plastic. Plus most plastic minis just don't look as nice. Even Wyrd who are making by far the most dynamic and well sculpted plastic minis still aren't making stuff that looks as good as metals from Anima. It's because plastic just doesn't hold shallow detail well. In metal and resin you can do things like have really fine edges to armored plates or really finely detailed chainmail while in plastic all of that is going to be super soft edges and get lost under primer and base coats unless you do a fair amount of light putty work to beef them up. I mean, Mantic makes ugly rear end minis, but one of their major issues is just how god drat soft the detail is on everything but they are cheap as dirt so who cares? But when you start seeing the exact same issue pop up in premium priced kits from Wyrd and GW doing poo poo like having muddy definition on fingers you have to start thinking it's a weakness of the medium and that these guys need to either start using the harder more brittle plastics that actual high detail plastic model kits use or they need to start thinking about moving more towards resin/restic like PP. I agree with you that metal minis own, but plastic is way easier to work with.
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Feb 15, 2017 21:51
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I enjoy pining I find it therapeutic
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Feb 15, 2017 21:55
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El Estrago Bonito posted:I don't get the hate for metal minis, metal is way easier to work with, more durable and holds better detail than plastic. Plus most plastic minis just don't look as nice. Even Wyrd who are making by far the most dynamic and well sculpted plastic minis still aren't making stuff that looks as good as metals from Anima. It's because plastic just doesn't hold shallow detail well. In metal and resin you can do things like have really fine edges to armored plates or really finely detailed chainmail while in plastic all of that is going to be super soft edges and get lost under primer and base coats unless you do a fair amount of light putty work to beef them up. I mean, Mantic makes ugly rear end minis, but one of their major issues is just how god drat soft the detail is on everything but they are cheap as dirt so who cares? But when you start seeing the exact same issue pop up in premium priced kits from Wyrd and GW doing poo poo like having muddy definition on fingers you have to start thinking it's a weakness of the medium and that these guys need to either start using the harder more brittle plastics that actual high detail plastic model kits use or they need to start thinking about moving more towards resin/restic like PP. Sounds like you just volunteered to assemble my GW metal war walkers, eldar dreadnoughts, Rackham duelists and dirze, PP Nyss Hunters, etc. Metal is a fine medium but basically every company seems incapable of keeping its limits in mind when designing and you get nightmares to work with. Plastic is a lot more forgiving in that regard because you can easily use a bonding agent instead of a glue, and the miniatures have much less weight to gently caress them up.
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Feb 15, 2017 21:59
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El Estrago Bonito posted:I don't get the hate for metal minis, metal is way easier to work with, more durable and holds better detail than plastic. Plus most plastic minis just don't look as nice. Even Wyrd who are making by far the most dynamic and well sculpted plastic minis still aren't making stuff that looks as good as metals from Anima. It's because plastic just doesn't hold shallow detail well. In metal and resin you can do things like have really fine edges to armored plates or really finely detailed chainmail while in plastic all of that is going to be super soft edges and get lost under primer and base coats unless you do a fair amount of light putty work to beef them up. I mean, Mantic makes ugly rear end minis, but one of their major issues is just how god drat soft the detail is on everything but they are cheap as dirt so who cares? But when you start seeing the exact same issue pop up in premium priced kits from Wyrd and GW doing poo poo like having muddy definition on fingers you have to start thinking it's a weakness of the medium and that these guys need to either start using the harder more brittle plastics that actual high detail plastic model kits use or they need to start thinking about moving more towards resin/restic like PP. Plastic makes for far easier conversions. I too like metal to paint, but I hate playing with and transporting it.
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Feb 15, 2017 21:59
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Moola posted:I enjoy pining I find it therapeutic same but the entire assembly process
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Feb 15, 2017 22:17
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Cat Face Joe posted:same but the entire assembly process Agreed, I'm stressin about actually starting to paint my little guys again.
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Feb 15, 2017 22:18
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Metal is not easier to work with, it's stupid, too heavy, doesn't glue properly, and paint comes off of it way too easily just by touching it while trying to move it to varnish it, especially on geometric edges. It's far and away the worst mini material. Styrene plastic is absolutely the king of minis and model kit making. Also pinning is not easy, it's hard as gently caress to get a tiny little drill bit to line up on a tiny little joint on a tiny little piece of mini when neither the part nor the drill stay steady because I'm not a neurosurgeon, and the drill always misses, goes in off angle, or goes too far. NTRabbit fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Feb 15, 2017 |
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Feb 15, 2017 22:44
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Pinning is pretty easy. You're almost certainly doing it wrong. Here are some tips: 1) Mark where the hole should go with the tip of your hobby knife (put it where you want and spin it around). 2) Start with a smaller drill bit than you need in case you got the position wrong; if you did, you can use your knife to widen the hole a bit to realign it. 3) To line up the second hole, paint a circle around the first hole (go pretty heavy on the paint) and dry-fit the pieces. Then just drill where the paint tells you to. 4) You can use a smaller pin than you plan to use in the end to test out the alignment, since it'll have a little more wiggle room. 5) If all else fails, just make the holes bigger than you need to and use a combination of superglue and your favorite filler (epoxy putty, talcum powder, etc) to fill in the extra space. 6) Bonus tip: figure out how deep you can drill into the model, then have your drill bit stick out from the pin vice only that far so you don't accidentally drill all the way through your little guy. Avenging Dentist fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Feb 15, 2017 |
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Feb 15, 2017 23:05
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gently caress pinning. I'd much rather score the surfaces or use green stuff in the joint
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Feb 15, 2017 23:05
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NTRabbit posted:Metal is not easier to work with, it's stupid, too heavy, doesn't glue properly, and paint comes off of it way too easily just by touching it while trying to move it to varnish it, especially on geometric edges. It's far and away the worst mini material. Styrene plastic is absolutely the king of minis and model kit making. Just to be clear, Styrene plastic is king, but metal is far better than restic. If you have never had to work with restic, count yourself lucky. Avenging Dentist posted:Pinning is pretty easy. You're almost certainly doing it wrong. Tons of older pinning guides just advised people to buy a pin vise, and then go to town with a normal 1/16" drill bit or whatever. My pinning prowess was upgraded massively when I bought a much better pin vise, and steel wire gauge exactly matched to my tiny tiny drill bits. That said, your success with pinning metal is partially dependent on the design of the thing you're pinning. It is for example very challenging to drive a drill bit into a part that is only 10% thicker than your drill bit. Creating a thin-walled tube out of some dude's wrist or ankle usually isn't going to work out well. There are some cases where you simply cannot pin, there's not enough thickness. And this is all ignoring the fact that a lightweight styrene miniature doesn't need pinning because the cement (you are using polystyrene cement, right? Not CA?[/i]) literally melts the pieces together. This hobby has enough challenges and obstacles. High quality plastic can hold very very good detail these days, enough so - after painting and without touching it - you can't possibly tell if the end result is metal or plastic. Metal miniatures are for small volume runs where injection molded plastic is not cost effective, but a company selling reasonable volumes of a mini should make them in plastic.
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Feb 15, 2017 23:17
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what are gundams made of because I have recently decided they are the king of models imo
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Feb 15, 2017 23:27
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I don't mind pinning and it's not too hard but gently caress metal models with giant rear end gaps and poses that make it hard to balance Withough putting giant pieces of scenery to attach too
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Feb 15, 2017 23:34
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Leperflesh posted:Just to be clear, Styrene plastic is king, but metal is far better than restic. If you have never had to work with restic, count yourself lucky. Oh poo poo you said my powerword. Restic's not really a thing; I'm not sure if it's a marketing term or one people came up with to describe the particular formulation used by Privateer and Mantic, but it's ultimately just a rigid PVC. Heck, even Bones are PVC; they're just a flexible kind. But I do agree that polystyrene is probably the best material for the end-user, although the tooling costs are pretty prohibitive. I don't think metal (or even resin) is a bad material though, provided the sculptor is cognizant of the material's limitations. For me, it just took some getting used to, since the skillset for working with polystyrene is pretty different. If we're being really technical, all of this poo poo (metal aside) is just resin, since as I understand it, plastic is essentially just a class of synthetic resin. Leperflesh posted:Creating a thin-walled tube out of some dude's wrist or ankle usually isn't going to work out well. There are some cases where you simply cannot pin, there's not enough thickness. The minimum size for pinning is smaller than a lot of people would think. I've pinned poo poo whose contact surface is less than .25mm2, like this guy (he's about 35mm tall):  I put a single pin all the way through his head to mount both pieces of his little "crown". The only time I really struggle with pinning is when there's not much depth to run a pin (e.g. a cape/loincloth). e: If there's one actual problem I have with metal (and resin to a lesser degree), it's that the production methods (sculpting and casting) are a bit less precise than styrene, which makes any 3-point join a lot harder to fit. Avenging Dentist fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Feb 15, 2017 |
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Feb 15, 2017 23:40
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Yeah that's gobs of thickness, no issue there. We were discussing the ankle of Ten'ur Go, which was cast so thin that it bent under its own weight: I could maaaybe manage to pin that, using my smallest gauge wire: #61 (0.039") but most people are working with paper clips or something. Also note that's an image from Mantic's blog, not necessarily a production model. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Feb 15, 2017 |
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Feb 15, 2017 23:44
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We might be talking about different bits because that ankle looks easy to pin (I did a very similar pin job on my Dark Age Kaachika). I'm talking about running a pin through the highlighted bits in this image: I used a guitar string to pin that (somewhere around .009"; I forget the exact gauge I used). e: To be fair, one challenge with pinning ankles sometimes is that you have to choose between cutting the ankle in half or running a pin all the way in from the surface and sanding down the pin so it's flush. And sanding spring steel is pretty hard, especially when you're trying to avoid shredding the much-softer pewter! e2: Also bear in mind I'm an obsessive who uses fine grade steel wool on flat areas of pewter models to get a smoother finish, so I may be more into the hobby side than a lot of wargamers. Avenging Dentist fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Feb 15, 2017 |
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Feb 15, 2017 23:50
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Moola posted:what are gundams made of because I have recently decided they are the king of models imo polystyrene
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Feb 15, 2017 23:53
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Moola posted:I enjoy pining I find it therapeutic It's probably the removal of the metal bits in the funny helix pattern. I like pinning too but actually hate prepping models because of all the equipment. Painting takes much longer but at least you just need a brush, water, your paint, and maybe an additive.
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Feb 15, 2017 23:59
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Leperflesh posted:Yeah that's gobs of thickness, no issue there. We were discussing the ankle of Ten'ur Go, which was cast so thin that it bent under its own weight: Seriously, put a wall behind him so he's leaning against it, move the left arm down so it's hanging more casually, cut out the gun, and put a cigarette between his fingers. It'll look great
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Feb 16, 2017 00:01
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Avenging Dentist posted:We might be talking about different bits because that ankle looks easy to pin (I did a very similar pin job on my Dark Age Kaachika). I'm talking about running a pin through the highlighted bits in this image: Ah I see. I assume you snipped off the studs on the head pieces and pinned into the thicker parts of them, but that's still pretty fine work. I think this is approximately the level most miniature dudes are working at: http://axesandarrows.blogspot.com/2013/06/how-to-pin-miniatures.html  Hold the model in your hand and drill right into it with a 1mm drill bit and you are not going to have a great fun time.
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Feb 16, 2017 00:06
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Guy Goodbody posted:Seriously, put a wall behind him so he's leaning against it, move the left arm down so it's hanging more casually, cut out the gun, and put a cigarette between his fingers. It'll look great
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Feb 16, 2017 00:07
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Or give him a stool and have him seated while smoking.
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Feb 16, 2017 00:08
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For sure, a lot of the "pinning kits" hobby companies sell are woefully unsuited for the job of pinning anything with smaller pieces than a Space Marine. With proper materials though, it's totally manageable to pin tiny pieces. Once I got the right stuff and had some practice, it turned from a job I dread to one I actually kind of enjoy.
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Feb 16, 2017 00:12
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| # ? May 10, 2024 02:06 |
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The point is that you shouldn't have to pin because multipart metal kits are a terrible idea. EDIT: They're fine for tiny home-sculpt companies who can't afford anything else, but large companies should transition to anything else as soon as they can, yes, even whatever lovely recipie restic is. Gravitas Shortfall fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Feb 16, 2017 |
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Feb 16, 2017 00:41
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