We try.Originally Posted by Hrugga
We try.
Five. Four are mentioned at the end of "Deeds"; Bear's came later, for #5, and my legion is not a Tsolyani one - something we're kinda proud of, actually.
There was a 'netbook' that was put out in the early 1990s, but it was not very well known.
No idea. I have my lists, of course.
There you go.
The 'netbook' was a downloadable item that a fan did, and the idea was that people would download the book and then send the fan a check through the mail; he'd then send Phil a slice of the money. I am told that this was not a success, as very, very few people sent in their checks.
Not surprising; traveling with miniatures, scenery, and terrain is a right royal pain in the ass.
True, on all counts. You'll cause a stink on some other forums with this, you know...
Yep. It's too bad that the try that TSR made at doing their own miniatures line / division failed; Dave Sutherland did some very nice figures for it.
I think it was a mistake to do metal casting in house. It's labor intensive and I feel the management needs a strong understanding of the market and process for it to work at all. They should have contracted out plastics. I know the costs are high but I expect they're no higher than getting a couple spin casters, a vulcanizer, crucible, proper ventilation hoods, and good metal. Heritage did it. I'm not sure how they managed, I'm sure they were never as big as TSR. If you make things interchangeable, doing separate heads and weapon hands (not a big fan of open hands) actually makes it easier. The problem is that you need volume sales with plastics and won't have quite the same variety though, a little interchangeability goes a long way. Games Workshop used to do lots of figures that were just head swaps of other figures. Oh well, long past now. I love metal figures but I always feel plastic is a better choice for big companies.
At last! The big revision! More monsters! more magic! Two page hit location table!
The Arcane Confabulation
Shemek, Chirine
Thanks for the responses. I'll look at the link.
Blaise
Until fairly recently "plastic" usually meant the soft plastic. ie. many times inferior to metal. The problems with plastics are: 1) undercuts. Figures have to be sculpted so they can be moulded. This means changing the way the figure is sculpted slightly. 2) high cost of the metal die. At one time I recall a price of $10000 for a single die to make a single plastic sprue. That was from Renedra in the UK so the currency may have been GBP not $. The cost of the plastic is then pennies afterwards. Back in the 70's it would never have worked. TSR made its money from the game whereas Heritage/Custom Cast had to rely on miniatures. There was a "How its Made" episode last year featuring the Perry Brothers which showed how metal and plastic miniatures are made which may be of interest if you can catch it. IIRC there are Renedra videos on Youtube as well. Miniatures are either sculpted from scratch or by using a dolly. Head-swaps is common practice though usually a few other details are changed as well. The process is "Sculpt" >> "Master Mould to make Master figures" >> "master figures into Production Moulds" >>> "finished product". Optionally insert: "Master figures to make variants before going to production moulds".
For plastics it is more like: "Sculpt" >> "Cut die using Pantograph machine" >> "Smooth and polish die" >> "production". Though now I realise I've left out where they build the sprue, which I guess takes place before they cut the die. Hmmm...more complicated that old-fashioned metal. :-) I believe the cost of the die has gone down now just because of the sheer volume of plastic miniatures being produced these day. I still prefer metal! And resin - too fragile and too slow a process, but sometimes necessary either b/c of weight or because the material used for sculpting the figure cannot withstand the vulcanization process.
As someone that has spent most of their working life in the Injection Moulding industry I can attest to what altfritz is saying. Designing and getting a mould cut is not an easy, inexpensive or quick process. Back then (c.1970's) you would be looking on average a year, minimum, from start to finish for a moderately complex piece of tooling. Remember this is the pre CAD/CNC dominant era when moulds were laid out on the drafting table and primarily cut by hand using EDM's, milling machines, and hand polished with stones, hand grinders, emery cloth, and sand. Had TSR decided to go this route they most certainly would have had to farm out the design and build to, say, Monogram, Revell, or even perhaps Esci or Tamiya, all of whom were producing multi-part polystyrene (PS) miniatures at the time and had the requisite moulding experience. This would have left them at the mercy of the above mentioned companies with regards to scheduling, shipping, etc, and would have extended the length of time needed for recouping their initial investment expenditures. Also, we are looking at the pre "Made in China" days when labour and energy costs in industry were really starting to creep up. I think that metal miniatures were the logical, and in fact only, choice for them due to start-up costs, familiarity, and overall affordability.
Shemek
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Mark Twain
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