Am I missing the greatness of resin?

[Knightofspades]

Metal miniatures I like. They are usually in one piece, posed by an artist and the sculpt is usually crisp and clear.
I also feel like metal takes to paint better but that might just be my imagination.

Plastic miniatures I like. The hard plastic is hard enough to not bend or melt in the sun but soft enough to cut and use for conversion. For armies nothing beats plastic.

Resin.. I dont like! Its soft. It holds detail poorly. It bends. It melts. Its greasy to the touch. And it does not take to paint like metal or even plastic!
I rather pain soft toy plastic from board games with miniatures than resin. Atleast the soft plastic you can wash with soap and water.

And resin is often much more expensive! By a lot!

What about resin am I missing? Why does otherwise great miniature studios sell miniatures in this sub standard material and why do they upp the price for it?

Sorry for venting but its really annoying.

[beefcake]

I wholeheartedly agree with you.
There are probably a few factors about resin,
1 it is a lot cheaper to make shorter runs I believe rather than the super expensive plastic molds. Not sure on the comparison to metal molds but I think for small very niche items it may be cheaper? (correct me if I'm wrong).
I think it also has finer detail than metal as well, although plastic is getting pretty damn close now.

[Inkpaduta]

Totally agree. Never be a big fan of resin.
I also like the weight of metal. It feels like you
are actually moving figures around.

Although I have to say I really don't like plastic either.
Metal man til the day I die.

[Elbows]

I'm 90% on board with you.  It's probably my least favourite model material.  The dust being dangerous doesn't help its case.

Having said that, resin exists in dozens and dozens of forms.  I've had horrible resin, and beautiful, fantastic resin.  I will cope if it's the only option, but it's my least favourite.

I have some models which are absolutely sublime in resin, and reasonably priced - but they're the rarity.

[Coenus Scaldingus]

Having said that, resin exists in dozens and dozens of forms.  I've had horrible resin, and beautiful, fantastic resin.  I will cope if it's the only option, but it's my least favourite.

I have some models which are absolutely sublime in resin, and reasonably priced - but they're the rarity.

This pretty much sums it up.
The difference between good and bad resins is like the difference between typical "hard plastic" miniatures and cheap boardgame plastics.
I only own a handful of resin models (in part due to personal preferences, mostly because most companies I purchase from are mainly doing metal and plastic).
Resin is far easier to cut and modify for conversions than metal, and is far less likely to chip - even with varnish, the weight of metal models will make them more vulnerable than resin to this. Metal parts can bend easily which makes them easy to correct too, but the process can be never-ending. Resin is a tricky one here, because it's sometimes difficult to get the part in the right shape (using warm water, or a hairdryer or so), but once it's fixed, it will remain in place unlike the metal parts. The vastly reduced weight also allows for poses and shapes not possible in metal.

If a resin surface is clean, it should take paint just as well as a metal mini (some of which can be terribly greasy before cleaning too). I've heard resin casts are occasionally not fully set and don't react well with paint, but that's just a bad casting or a bad resin. Same with the bubble-riddled ones.

[leonmallett]

I use resin exclusively for my company, from excellent casters. I have had customs not used to resin respond very positively to the quality. No one has told me they won't back/purchase due to my using resin.

Coenus Scaldingus outlines many of the benefits of resin.

Another benefit which may take a while to filter through is recent changes to shipping; compared to metal I can ship many, many more resin minis with their cards and plastic bases to the USA as a large letter under 100g. Metal looks increasingly costly for international shipping for what is a niche hobby. At a reasonable estimate, my current KS at the all-in level would have added £6 per package (from £15.18 to £21.18) if all except the big guy minis were cast in metal.

[Digits]

When Black Scorpion went from metal to resin....I bought a small handful of minis....then stopped.....which is a shame because I loved their minis.  I end up watching ebay for older models sold in metal.

I also don’t even bother considering resin miniatures from other manufacturers.

Problem is simple to me as a gamer......any fine detailing and weapons on them are just too damned brittle!  Minis for me are meant to be handled, not stuck in a glass case and looked at.

Resin has its place, of course, larger models, buildings vehicles etc (and I spend a lot on those) .....and I know a lot of painters love to paint it.  But I labour over painting, I’m not great at it but I refuse to play with bare minis....so it is heart breaking when a minis weapon snaps off, often unnoticed. 

I like hard plastic and metals equally for miniatures.   Metals for character as mentioned above, but plastics for conversion.

Most annoyingly.....companies cite resin as being cheaper for their reason for moving over....but often don’t seem to pass along any saving to the customer!

[leonmallett]

When Black Scorpion went from metal to resin....I bought a small handful of minis....then stopped.....which is a shame because I loved their minis.  I end up watching ebay for older models sold in metal.

I also don’t even bother considering resin miniatures from other manufacturers.

Problem is simple to me as a gamer......any fine detailing and weapons on them are just too damned brittle!  Minis for me are meant to be handled, not stuck in a glass case and looked at.

Resin has its place, of course, larger models, buildings vehicles etc (and I spend a lot on those) .....and I know a lot of painters love to paint it.  But I labour over painting, I’m not great at it but I refuse to play with bare minis....so it is heart breaking when a minis weapon snaps off, often unnoticed. 

I like hard plastic and metals equally for miniatures.   Metals for character as mentioned above, but plastics for conversion.

Most annoyingly.....companies cite resin as being cheaper for their reason for moving over....but often don’t seem to pass along any saving to the customer!

If resins are handled safely they can readily be used for gaming.

Resin has a much higher labour cost due to the slower production speed.

[Cubs]

Just like a dodgy restaurant, it's horses for courses*. Resin has its uses no doubt, probably to do with the crispness of detail and the ability to produce exquisite dynamic sculpts, or making larger subjects such as vehicles and terrain that are lightweight. As Leon says, the weight is going to be a factor when considering posting costs.

But I have to say, my heart sinks when a customer sends me resin. My experiences have been ... patchy. Some are fine, I paint them up and send them back no problems. Often these are the crisp pre-production models that manufacturers use to market the line before making a run in metal. But too often that lovely crisp detail and slim weapons or tails just snap off when breathed on. There's no enough plasticity, not enough flex in resin compared to metal or plastic. Weirdly metal has good plasticity (ability to flex), whereas plastic has better elasticity (ability to return to its previous shape when bent). Resin doesn't do either very well in comparison and is best left to chunkier sculpts or display models if it's a more delicate subject. Add to that horrible bubbles that all too often slip through quality control. Citadel Finecast I'm looking at you.

In my twenty odd years painting models for customers I have only ever sent back two models to customers as unpaintable. One was a Citadel Finecast so riddled with air bubbles and gaps in texture there was no way I could rescue it. Another was a delicate Demonette model with a a slim tail that snapped when I touched it! It has left me a little gun-shy to say the least. I'm not saying I'd reject a model I wanted if I saw it was in resin, just that it would be my least preferred option.

*see what I did there?

[dadlamassu]

I have bought a few resin figures and have only assembled two for painting. They are far too fragile for the games table and have spent more time on the repair shelf than any other figures. The unbuilt ones have tiny surfaces where the separate  hand with weapon is supposed to be glued to the wrist. They will just break off and disappear.
Do not get me wrong, they are lovely sculptures, highly detailed and probably very nice when painted up on static display. But no use to me as wargame figures.
They are not for me.

[Digits]

If resins are handled safely they can readily be used for gaming.

Resin has a much higher labour cost due to the slower production speed.

There you go...handled safely!  I have sausage fingers....as have a fair few gamers I’ve met....and you just want to be able to pick them up and move them like any other figure.  Mixed in with other minis on the table, it would be all to easy to forget which are resin before grabbing them...especially if you are borrowing other players minis as often happens.   I’d be horrified if I broke someone else’s mini.

I have yet to find a superglue that works on resin as well as on other materials...and that is also a problem when small bits break off.


As for cost... I can name a few companies that cited lower cost as a reason.  If they supposedly take so much more time, why then all the bad mould / cast lines and flash?  Finacast has been mentioned above....god awful stuff in my humble opinion. 

[Coenus Scaldingus]

Let's be clear here: Games Workshop's "Finecast" should not be seen as representative quality of resin miniatures. It is the single worst medium I have encountered any miniatures in. Swiss cheese would be a more suitable material, as it has fewer holes, a higher melting temperature and, while equally unsuitable for miniatures as such, it would at least have the added advantage of being useful for something (i.e. consumption), while Finecast resin is probably useless for every single enterprise known to mankind.

What can I say... yeah, not a fan. Never had a single mini that I would personally have deemed of acceptable quality to hand over to a customer. While I've received a bunch of replacements and often duplicate models as compensation, even those were of depressing quality, and the time required to fix them did not even compensate for them being free. At the same time, a one-person company working from a shed in Russia can produce flawless resin casts, sold at a quarter of the cost. The contrast is incredible. (Not talking about recasts here by the way, just original sculpts. Given the choice between metal or "Finecast", I'd always choose metal, but in the choose between Finecast or recast, I'll just take neither).


That rant aside, I do think something important is touched upon here. While some metal models are equally impractical for wargaming in my view (those easily toppling over or glued together with the smallest of contact points), there is certainly a tendency for some companies to make use of the aforementioned qualities of resin to make models that are only really suitable for the display cabinet. Those same models wouldn't even exist in metal though, so the two materials can't really be compared in that context. In any case where a sculpt exists in both metal and resin, either will be roughly equally suitable or poor for wargaming I'd say. Thin long weapons for example are bad either way. A more compact one-piece figure should be perfectly fine in both.

[ced1106]

Pretty much all of the resin I have recently are from Tiny Furniture. Great stuff.

That being said, resin's problem is that, when someone says resin, you don't know how good or bad it will be. At least with plastic, if the plastic is for a hobby game, like GW, vs. a boardgame, like FFG, you already have an idea of the quality of the plastic. High-quality plastic sculpts can become quite good, leaving resin and metal for painters, not gamers, or for low print-run miniatures that aren't cost-effective in plastic because of the high price of the molds (ObPlug: Skull and Catapult's Medieval Rabbits II KS). Even Archon, which cast high quality resins with their Unicast casting, has their latest products in plastic (ObPlug: Dungeons and Lasers II KS), although their limited edition He-Man will be in resin.

When resin is done right, it's less expensive than metal, including for shipping costs. The problem is that you need a much higher casting skill with resin and, if you don't, resin, unlike metal, cannot be reused. In other words, resin can result more easily than metal with cost overruns.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/536525.page

EDIT: Plastic molds still have to deal with undercuts when sculpting. How are the mold lines with high-end plastics, like GW?

[Norm]

Is it an ongoing technology that has the scope to get better? I note that Warlord Games are now producing resin and they must be confident in it and want it to stand out from other resins because they proudly call it 'Warlord Resin'. Likewise, Plastic Soldier Company are producing a resin ran range called 'Ultracast' (though the shots I have seen of ultracast in web reviews carries too much flash for my preferences).

Both manufacturers are adept at producing nice hard plastic figures, so can it be assumed that they trust the new materials so much that they feel happy to bring it into their lines. I have to say that I have not handled either so cannot judge. I like the idea of lightness and not needing a primer or a gloss varnish protection, so that's two solvent based painting processes taken out of my production line.

[Spinal Tap]

Is it an ongoing technology that has the scope to get better? I note that Warlord Games are now producing resin and they must be confident in it and want it to stand out from other resins because they proudly call it 'Warlord Resin'. Likewise, Plastic Soldier Company are producing a resin ran range called 'Ultracast' (though the shots I have seen of ultracast in web reviews carries too much flash for my preferences).

Both manufacturers are adept at producing nice hard plastic figures, so can it be assumed that they trust the new materials so much that they feel happy to bring it into their lines. I have to say that I have not handled either so cannot judge. I like the idea of lightness and not needing a primer or a gloss varnish protection, so that's two solvent based painting processes taken out of my production line.

Excuse my stupidity but how does a figure being made of resin not need varnish over the paint? Does the paint react in some way with the resin to be much tougher than paint on metal or plastic?