Are some of Copplestone's BoB rifles a bit crap?

[Captain Blood]

Mark Copplestone is my favourite sculptor.

But...

I'm currently painting a few BoB 'unit builder' figures for LPL4 duties, and I think the rifles are seriously poor.
I've never really looked at them in detail before (in all those wonderful BoB game reports that get posted). And most Copplestone weapons are superbly, effortlessly detailed. A joy to paint.
But these... They look more like 'prop' rifles than real ones. Really blocky and with little discernible, accurate detail.
Vestigal I'd say. Crudely done. 

I am - in case you can't tell - sorely disappointed.

Is it just me? Am I being over-picky? Has anyone else noticed this?

[carlos marighela]

Some of the Russian rifles have this amorphous muzzle that blends with the bayonet. Not his finest work but overall it doesn't detract too much. Virtually all sculptors I've seen have problems with the SMLE MkIII. The barrel extends under the bayonet cap for miles, wheras in reality its a scarely noticeable protuberance. I think they all get a bit confused with the WW2 era MkIV.

Neither has particularly phased me and the muskets on his Glory of the Sun range are as good as anyone else'swork I've seen. God I do hope he keeps going with that range, although that's a hope that dims with each passing day.

BTW if you want to see the absolute heights in terms of wepaons sculpting have a look at te latest stuff by Kosta Hernandidis at Eureka. The weapons he has done for the Foreign Legion paras and the upcoming Marine Recon are about as fine an exampe of model making as you will ever see, proportionate, incredibly detailed and really crisp and sharp. You can almost imagine firing mini rounds out of the damn things, quite amazing work really.

[Ignatieff]

As someone who has invested more than a few groats into the Mark Copplestone retirement fund, I noticed that  at the height of his BoB releases the detailing of weapons did suffer as I think he sacrificed quality for just getting figures out.  Figure poses also suffered, with almost identical figure poses being released.  'Late period' were much better however.  His White Cossacks are superb in every way, and anatomically much more accurate and refined from the early period 'Games Workshop' chunkiness. 

[Hammers]

As someone who has invested more than a few groats into the Mark Copplestone retirement fund, I noticed that  at the height of his BoB releases the detailing of weapons did suffer as I think he sacrificed quality for just getting figures out.  Figure poses also suffered, with almost identical figure poses being released.  'Late period' were much better however.  His White Cossacks are superb in every way, and anatomically much more accurate and refined from the early period 'Games Workshop' chunkiness. 

This is to me the authoritative answer to the question.

[d phipps]

It is pretty rare that I am not 100% satisfied with Copplestone's miniatures. However, there were three figures in my last pack of Chinese Bandits that were so poorly cast that I could not even use them.

[Ignatieff]

I'd e-mail him.  He's very diligent

[dodge]

It is pretty rare that I am not 100% satisfied with Copplestone's miniatures. However, there were three figures in my last pack of Chinese Bandits that were so poorly cast that I could not even use them.

Same here my chinese and white russians were very good but there were sometimes a few iffy castings in a batch but it is rare

however the white cossacks are always very very good

dodge

[koz10]

I've found him to be quite helpful. While I've never had problems with casted figs, one pack was short a fig once. I wrote him about it (not wanting him to waste postage sending a single fig!) and, when placing my next order, reminded him and he included the extra fig, no problem.

I'd contact him about the poorly cast figs. I've got a horse that's missing a leg but will sculpt the replacement myself. No big deal and it's good experience!