I’m off for a meeting at Mantic HQ in a short while. I think everyone’s recovered from the craziness of the weekend and has digested at least a little of the huge task ahead 🙂
Apparently there are some productions samples of Mars Attacks models in the office too, and I’m hoping to nab a couple so I can have a go at cleaning them up myself. The Dungeon Saga models will be made of the same material. People keep asking me what the stuff is like to work with, and the simplest way for me to answer that is to try it for myself and let you know how I get on.
Destruction testing, here we come!
🙂
Quirkworthy 
Awesome, and I can say after painting Loka mini’s myself, that is great to work with, I love being able to reshape them with hot water to, this allows more poses. 🙂
If it is like the reaper bones stuff the first thing to notice is that mold lines have to be treated differently. The plastic is to soft to really file at like traditional models so you need to use a super sharp blade to try to shave it.
I’ve noticed on the later SDE models, which were soft plastic, that if you used a course file (one that you would normally use for metal) then it really ripped and tore at the plastic…however when I used a very fine file, it was quite good and didn’t damage the plastic at all. I think as you say, a knife is the first option to get the majority of the mould lines removed, and then a very fine file to remove that last of the remaining mould lines if needed.
You can also you fine sanding sticks but this is really slow when you have a pile of 240 models with another 150 due before the end of the year.
Ahahaha, yeah. that’s a lot of mini’s to clean 🙂
Yeah, I have the hoarder gene. I estimated in a blog post one time that I was probably at about 1500, 28 mm scale models not counting 250 more that either just arrived (~30 green menace, 20 project pandora) or on the way (150 reaper bones II and 50 impact trollcast kickstarter) since then. Kickstarters are a killer here since they are often the more you spend the better the deal. I do defend that some of those minis date back to the 80’s but it is still a rate of like 60 minis a year.
That gives me an idea for a post.
That’d be fantastic if Mantic allowed you to share a reasonable amount of info with us during development, Jake!!! Also, please do show some pics on here of the Mars Attacks models after a little filing and mould line removal, it’d be appreciated, thanks 🙂
I almost didn’t pledge for dungeon saga because i hate the material deadzone and dreadball minis are made. I’m ok with metal and hard plastic minis, but can’t stand these new bendable plastic that can’t be sanded unless you use a very very fine file.
So thank you in advance for those test on mars attacks minis 🙂
Is that the mantic “resin” stuff. I got a copy of project pandora a couple of weeks ago and those minis are made with that but I have not taken them out of the bags yet.
I got a lot of work to clean Project Pandora minis, same with Deadzone, it is restic material for the most part.
Mars Attacks uses a different materiel to the PP figures.
Might comment if it would be possible to board square, are larger than the bases of the miniatures
that was one of the great problems of HeroQuest with 20mm squeares board & 20mm bases of miniatures, when you wanted to move miniatures around the board.
so avoid the same mistake
Thanks
I’ve already mentioned this to the team. They said that the masters of the bases were 25mm, same as the squares. However, during the various stages to get from master to production model there will be some shrinkage, so the final ones will be 1-2mm narrower. That will give you at least some wriggle room. Personally I’d be tempted to rebase them on clear bases anyway so the nice tile are shows through, but that’s probably just me 😉
Thanks, I’ve fabricated a second board for HeroQuest, increasing the scale of 20mm to 25mm to rotate miniatures so close others (miniatures, doors), without disturbingand I thought should be interesting for an improvement, after watching Beast of War Gameplay demo of Dungeon Saga.
I think it was always the most annoying of the original board of that game 🙂
sorry again for my poor English
another simple enhancement would round bases used instead of square bases of the miniatures, as they facilitate the rotation when there are several miniatures near each other.
Larger squares would ease congestion. 25mm is something of an industry standard though, and lets you pinch stuff from all sorts of other games 😉
Round bases look good and are my preferred format for single figures. However, you need to be clear about facing in DS, so square bases can help there. In the end you should do whatever makes it work well for you. After all, you’re the ones playing it!
So… 20mm for many of the human-sized (or smaller) models, 25mm for the Orcs, perhaps? That’s allow re-use in Kings of War at a minimum.
Yeah, 1″ tiles are pretty much the industry standard, aren’t they. There are some online shops that sell some very nice 3D dungeon tiles, all the ones I’ve seen however are 1″ tiles.
I prefer larger tiles and use the Hirst Arts 1.5″ tiles.
1) They give you more room to fit miniatures on without them getting hooked up on each other (a la Genestealer Conga Line in Space Hulk)…this is especially true for large mini’s with weapons and/or body parts that extend well beyond the miniatures base.
2) There’s more room to facilitate cool terrain pieces
3) There’s more room for your hands to get in there and move the mini’s around without bumping others over.
4) It also looks just that little bit cooler shooting a bow over 12″ (8 spaces) rather than 8″ (8 spaces).
5) It allows you to use larger bases for your mini’s, which means you can have cooler looking features on your bases.
The downside to larger tiles though, is a larger playing surface is needed as well as a larger storage area.
I’ve currently got an older 1.5″ plaster set, but I have also just recently finished making an all hard resin set, which includes larger rooms as well. I still want to make a couple specialty rooms though, which are always fun. I’ll be painting the resin ones in November, as I have holidays for most of that month.
Here’s a pic of a dungeon set up with the current plaster ones.
Part of the issue here is that 25mm/1 inch squares were settled on as a size when models really were 25mm tall. They’re grown, but the space they live in hasn’t.
True.
I also think that generally speaking, scultptors these days (unless for specifics reasons they choose not to) sculpt many figures in very dynamic poses, with weapons and body parts etc extending from the centre of the mini/base more so than in the past. They are less “tight” these days. This is probably due a number of reasons, like artistic desire, the desire of the mass consumer and advances in casting technologies/techniques.
This is both cool and uncool at the same time, depending on what your purpose for the mini’s are.
Yup. Posing has changed too.
Jake, if you get a chance, could you put in a request that they seriously consider going back to their Kings of War 20mm bases? Having bases that are exactly or nearly the size of the board sounds like a really, really bad idea. 20mm will look nicer, be better for gameplay, and work with Kings of War. 25mm (or even 23 or 24mm) just makes no sense!
I agree about the bases, that would be great t have bases smaller than the square size to avoid problems when moving models that are next to each other.
I’ve mentioned it already. I’ll bring it up again and see what they say. Like I said, I fully intend to rebase my on clear bases anyway…
I will glue the bases on large diameter washers and put in the hole a neodym magnet.
You could put magnets in their feet, a steel sheet under the card tiles, and then not need bases at all 😉
When will we see the next Kickstart? Please let it be Project: Pandora!
Can’t tell you I’m afraid. Sworn to secrecy.
No, it has to be Veer-myn for Deadzone ^^ (and Zzor if possible)
That may very well be true, but I couldn’t possibly comment.
Veer-myn and Zzor would be great in Deadzone, so would the Nameless. the nightmare/horror aspect of the game should be continued, just for the fact that Dead in Deadzone applies to this.