Really Annoying Sculpts

ManicMan

ManicMan

Lord
Okay, I haven't got the picture of this one to show you yet but, I'm painting a figure, a single piece cast but the character has an open dress showing some leg but with how it's sculpted, I'm finding it a bit tricky to get 'between' the legs to get some of that painted and I started to think, I remember quite a few miniatures over the years which have had parts which I found just REALLY hard to paint for a couple of reasons.

When it comes to hard to paint areas, it doesn't really apply to multi-part sculpts cause, while that happens a fair bit, you can just paint before putting together if you have to (some parts I kinda ALWAYS paint, before putting together, though some older parts still have the need for joints to be smoothed.. so it kinda depends on that part itself.

There are also the odd problem, often with old Citadel Plastics and stuff around the time where the softness of the sculpt means there is no real defined line between two bits of detail. Some of these are kinda minor but I'm thinking of the old citadel plastic horses having a large section between the... can't remember what horse clothing is called, and the legs, or the HQ Skeleton, if you look at the scythe next to the hip bone, while it isn't too bad on it, you can see where the extra material is added for casting but it kinda creates a weird area which isn't bone but isn't handle. In a way, it's like with alot of undersides on skirted figures. it's kinda a rough flat block. again, from design and casting point of view, it 100% makes sense you want to block the bottom of the skirt so you don't have to worry about under/over hangs etc.. but from a painting point of view.. it becomes a bit trickier at times.. or atleast annoying.

So, anyone got any minis that, no matter how much they think they might be good or like them or even think they are bad, have some areas that just become very annoying when trying to paint cause you just can't get in their, or they are soo soft as to not quite have a clue what to do with them?
 
"softness of the sculpt means there is no real defined line between two bits of detail."

This is my overriding experience with plastic minis, and why I dislike painting them.

I put together a modern Blood Bowl Orc team the other week, and the problem seems to have finally been solved by making it a multi part kit.
 
sometimes that can help. It's not a issue of the models HAVE to have that softness in places though. yes, some CNC tooling for the steels do have some limits which improved over time, but its still not a hard and fast rule. So it's tricky.

multi-part kits are both good and bad for various reasons ^_^
 
I expect using CAD to design the plastics has enabled designers to sidestep a lot of the problems with producing plastic sprues. They'll be able to see how the parts fit together. I expect they can even automate sprue layout, detecting moulding errors, and generate material cost estimates. Materials science has also moved on since the early days. I've read the most recent kits go to some effort to make as many mould lines internal as is possible.

I still like my RTB13 Orks. I remember the modularity made them a lot of fun to assemble. But even back then I could see the flat areas towards where the mould halves met.

The paint job can hide many sins. You can't always rely on the sculpt. I've never drilled out a gun barrel. I sometimes marked them with black paint. Not consistently. None of my painting was consistent.
 
Fimm McCool said:
I hate most multipart models and will happily take a bit of clever design around mould limitation over having to stick kneecaps on individually.
Click to expand...

I would agree.

It baffles me how GW's kits seem to have taken a step back.

Multi part kits used to mean variety and customisation.

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There is absolutely no variation in these miserable buggers.

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I think the building experience of multi-part kits had become part of the hobby now, but even model builders has been put off by the amount of bits required for some kits! 😂
 
The one thing I'll say in defence of the new monopose plastic jigsaw puzzles GW makes now is, being plastic, they're relatively easy to hack up at least from a physical effort standpoint (though the connections and hollowness due to the construction doesn't always help there...). Otherwise fully agreed. If you're gonna do multi-part plastic give me build options; if I wanted a single-build sculpt I'd buy metal or resin!
 
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