Was: Re: [DSII] Genre - now about mini. production - sort of OT

>Michael Llaneza wrote:
>> 
>> IMHO the best thing GW ever did
>> was the plastic Epic-scale infantry. Plastic is expensive to set up a
>> production run for, but dirt cheap over a long production run. 
>
>	I was always curious about that.
>	An uninformed layman would think that metal miniatures
>	would be more expensive to produce than plastic ones.
>
>	I guess plastic is less forgiving a medium to work with.

OT, but FYI

The big rubber "puck" molds miniature companies use for spin casting
(how
they make metal miniatures) cost a few hundred dollars - maybe a bit
more
or less depending on size, the amount they purchase at one time, etc. 
One
mold might be set up to produce, say, 20 small metal sprues of 6mm
troops.

An injection moulding tool ("tool" is the technical term for a mould)
for
20 sprues of 6mm figs set up the way GW does them might cost $20,000 or
more.  Plastic moulding is a PRICY proposition - that's why only *big*
companies with *lots* of sales ever jump into it in a big way. 
Something
like a plastic base for FT models is within the possibilities of a
smaller
company, 'cause you can package one with each ship model, but for
individual troops, people rarely purchase enough of any one (unless you
make only 1 or 2, but consumers don't want that - we like variety) to
make
it worth while.  That's why GW has moved to producing multi-part plastic
troop kits for 40K and WHFantasy - they get the efficiencies of
injection
moulding and the customers get figs that can be posed in many ways for
variety.  In the long run, you can produce plastic molded figs a lot
cheaper than spin casting, but you have to make thousands and thousands.
Spin casting is financially viable with small runs.  Also, spin casting
is
a more forgiving process from a detail point of view - because the molds
are rubber, you can have undercut areas on a model that are impossible
in
plastic moulding - so your metal figs tend to be *much* more detailed.

Adrian