Finecast Saga

After reading about the various problems following Citadel's introduction of Finecast, I decided to wait several months before buying anything.

My opportunity came recently, when I decided my few metal Beastmen could do with a warband leader. I decided on Malagor the Dark Omen and handed over my cash.

On getting home, I found a number of problems (though I forgot to take pictures of that figure). The main problems were: the underside of his jaw was missing, multiple (about twenty) holes on his back and the problems that would plague all the figures: ring and pinky figure on his left hand and the tops of two bones on his cloak missing - arrowed in the pictures below(*).

I took the figure back the following day for a replacement. The replacement's jaw and back were fine, but again, the fingers and bones were missing.

I took this second one back, but they had no more in stock, so I took the figure home, waiting for new ones to come in.

The third attempt proved equally fruitless. There were three in stock, but all of them had the same problems with the fingers and bones.

At this point, I decided I might as well try to sculpt the missing parts. I had considered this earlier in the saga, but was reluctant to try, as there was nothing to support the new putty; even if I got it fixed, it would basically be a plug of Greenstuff in the finger, liable to be knocked out if handled roughly. It looked, however, like this was a systemic problem with the mould, so I figured I might as well try. If it all went wrong, I had permission from the local shop to take it back and try again...

How the sculpting went...

I think it went okay. The Greenstuff was quite old, but still fairly malleable. I tried to make the putty slightly softer than usual (more light green), but it didn't really work. I sculpted in the fingers and bones, then left them to dry overnight; given what I've read about Finecast and heat, I wasn't going to place it under a lamp to speed up the drying time :-)

The following day, it was just a case of dropping fingernails on both fingers. Tiny bits of putty that didn't want to stay where I put them, but they were eventually persuaded.

The result is not great, but I think it will suffice. The main focal point on the figure is his head and staff, so as long as the fingers don't look horrendous, they shouldn't draw too much attention. The fingers themselves seem quite firmly anchored, but I'm still going to be careful when handling the figure.

The bones were pretty straightforward, just two blobs of putty to fill out the hollows.

General thoughts

There are definitely problems with the mould for this figure. One of the shop staff suggested that the figure was originally metal, so possibly the mould would need to be redesigned slightly.

While not seeking to excuse these problems, however, I do find myself wondering if I'm considering resin/Finecast slightly unfairly when compared to what I'm prepared to put up with from a metal figure.

I recently spent about thirty minutes cleaning a metal figure. This was largely due to the fact that there had been mould slippage, and there was a ridge around a lot of the figure (including the back of his head and jawline). It was sufficiently bad that, had I seen it in a shop (rather than buying it online), it would have stayed in the shop.

I've also had to sculpt in some missing rope on another metal figure, so metal is definitely not without its problems. However, fixing metal is a lot easier, mainly because you can apply more pressure without having to worry about things breaking.

I also have some concerns about resin dust. There was a lot of filing to fix the metal figure, and that amount of resin dust in the air is not something I'd be happy about. I have ordered a dust mask, which will help, but I'm going to have to see if I can create better ventilation in my work area, or possibly do more wet sanding when cleaning figures. Given that metal prices are rising, it looks like resin figures will become more common, so we're all going to have to deal with these problems at some point.

Conclusion

I haven't collected many resin figures over the years, but these Citadel ones are the worst I have seen so far. I was looking at some resin Studio McVey figures that I have, and the difference between them and the Finecast stuff is embarrassing. The pieces of Katya, before any cleaning, are shown below.

No air bubbles, crisp detail (the Finecast stuff looks quite soft in comparison), no ridiculous number of channels attached to the figure. They're not without flaws, and the tip of a sword is missing on one figure (which I'm not looking forward to patching), but they're at least an order of magnitude better than the current Citadel offerings.

I renewed my subscription to White Dwarf the other week, and ordered the subscription figure at the same time - the White Dwarf pirate. This, needless to say, is Finecast, but is much better than Malagor. There are some bubbles, but nothing too serious. There are still a lot of supports that are going to have to be cut off and filed clean, but I don't think Greenstuff will be required this time, although Liquid Greenstuff definitely will be; the most obvious air bubbles are marked in the pictures below.

I'm sure I'll be buying more Finecast in the months/years to come, but, unless they make some serious improvements to their processes, it's not something I'm in any hurry to do.

*  apologies for the disgusting blob of Blu-Tack in the pictures, but it was the nearest thing to hand when I needed something to lean the parts against.