historical mins

[generulpoleaxe]

after painting quite a few historical minis over the years, i was wondering if people would be willing to pay a little more for better quality.

most of the historical minis on the market aren\'t that great realy if we are honest, for cheaper unit building they are great (same as gw plastics) but the quality is lacking.

do gamers, as well as painters, want higher quality command units and characters.

i am asking as i am was wondering about commisioning some sculpters to start work on some realisticly proportioned, high quality miniatures for historicals.
mainly unit command and charcters as already mentioned.

 

[Brimshack]

What eras are you interested in seeing such minis produced for?

 

[No Such Agency]

Foundry already produces a lot of pretty decent minis from different historical periods, including command units and heroes. I get the impression they are almost all better than \"unit builder\" quality sculpts.

 

[Sand Rat]

Yup, they are. Got several of them waiting in the wings.

 

[generulpoleaxe]

foundry minis are nice, they are rather old now (especialy the ancient and medieval lines)and only 25mm. most of the new lines are around 28mm.

a lot of people are put off foundry as well thanks to there fantastic website. it is posiibly the worst set out website on the net.

i know there are a lot (understatement) of ancient lines on the market as well as quite a lot of dark age lines as well.
acw ww1/11 are also popular with manufacturers.

are there any other periods that are popular?
all i\'m doing is trying to find out if there is any slot in the historical market, and if so then i will consider it.
it\'s not something i would want to do full time as it is more unstable than mini painting.

 

[noneedforaname]

i demand samurai and ninjas

judo chop!!!!!

 

[generulpoleaxe]

perry miniatures have that one covered unfortunately, and they are quite nice.

i think dixon miniatures do them as well allthough they are a bit tubby.

 

[Amazon warrior]

Surely the Napoleonic stuff is popular too? If I was ever tempted by historical rather than fantasy wargames, that\'s probably what I\'d go for, as I find the history quite interesting (and I\'ve watched Sharpe far too many times!) . Maybe the English civil wars are of interest too? I\'m not sure.

You\'ve probably heard of them already, but there\'s a company called Miniature Figurines based in Southampton which makes/sells a lot of historical stuff. Their website is:

Miniature Figurines

Not the greatest website ever, but still.

 

[noneedforaname]

Ninjas are mostly the problem as they seem to be pants from most manufacturers.

As for samurai im going to give the perrys a try and see what happens though would be interested in larger scale too 40m to 54mm sort of size unless someone does that already? ???

EDIT: i would have a go at sculpting my own but am busy trying to unpack the house and fix/finish my dark eldar which should be done before crimbo !yay!

 

[quadrille]

How about Landsknecht (16th centruy) or 30 years war (1618-48) minis? Incidentally, the latter is roughly same period as the above mentioned English civil war. Those eras don\'t seem to be overly exploited. And they also happen to be some of my favourite eras I might even be interested in sculpting for you if you choose to do one of those.

A positive side effect of doing landsknechts in 28mm is that a lot of Empire players might be interested, since the new empire minis are straying rather too far away from the traditional Landsknecht look they used to have. Puff and slash looks like it\'s been replaced by.. Pajamas\'

 

[generulpoleaxe]

@quadrille p.m. sent.

@big mike, there are quite a few oriental 54mm sculpts http://www.historexagents.com/shop/hxsearchresults.php?SearchData=samurai&x=11&y=6

 

[noneedforaname]

spank you, spank you very much

 

[Swordwind]

I demand Richard III and his Standard Bearer!

 

[generulpoleaxe]

so would historical personalities be a possibility then?

i only ask as i at least want to make my money back and minis like that could be hit or miss with sales.

 

[Dragon Forge Design]

The problem with the Historicals miniatures market is you consumer base is cheap when it comes to miniatures. Most historical collectors and gamers don\'t want to spend much on miniatures in general. Most wish to pay in the $1-3.00 market per figure and the cheaper the better. Most arent to concerened with extreme details as they are with multiple poses and complete ranges. Historical miniatures in general are bought to play games with, so they are painted, based and put on the table top. Useually in average or below average quality.

So releaseing a high end set of miniatures with details like most fantasy miniatures would be appreciated by many in the historicals field, but if you asked Fantasy prices (as in GW, Rackham, PP, Hasselfree, Reaper) for them most would say you are insane and very few would purchase them. Its one thing to buy a cool ef chick for $5.00-10.00 but to buy 100\'s for a complete ACW army or any other historical period at that price would not go over well.

So to invest big money in nicely painted miniatures would be very risky in my opinion. Most top dollar sculptors ask anywhere from $300-$500.00 or more to sculpt a miniature. You almost need to sell 300-500 copies at a good price say $3.00 or more just to recover you sculpting and manufacturing costs.

In most cases historical sculptors work cheap and fast, hense the poor quality. In many cases, ranges get done because its the favorite period of the sculptor or the company, its their \"Pet\" project. Thats why you can see so many obscure ranges of historical miniatures being done.

My advice if it counts for anything is if you want something done really bad, do it but dont be alarmed that you may never recoup your investment in it. Thismay not be the board for questions like this also, you may want to go over to The miniatures page and ask those guys about what they would be willing to pay for a high end character or if they would even be interested.

 

[generulpoleaxe]

thanks for the advice jeff

most of the historical minis sell for between 90p and £1 in england. (more from foundry)

 

[Dragon Forge Design]

Originally posted by generulpoleaxe
thanks for the advice jeff

most of the historical minis sell for between 90p and £1 in england. (more from foundry)

Your welcome, I just thought Id throw in some advice from someone whos worked in the industry for over 15 years. Yeah you might sell a few, enough to recover you costs is another thing. If you did something of very importance in a period that many played and collected you might do well, but a obscure 1-2 year period of some English squabbel you may only sell a few.

Look around at sculptors in the UK, theres a ton of them who specialize in historicals see what kind of priced for quality you can find. If your talking just a couple figures to start, most independant mold makers will charge you a percentage of a master mold and could even do you a family production mold to start off. But Id still imagine a initial investment might cost 300 or more pounds to get going for something small. No you can learn to sculpt and cut out that investment, find a company willing to produce your work and pay you a royalty and that way you can get the stuff done you want and make some money from your time.

 

[Ritual]

Also keep in mind that the typical consumer base for historical minis are very concerned with accuracy of things like uniform details and equipment, more so than sculpting quality in many cases.

 

[generulpoleaxe]

that is one of the things i have noticed. and to be honest, it does look better when they are accurate (and in proportion)

i think if they are high enough quality some painters will be tempted, command sections and characters, that sort of thing.

 

[Brother Tom]

Ninja

Thats a good 54 mm ninja from pegaso models, they also do some great Samurai and other historical miniatures. The perry\'s amurai are good aswell imo just need to give them better bases they also have some ninja which are about 30mm.