D&D minis - how are they painted

[lukelightning]

Gimme a break. Are they here in the country illegally? Yes. Therefore they are illegal.

Perhaps I am being sensitive but the way you phrased "illegals" just strikes a nerve with me, people out here in Los Angeles generaly dont use the term "ilegals" unless they are speaking prejudicialy about a group of people. I am assuming I am having a regional dialect reaction seeing as you look to be from IL.

 

[Jupp]

How are the D&D minis painted.

Really ugly

I mean, physically, in the creation -> packaging process? Is there a painting machine that does this?

Painting machines (robots) would be insanely expensive for this job because a) you have to create different progammed processes for each mini (ugh!) and b)since the minis all have different sizes those robots would have to be pretty flexible (something along the line of welding robots used in car production lines, just a bit smaller, though the same principle). I just cannot imagine that such things would pay off if you can give it out to places like Asia or Eastern Europe where the price for a hundred people painting minis is probably lower than one of those robots.

Packaging could be done by machines. But since I do not work at WotC all of the above could be pure rubbish

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Gimme a break. Are they here in the country illegally? Yes. Therefore they are illegal.

Amen.
Anyway I don't buy minis cause I'm poor. My group uses little pieces of paper with letters written on them to represent characters and creatures. Doesn't suprise me they're made by chinese factory workers makes sense.

 

[Dremmen]

edit: forget it. believe whatever the hell you want

There is a camouflaged Porto-Potty behind the WOTC offices that is guarded day and night by a band of ornery hobos who hold on to the hope that one day it will open. Within the confines of the well guarded portable poop box is a short and squat Sculptor of High Intelligence and Talent whom they only refer to by "Little" followed by his acronym. He sits imprisoned, fed only plastic shavings and given paints of the primary colors to drink. Bathroom reading is limited to DDM sketches and Dungeon. And every night at the stroke of midnight a new miniature is excreted unto a waiting box under the porto-potty where a White-Faced Capuchin Monkey instinctively flings it. The mini sails over the head of the vigilant vagrants and lands safley on a bed of the shredded draft of D&D campaign setting World of Gor. WOTC employees then take the miniature to add it to the coming set.

Just a theory.

 

[Romnipotent]

monkeys... it was space monkeys wasn't it Kaley?

 

[satori01]

Gimme a break. Are they here in the country illegally? Yes. Therefore they are illegal.

You seemed to be missing what I was saying, I was not questioning the correctness of his usage of the word illegals, but more trying to get clarification regarding intent. Again it might seem silly to some of you, but here in California, and Los Angeles specifically we might say illegal immigrants or illegal aliens; using the term 'illegals' out here is akin to refering to African Americans as 'negros', accurate term but usage of that term reveals some discrimnatory prejudice behind the use.

It's a regional dialect thing, which I assumed it was (and stated in my first post). This California information tip was brought to you by the letter Q.

The link to the comments by Heinsoo was execellent and just the type of thing I was looking for. WOTC and Hasbro seemed to have taken some care when selecting facilities for minature production, which is a good thing, and a precursory check of some websites that monitor offenders of labor laws did not turn up WOTC name on the lists,(though I must admit it was a very quick search).

 

[Bloodsparrow]

Gotta be better then working at the Nike factory...

Thank you good night!

 

[Prince of Happiness]

Believe me: they're handpainted. You can't get a machine to paint figures as complex as DDM without spending a huge amount of money. And you have to reconfigure the machine for every miniature!

Look at the Gibbering Mouther:

That sort of fine work requires human dexterity.

Which, according to aforementioned friend from Painandgreed's reply, required an absurdly high number of "stops" to paint. Something like 11 (most need three to four).

 

[DaveStebbins]

Painting machines (robots) would be insanely expensive for this job because a) you have to create different progammed processes for each mini (ugh!) and b)since the minis all have different sizes those robots would have to be pretty flexible (something along the line of welding robots used in car production lines, just a bit smaller, though the same principle).

Don't forget that thermoplastics are molded at high temperature and different sections of a figure will shrink and bend, to varying degrees, as they cool. So even consecutive figures of the same mini will have positional variations large enough to preclude machine painting. Machine painting would require entirely different sculpts, which would create figures ugly enough to make the process a non-starter. Hand-painting is the only feasible alternative.

-Dave

 

[Krug]

I bet they hired Gnomes to do it...