Need your thoughts on prepainted miniatures.

[Glyfair]

How can you cost effectively release pre-painted metal figs? Wouldn't that be cost-prohibitive? I'd prefer plastic, since they'd be cheaper.

It has been done and somewhat recently (tied into d20). The ones I saw were poorly painted (compared to the Mage Knight figures, that were the only comparison at the time) and were about the same cost as a set of unpainted miniatures.

The sculpts didn't send me either, but that could have just been that I couldn't see the sculpts under the paint.

 

[barsoomcore]

Plastic.

Me, too.

I'm not going to repeat what everyone else said above.

Me, neither.

 

[d-pirate]

Plastic is the answer. However may I please be the spokesman for the d20/D&D community when I beg for plastic dungeon dressing type miniatures? I have been lucky enough to amass quite a collection of the Wotc sets (I have a complete collection and a large number of duplicate rares I routinely drool over) What I need is the other type of miniature. Theres a company out there right now advertising in Dragon magazine for this type of miniature but they are unpainted metal miniatures and instantly turned me off. Can we not get a plastic treasure chest or bed or any of the other countless ones that have been the bas&*rd step children of miniatures?

Hell just make those kind for me I will pay, lol

 

[Omro Gamer]

plastic, they are light and easy to carry

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Pssst. One word:

 

[Steel_Wind]

Plastic. See above.

 

[zoroaster100]

I'd prefer plastic. They are more durable, less susceptible to chipping/damage.

While I'd eagerly consider any number of miniatures a competitor to WOTC might make in palstic, there are some really interesting niches left uncovered by WOTC's miniature line. What I wouldn't give for a set of nonrandom prepainted plastic "commoners" or "townspeople" to use in my games!!! There are also so many traditional D&D monsters that WOTC has not yet covered and will not cover for a long, long time, which are not WOTC's intellectual property. Many basic player character concepts have also not been covered. WOTC has yet to do a female human wizard in their plastic line. I like the WOTC minis, but would love to have an alternate source of miniatures.

 

[pogre]

Why would you go head to head with WOTC with pre-painted plastics? Go very high quality paintjobs on metal - raise the bar.




Yeah - I know it's a pipe dream. If you want to make a lot of cash: plastic all the way.

 

[Matt Black]

If production of metals really is cheaper to set up, would you consider doing both basic plastics for the monsters and a smaller line of higher quality metals that focus on characters? I've turned to buying painted metals on ebay because I want quality minis to be available for both pcs and npcs, and no longer have the time to paint them all myself. I'm sure there are a lot of people in my situation - busy, full time workers who are happy to spend a bit of money to have the minis they can no longer paint for themselves.

 

[megamania]

Generally I would say plastic but keep in mind there is plastic and there is plastic. Some are very fragile and some melt in indirect sunlight.
Metal is good but not cost effective.

Creating critters ahead of WoTC will be your next trick. Will you be trying to tie into another line? say...Scarred Lands?

White Wolf would cover Scarred Lands, Vampire, Werewolf and several others.

Hope it works out. Keep us posted.

oh and hey ....if you need a figurine designer.....