Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Might Makes Right! - Ironblaster and Failcast


Well, it took me just over two weeks of on-and-off painting to get the Ironblaster finished, and pretty much all of it was a treat! Such a great model, lots of detail, goes together wonderfully, and even broke down into a good amount of components for painting (so I could get all of the details painted).

Here are a lot of photos of various angles.







I tried something a little different with the Ogre crewman. After I'd painted his skin with the new mix of "Ogre Flesh" I thinned some Vallejo Charred Brown and worked it into some of the crevices. I also used some Secret Weapon Ruby wash around the areas where the chunks of metal are embedded in the Ogres flesh. Looks quite nice, I think.


I also did my first "red nose" on a Gnoblar. It urned out to be quite easy to do, and again, I think it worked out well. I'm not thinking about going back and re-doing it on my other 40+ Gnoblars though.


The horns that form both the hafts for the chariot parts, and the carriage for the cannon part, were the most time consuming part. Lot's of very thin striations to give it a lovely texture.


And even more texture on the many barrels around the chariot.


Rant ON

And now onto my first Failcast tale of woe. My thanks to the angry, yet amusing and sarcastic, young man who created the logo above. I'm not sure who created it, but I stole it from the House of Paincakes blog. I hope no-one minds too much.


To keep it all simple, I'll let the photos do most of the talking. Here's one shot of the assembled Firebelly. He looks pretty good here, right? Not too much wrong with him.


Well, here you can see him from a few other different angles. A hole in his thigh, the gutplate didn't fit properly, the head/left forearm/firebreath piece did not line up with the body and left gaps that required extensive putty work, the right shoulder did not line up well and required more putty, and - in the worst case of airbubbles I've seen in a long time - the butt and rear left leg were pitted with holes, lots more putty required. Not to mention the warped pieces I had to heat and reset.

Sure, I could've complained to GW, and had their excellent Customer Service team send me a new model, but I'm sick of having to do that for things that should been caught in the first place. You can't get it right all the time, that's true, but this was a model I was super excited about, and it came close to crushing my hardy enthusiasm.

Rant OFF

My enthusiasm is returning, and I hope to have this model painted up by early October. In the meantime, I'll paint up some more British Dragoons!

Cheers
Dave

14 comments:

  1. First of all, Ogre Kingdoms is shaping up to be a fantastic range with fantastic looking models. Makes me want to paint them just looking at them! And you've done a fantastic model justice. Great stuff!

    But I'm sad to say I agree about failcast. After buying my second one this week (and I know it was ordered just for me, so not a first batch!) I am disheartened. I complained about the first one I bought, but I honestly didn't have the energy to complain again. 50+ airbubbles in a terminator Libby. Really? I did my best to fix it, but I think everyone deserves top quality minis to work with. GW should be very ashamed of themselves for selling such poor quality merchandise. Sure I can get replacements up the wazoo. But I just want a good one the first time thank you.

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  2. The firebelly was my third and final Finecast purchase. Had to sculpt a new neck (or with my skills that's actually blob green stuff in and hope no one notices).

    Second was the SM librarian which had its back vents missing.

    First was a pack of Dark Eldar Incubi with parts so thin I had to repair every sword and spike.

    Then on the opposite side of the fence we have the awesome new plastics coming out like your brilliant looking Ironblaster and the Thundertusk.

    Games Workshop please stop disappointing me and stick to delighting me!

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  3. For the price we are paying for the finecast the quality should be so much better!

    Top dollar and still lots of repairs!

    Rubbish product

    :P

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  4. Such a shame. Especially disappointing for what should be such a brilliant model.

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  5. I am still convinced GW is going to switch everything to plastic and Finecast is just like "New Coke". Once enough people bitch they will bring back coke classic and jack up the prices again and put themselves out of business...... maybe.

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  6. See the first Finecast model I got was incredible, the SM Jump Chaplain. The details were all there, the model was nice to work with and there were no imperfections.

    The second one though, an Ogre Kingdoms Butcher I paid the full Aussie RRP for is a piece of miscast crap, holes everywhere, big gaps where the model should join at the waist and a bunch of things on the sprue that were so covered in flash and grainy casting bits I almost had no idea what they were supposed to be..

    Oh well, I think I will just make my own characters from plastic models and GS in the future.

    Ironblaster looks great Dave, keen to see more!

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  7. Hey I thought this was a rant free zone! I've had my share of finecast problems as well. GW has been proactive about having people open their finecast models in the store before leaving, which helps a lot. I've been really impressed by their customer service. GW service has made me a pretty big fan.

    In terms of the actual models, It would be interesting to have a failcast hit counter for each of the finecast models. I bet there are clearly some casts that are winners and others that are losers.

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  8. I recently got a Firebelly as well and it seems as though yours had a lot of the same problems mine did. Mine also had a hole in the thigh and the arm and head didn't line up correctly which required me to sculpt him a new neck. It looks like your's has a lot more air bubbles though, mine only had a few which were easy enough to fill. I agree with the fact that a lot of this should be caught before shipping but I am pretty happy with their awesome customer service.

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  9. Dave, I'm sad to see the problems that you had with your firebelly, and I keep wanting to purchase one, but then keep thinking back to the number of problems that I had with my Wrack kits. Sure, GW was kind enough to send me two more Wrack boxes to make up for the problems in the kits that I had, but when it comes to dropping $30+ on a set of models(or in the case of the Firebelly, what, $40 for one model?) I expect some sort of quality.

    It really is too bad that this is the way that it has gone. Good luck with the painting, I'm betting that it will be amazing once you're done with it.

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  10. Hi guys

    Thanks for your comments.

    I know Finecast (aka Failcast OR Finecost) is a hot button topic. So many people who have felt the dual sting of higher prices and inferior castings. I wonder if they lowered their quality control because you can't simply throw failed castings back into a melting pot?

    Anyway, my favorite quote from your comments was from Karrde:

    "Games Workshop, please stop disappointing me and stick to delighting me!"

    Pure gold.

    Cheers
    Dave

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  11. Dave I'm a long time lurker and enjoy your projects. I do think the finecast problem for me is that we shouldn't have to open products in store. I expect quality regardless of price. GW is a well established company with funds to operate without cutting corners, but they are. A sub standard product shouldn't make it out to the public. I agree with you that apparently there cuts have been made in the quality control area.

    That said I love your ogre kingdoms, any chance for a group shot down the road. I like to see the story you show within your army.

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  12. I bought a finecast Astorath the Grim, to be fair, apart from the odd tiny hole, it was a decent one, so no problems. I'd got Him half painted, and put a wash on Him, then had to do something for a couple of hours so left Him on a shelf by the window. When I returned He'd vanished. The heat from the window had warped the resin, made Him top heavy, and sent Him crashing to the floor!!!! The fall had broken his(already too thin)spine/bone handled axe. Boy was that fun to pin..... I guess some models are better than others in finecast!!!!

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