Hello! What do y'all think about different head options, maybe sold like the Death Korps-ish accessory sprue?
I'm thinking different types, such as:
Bionic/Cyborg
Corrupted/Demonic
Beast
Alien
Robot/Android
All sprues could have options for male and female
It's a suggestion I've been making for a while now, in one form or another.
The Stargrave plastic kits include a couple alien alien heads in them, but it's tantalizingly too small a number and too shallow a selection to build full alien factions with. I do prefer WA's figures, and I think that a great selection of alien heads could easily be paired up with e.g. Cannon Fodder bodies - or any others - to create great generic sci-fi alien warbands, we just need a good source of them.
Seems like the majority of Stargrave/Starfinder-friendly space-opera aliens run on that sort of rubber-forehead, rubber-mask, and/or make-up with a jump-suit sort of aesthetic, drawing from influences like Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, Doctor Who, and the like.
I don't mind seeing multiple half-sprues, either, with a mix of a few alien heads, and matching arms and weapons to go with them, if that works better: it certainly provides a way to supply some non-human arms and hands/claws.
I think a head sprue of different alien heads would work equally well with both sci-fi and fantasy stuff, though.
I should note that one of the winners of last year's survey was a "Multi-Species Alien Set", which sounds like a similar concept! Maybe something of the sort is already on the drawing board?
I think the core strength of WGA is the quality plastic bodies that can be mixed with a variety of kits, so I'd actually perfer the opposite, a sprue of bodies only and we can source the heads and loadouts from the billions of spare parts that come with other brand kits lol
@Glorious Grunt The problem I've come across here in the States (which may not be a problem in your neck of the woods) is that, while there are numerous companies that make options, not many manufacture -- or have warehouses -- here, so shipping can be expensive unless you order a lot to get free shipping (if that's even offered). Wargames Atlantic could be a lower-cost alternative.
The other problem I have is only one company, Anvil Industries, has a somewhat-extensive selection of female heads; most others only have a few, if any. I want female servitors, dangit! And as much as I like my sexy cheesecake, I want my chicks to look a little more grounded than some of the more "pin-up" styles out there.
I like the idea. A small(ish) 'upgrade' sprue could transform an existing kit into a second use. GW have done it (e.g. turn Imperial Guard into Genestealer Cult) and we've seen one example from WGA too.
I'd suggest some kind of zombie/infected human sprue. That could be useful for things like turning Cannon Fodder into Nurgle zombies for 40k (are they still a thing?) or for Stargrave (the most recent supplement features zombie things).
Pointy eared female heads that actually looked female?
@Benjamin Hayward
Clearly you have only looked at the risen female heads from Anvil and have not discovered the Fireforge peasants’ girls which are little too mannish face wise if you ask me (and I am not even going to talk about GW🤣). I would just use gasmask with hoods or full robot heads for female servitors, we all know that is what they would look like really.
If the options for female heads are either cheesecake or mannish (ie what “realistic” or "grounded" for women really seems to mean in 28mm plastics), I say lean more to the cheesecake side for female faces in plastic as a rule (there are some subjects that are exceptions to it but most of them are not real good ideas for plastic sets add-ons beyond the token old matron headswap or two), maybe add a few scars if we are talking hardened warrior women. Over half the time they will look real enough for all practical purposes once done since the sculptors in the business tend to have a hard time sculpting pretty female faces anyways, there are exceptions but even with digital sculpting they are not likely to be all beauty pageants contenders (I know soccer moms and have had Sunday school teachers and classmates in real life that looked more “cheesecakey” face and even body shape wise than most of the multipart “cheesecake” minis I own and have come across outside maybe the more anime style sculpts, and that’s anime style and a maybe!).
The only reason to do otherwise normally is if you’re using something like the latest rendition of DAZ studio with tons of professionally well-made preset female morphs for digital models as the base sculpts or have a sculptor that really, really knows how to use the morphing tools and the human body and face.
@JTam Plastic model gods yes! I would buy that.
@Ben Saunders Zombies are always a thing, anyone else beside cannon fodder you want to add (like space dwarfs, Space Germans, Space French or those space Brits). Maybe some non-human undead parts sprue though I feel thats more a "classical Fantasy" line thing at this point.
The scale does go a long way toward dictating what is practical for female characters.
"Realistically", women wouldn't stand out very much from men characters, after you've added combat armor, chainmail, cloaks, etc. And "realistically", blending in with men would be a feature rather than a bug for women in a real army, for various psychological and practical reasons. At a certain point, there's no sense in differentiating very much - the female heads for the Grognards might be the best concession for most generic wargame army kits.
Generic zombies might best just go with generic zombie heads and bodies, defaulting to male, or at least to "too decayed to tell anymore!"
Where the femininity of the characters is important to emphasize, an exaggerated "cheesecake" approach is maybe better employed, just to stand out at 28mm - which is as much as anything the reason that fantasy character women tend to exaggerate the natural curves and do some silly things like fantasy "breast plate" armor, chainmail bikinis, impractical hair styles, and that sort of thing: it goes a long way toward helping with the visual cues that the character is, in fact, a woman, when it's difficult to see anything subtler at that scale. (Of course, the fact that the "cheesecake" sort of thing also crosses over into "sex sells" territory isn't lost on me or anyone else, either, but selling sex to wargamers is hardly the only reason for this sort of sculpting!)
So, maybe boxes of Amazon Warriors and that sort of thing might benefit from a bit more exaggeration and a bit less "realism".
I think I've really come to appreciate what the artists and sculptors at Reaper have been doing with their female minis over the last couple years: the exaggerated "heroic" sculpting style for female characters seems to be drawing from anime quite a bit - the large eyes, small mouth, etc. It's not a style I'm ordinarily stuck on - I'm not an anime fan - but for suggesting feminine faces at 28mm scale, the results are quite effective:
You're clearly not in "realistic" territory anymore with that style, but I think that comes with the territory of 28mm heroic fantasy characters anyway.
I found the old WGF female survivors had a good mix of feminine heads. Some were very glam, while others were more bland, old or heavyset (to match the bodies). They didn't go all crazy cheesecake like Shieldwolf or Raging Heroes, but neither were they boyish or ambiguously feminine as often happens. Mantic's halflings and Frostgrave's warriors 2 also do a good job of making faces that look clearly feminine without looking like cover girls out of place in a battlefield.
@Yronimos Whateley One of the few times I find myself disagreeing with you mate. @BS Kitbasher my thoughts echoes yours on this.
@BS Kitbasher @Grumpy Gnome
The old WGF female survivors are an example of really good use digital preset models with morphs sculpting wise, but they also had some serous draw backs like pose limitations and build issues because of that variety of body shape (so there are some big cons to that approach as opposed to going with a standard body type/size).
That said I would argue it is still better to err on the side of cheese cake normally when it comes to faces and body shapes for women at least for fantasy subjects like most warrior women types particularly when we are talking something in heroic proportions like these head swaps or bodies to go with them but also more historical proportion fantasy stuff, overall maybe make them a touch athletic body wise but not to the point where its weightlifter body territory. (In other words no more supposedly attractive elf girl archer/witches/spacers that have faces that look like either Hugo Weaving or Leonard Nimoy hybridized with cats and/or the muscle tone of Jean-Claude Van Damme in his prime, please no more🤦).
I like diversity in body shape, regardless of gender. Sometimes for a project I want a lighter person, some times a heavier person. Sometimes I want a more muscular person, sometimes a less muscular. Sometimes attractive, sometimes unattractive.
Sprues of 28mm clone like Ken and Barbies is not what I am generally after... although admittedly sometimes those sculpts are what I need as well.
I can sculpt with greenstuff, be it eyepatches, beards or whatever but that does not mean I always want every figure to come clean shaven... even if in the surface that seems to most generically useful.
North Star seems to be getting female miniatures right with their Frostgrave figures and female Stargrave miniatures are due to be released soon.
I'm with Yronimos Whateley and Brian Van De Walker on this one.
If I can't tell it's a female miniature on the tabletop at three feet I might as just well get a male miniature. Female attributes will have to be emphasized in 28mm to get this across. This is not a double standard. Every male miniature is a square jawed hero with a 48 inch chest.
(Bro, do you even lift?)
For female heads I think currently Statuesque Minis is the gold standard.
The female head on the Raumjager sprue is pretty good:
https://wargamesatlantic.com/community/xenforum/topic/50193/desert-planet
Also, I don't really think heads can be "cheesecake," - they are either feminine or unfeminine. I suppose one could paint a head in a cheesecake style - and props to you if you have that level of skill.
perhaps instead of just aheads sprue, it coul be a general "upgrade and options" sprue. with some alternate heads that will work on most of the figures, some backpacks, puches, grenades, holstered pistols, etc. stuff that can be used to personalize the figures.
@Mithril2098
+1
WGA kind of did one sprue like this:
https://wargamesatlantic.com/collections/all/products/death-fields-weapons-upgrade-sprue-001
I hope WGA does further sprues like this.
(If this particular sprue doesn't due very well it might just be because it's a little uninspired. Not trying to slander a WGA product on the WGA website - but my feedback would be: Heads are awkward, helmet doesn't seem to fit on head right. [Which to be fair, a lot of times one's helmet doesn't fit great on top of a gas mask.... but it doesn't look good.] I like the seperate filter bits. The SMGs are OK if super generic. The laser rifles are bad. They look like they fell out of Mystery Science Theater 2000 - and not in a good way. If they looked like the Cannon Fodder rifles that would have been fine. Even the bayonets are a little off putting, which I didn't think was possible.)
Again it's a great concept. There are a LOT of people waiting that would scoop up similar sprues in order to convert kit X, Y, or Z for use in their sci-fi army. Just need decent looking laser weapons.
Originally I was not a fan of these Cannon Fodder add-on sprues but they have grown on me. I think they are a bit pricey but they do help make the Cannon Fodder a bit more multi-purpose.
I like the laser rifles, certainly more that the boxy “bolted looking” shorter weapons on this sprue and the rifles in the Cannon Fodder box. It looks less GW influenced and will work nicely with my pulp sci-fi post-apoc project. So the Mystery Science Theater 2000 aesthetic works for me. Now give me some Robbie the Robot “Fallout but not Fallout” robot sprues please...
The respirators will hopefully work well with the enclosed helmets of the Cannon Fodder to help look more like spacesuits or perhaps “Not Fallout Institute” hazmat suits.
And those heads look good Jtam but not as diverse as the North Star female wizards sprue.
@JTam you need to see the Shieldwolf ShieldMaidens, then. Many of the heads have pouty lips or seductive expressions that just look too much like the cover of a Men's magazine to take seriously. That's a difference between a feminine head with a beautiful face and a cheesecake head.
Well, I didn't mean to de-rail this thread. 😆 Would you buy head (and maybe arms, weapons, and gear) option sprues?
@Benjamin Hayward I would. Like JTam said, the statuesque heads are great and i have bought a ton. And there have been at least 2 recent succesful kickstarters for head stls (which doesnt help me since i dont have a 3D printer and am too "old man scared" to get one...). So there is a market...
@BS Kitbasher I agree that the Shieldmaiden heads were my least favorite part... well also the lack of enough weapons to make a unified squad..,. I dont think their issue was they were too cheese cake... I mean they could be, but what I didnt like was all the wind swept dynamic hair... I would have been ok with the faces if the hair had been a little more sedate.
But I would definitely buy just plain heads... both male and female. I would also buy helmeted heads or even alien or bestial heads. If you are playing a game like Pathfinder or D&D and was a Kitsune or Catfolk or dogfolk or rabit folk, etc... You can use any of the existing multipart minis and with a single Cat head you have a Catfolk version of your vary own... Or you could use one of the Deep cut minis and just do a head swap with your WA head sprue and get your custom mini you always dreamed of.
@JTam I think the issue with the las rifles is they are love/hate design (which to be frank a lot of laser guns have), to me they look a lot like the DKK las rifles.
@William Redford Just try ebay, I am in my 30's and I have the "oh, no, not more tech!" issue 3D printers too, so ebay.
@Brian Van De Walker I've got cold feet about 3D printers, too, except my worry is that if I figure it out, I'll n ver paint another mini again -- I'll just be printing new ones as fast as I find them! The Chronic Acquisition Disorder is real, maaaaan!
