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General body plastic set

  • VS

    As the title sugests, I would like to keep this suggestion in our colective minds.

    A box just with simple male and female generic bodies would be a great deal. Most of us have a ton of spare parts, just waiting for a bodies.

    It would be, in my limited knowledge of the matter, fairly easy to convert the Goth bodies into a sprue for use. Maybe a sprue just with female and male bodies, generic heads. 

    Peasants, militia, NPCs for RPGs... The uses are a lot.
    Just an ideia, for the end of the line in your wonderful list of projects.

  • William Redford

    @Vitor Soares Yeah, I would buy these. 

    I would want something like the old WF Numidians. something that would not look out of place with different time periods heads or weapons. A female set of bodies would be very appreciated.

    As would the often suggested head sprue. 

  • Benjamin Hayward

    I'd love some generic bodies for NPCs, hostages, etc.

    I keep looking, but so far, nothing has hit the right spot.

  • MD

    Would love this. "Modern civilians" is still pretty much only covered by the old WGF Apocalypse Survivor kits that can still be gotten from Warlord (but you need to search the website. Project Z has dropped off the radar a bit).

    You can get some use out of the Partisans. And there's the male zombie sprue from Studio Miniatures, which can be used for non-undead without much effort (one of the bodies and a couple of the heads are basically intact, and two of the other bodies just have clothing damage). The body with the untucked shirt and tie in disarray suits a hostage, too.

    https://www.studiominiatures.com/shop/zombies/zombie-plastics-boxset-60-miniatures-533.html

    Spare heads and arms from any number of modernish kits, plus a bit of clothing repair would fix those up. The sprue can be ordered as a single item if you want to test it, though postage might be an issue on such a small order. OTOH, the box is very resonably priced if you have a need for zombs.

  • MD

    @William Redford on the other hand, if we want a head sprue and a body sprue, it would make sense to design and market those together. Maybe as two frames with the frames also sold seperately?

    On the other other hand, that was more or less how they designed the Cannon Fodder kit, but WGA have used a single frame design for Cannon Fodder 2. Which suggests there may be cost savings in the latter. I seem to recall WGF started with small frames (i.e. Amazons) but ditched that strategy for two frame designs (i.e. Apocalypse Survivors). Box assembly costs and inventory tracking might be factors. If it takes even a minute more to grab and count the right number of frames and fit them in the box, that's an hour's labour you save every 60 boxes.

  • William Redford

    @Mark Dewis yeah I remember on the old wgf forum, the reasoning for the amazons was so they could sell sprues easier. But they probably realized the profit vs effort was not worth it. Or the amazons were produced under Tony Reidy and the layer kits under Lonnie Mullins? So maybe just different  visions between the two. 

  • MD

    Having pretty much EVERY component on a seperate sprue cannot have been very efficient in terms of mold layout. Unless maybe the initial production had particularly small equipment? In any case, manufacturing has changed. I assume the molds are basically printed now? The old bottleneck was the cost of the equipment and labour needed to carve the steel blocks into molds. Then they moved to CAD based robot carving (less expensive per mold but higher base plant cost). Nowadays I'd expect a metal sintering 3D printer would be the efficient solution.

    And yeah. There was a phase change between older and newer WGF after the management change, which also came with changes to proportions (old = chunky to match typical metals, new = realistically proportioned) and with sculpting (100% CAD).  Casting quality improved too. The old WGF Zulu War British were almost unusable.  

  • BVD

    @Vitor Soares@William Redford 

    Actually, “historical proportion” female sets for things like "Dark Age working women" and/or fantasy kits might be the smarter route for female minis at the moment (there isn't a whole lot of historical scale proportioned female parts out there right now, so just doing bodies and heads for them seems a little bonkers to me😅, just a little).

    While I could see a female set similarly outfitted to the WGF Numidians doing really, really, well*🤑. For basic bodies lets stick with the idea its an all male subject for now cause that is what we all have in our bit boxes staring at begging for bodies🤣.

     Most of us have played around with this idea for awhile and I have mentioned it before elsewhere on this forum, but:

    While there is a workable one size fits all option with regards to just using up extra parts (which is a plain plate cuirass armor with pants and pull on boots torso😆), THERE IS NO  “good one size fits all” torso that’s “useful for every era of history gaming” option out there due to radical costume changes over time... and things like chain armored sleeve shoulders🤣.

    However there are a couple of torso designs we can all agree are more or less useful for a lot of things😏:

    The plain Dark Age clothed body with a tunic/shirt and pants body (ie what the Goth kit has): Useful in the Dark Age and earlier Iron Age Europe and near east, arguably not a go to for anything past the 1300s or the Himalayas though.😆

     

    The Numidian Tunic with bare legs and bare or sandled feet body (like the old WGF kit had): Useful for a lot of Mediterranean clime dwelling groups, a number of ancient Europeans and generic slaves (THIS NEEDS A GOOD REDO AND ITS OWN body SPRUE). 50/50 at best for non-Mediterranean or non-European groups (up for debate), but clearly not a go to for colder clime groups or Europeans from 16th century onward though.  

    Now a plain or buttoned shirt with a plane shashed or belted on pair of pants with pull on boots might be a good third option Since that might be able to cover the 17th century to maybe the  21st century for Europe and the Americias, but there is a lot to debate about that**.

    TBH most of the other "generic body" designs I have heard (and even proposed myself) are either useful for a very particular era or work best for Fantasy kit bashing.

     For example the WA partisan torsos as mentioned could theoretically be used for modern or very late 19th century with the right guns, but those torsos work best for the pulp era from 1920 to maybe 1960. A good chunk of time but the popularization of tee shirts kind makes them stand out a bit after 1960 if by themselves and  some torsos just seem to be dressed wrong for the 1910’s and earlier. 

    Likewise, the “plain plate cuirass armor with pants and pull on boots” torso should suck up any weapon armbits and headswap  combination you throw at it and still look "awesome" or at very least "decent"😉. BUT lord only knows if anything kitbashed with it would work for historical war gaming🤣.(For fantasy and SF gaming it would work great for a lot things, history not so much🤣).

     

     

     

    Notes:

    (*that said the best way I could see selling them would be as “Rebelling slaves I: fight for freedom ladies!” or some equally questionable title in the fantasy or maybe general accoutrement section🤣)

    (**I personally do not think that would work that will for that whole timeframe. Though a 100 year period of time useable body, such as the 19th century, might be achievable with such a torso setup depending on the combination of mentioned details)

  • VS

    @Brian Van De Walker first of all, I honestly really liked your answer. Thank you for such a complete answer.

    My ideia (proposal) is very simple. Some bodies with tunics, just like the ones in the Goth box. Of course they would have to come with accessories, but they could be minimal. And I keep forgeting the Dark Age Irish warriors, some great bodies in that box too.

    On this point, just let me say I am waiting ansiously for the roman, goth and germanic army builder boxes.

    On the female front, so to speak, I agree, the ideal setting would be fantasy, but I could easily use the same bits I would use for the female bodies.

    Now, I admit that outside of the periods I play (ancients, medieval, renascence and fantasy) I didn't even consider it.

    On the numidian \ tunic and sandals bodies, again, I could easily use them.

    Thanks again, you post is very clear and complete.

  • CO

    Yea dark age generic bodies similar to the wga goths would fit well with the contents of my bits box.
    Perhaps jazz them up abit with the odd vests/jackets/robes/tabards one might wear as an alternative to the fashionable tunic :D

  • MD

    Oathmark Human Infantry have some potential that way:

  • MD

    I would also add that there are a LOT of Dark Age kits out there already. WGA, Victrix, Gripping Beast and more.

  • BVD

    @Vitor Soares Come to think of it, wouldn't the Goth army bulider box WA was/is planing on doing cover that idea of yours nicely, particularly if its going to have accessories anyways?

  • VS

    @Mark Dewis yes,  Oathmark and Frostgrave kits are great,  they are the source of most of my spare bits.

    I know that there are a lot of dark age / fantasy kits in the market right now, that is the point of my original post. Those kits left me with a huge number of bits,  a generic platic bodie kit,  as discussed above,  would allow me to use them. 

  • VS

    @Brian Van De Walker I remembered that when I was writing my previous post. I would,  of course,  depend on the position of the arms.

    Of course,  I'm still buying both the goth and the roman army buider boxes, regardless of the fact that I can use them or note. 😀

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