Finally, I'm doing a post on something other than 3D printing. I've bought quite a few Reaper Bones plastic miniatures over the years, and I'm quite familiar with their advantages (cheap, light) and disadvantages (shallow detail, bendy). When I heard that Reaper came up with a new type of Bones miniature, called Bones USA, using a new production process, of course I had to order some and see for myself. The selection is not large yet, and I ordered a number of sci-fi miniatures and a fantasy wizard.
This is a "Death Marble", which is a large floating globe drone. As you can see from the shot, the details are very sharp, but some mold lines are visible.
When assembled (just pushed together and not properly glued yet), it looks quite nice, with well-defined panel lines. It looks close enough to my
3D printed drones that I can probably use it as a "boss" drone. It definitely shows sharper detail than typical Reaper Bones miniatures.
Here are a couple of "Viceroy Enforcers", humanoid robots with heavy guns. Again, sharp detail, but with some mold lines. Since these are much thinner than the "Death Marble", I tried bending them. There is some give, but the guns and legs are not nearly as bendy as the white plastic from older Bones material.
The next Enforcer is much smaller than the others, which is kind of strange. Nevertheless it has the same excellent detail.
As you can see with this size comparison, it actually fits more with 1/72 scale miniatures than with larger 28/32mm. With 28mm miniatures, it will be a very small robot. No matter what though, I think all of these will see service in Stargrave.
I also ordered a fantasy wizard ("Darius the Wizard") in the same material. The detail on this model actually makes it quite a bit better than other fantasy Bones miniatures I have, and I especially love the rat familiar which is tiny but characterful. However, in addition to mold lines, you can also see a bit of flash on the top of his hat.
Overall, the material reminds me of the "Ultracast" material from my Battlegroup Northag crowdfunding purchase. It might be the same technology that allows plastic injection into flexible molds designed for metal miniatures. The technology also ties into their name, with the "USA" bit meaning that they are produced at Reaper's home facility in Texas, which means it's something that doesn't require a factory like traditional soft plastic injection molding. This material seems to have somewhat sharper detail, but with the same issue with mold lines.
When I prep and paint these, I'll have to take note to see how easy it is to remove the mold lines, which is always tricky with soft plastic.
Don't worry, I'll be back with more painted 3D prints soon.
Helpful, particularly the size comparison on the enforcer bot there. I'd been debating ordering blind since the local store doesn't stock Reaper properly any more. As you said, the two bigger guys will be very handy for Stargrave soldiers with rapid-fire guns and other sf skirmish gaming. Guess the little guy will still work - smaller is better for a sniper model, right? :)
ReplyDeleteMight not even be robots - maybe they're powered frames for smaller than man-sized xenos that they adopt to operate comfortably with human-scale tech and environs. Wee tiny alien mech pilots are an amusing idea.