Dear FT'ers,
I am considering making some custom resin miniatures and have been wondering
if anyone on the list has tried this before. I can't seem to be able to find
any mini's that I would buy anymore. Since the move from lead, I've seen some
really bad quality mini's out there. I just don't have the time to remove half
the mini due to excess flashing just to be able to paint the thing.
The process I'm planning on using is to make a primary model of the mini. Then
create a mold using silicon rubber, which will be split in half
(top/bottom).
Any info anyone has, or comments would be appreciated.
Thanks,
> Dear FT'ers,
There's a molding and casting FAQ available. If you look on
rec.games.miniatures.misc, someone posted info on the update mailing list
sometime in the past few days.
> I can't seem to be able to
<nit type=peeve frequency=common> I hope you mean "silicone". Silicon is very
brittle and difficult to work with.
</nit>
> Any info anyone has, or comments would be appreciated.
> <nit type=peeve frequency=common>
Woops.. caught myself too late.. i use SiliconAvatar online all the time and
always have to explain there is no such thing as a Silicon breast implant...
just too used to typing silicon i guess.
> I am considering making some custom resin miniatures <snip>
You haven't said what you're planning to make. Resin is wonderfully
suited to large, blocky models such as buildings and 15mm / 25mm
vehicles. It will reproduce surface details superbly, better than
metal. What it's not suited to IMHO is fine / thin detail such as gun
barrels, aerials etc, or thin parts such as aircraft wings - so it
isn't really suited to DS2 or FT miniatures. Any fine parts would be too thin
to stand up to tabletop usage.
When making your mould, you'd be better off making the mould in two separate
halves rather than trying to cut a single piece. Embed your master in
plasticine or equivalent (something like plastilene casting wax is ideal) then
cover it in silicone rubber. Let this set, remove the plasticine and spread
some petroleum jelly (Vaseline) on the exposed faces of the mould half (this
will stop the other half of the mould sticking to it). Then pour the rest of
the rubber.
If you use the right sort of rubber you can cast both metal and resin in the
same mould.
Hope this is useful.
Tony spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> If you use the right sort of rubber you can cast both metal and resin
Here is a question: I've seen several figure lines that are out of circulation
that I'd like to recast since I don't think I'll ever be able to buy them
again. How well am I likely to be able to reproduce a 25mm figure? Is there a
point in pursuing this or will so much detail be lost that it isn't practical?
/************************************************
> Here is a question: I've seen several figure lines that are out of
You should be able to get a reproduction that's almost
indistinguishable from the original - and also illegal ...
Leaving copyright considerations aside (I'll leave that to your own
conscience) you should be able to get a very high standard of casting even
from a hand mould, as long as you're prepared to accept that maybe 50% of
castings will be unusable (but at least you can
melt them down and use the metal again - you don't get that option
with resin).
> Is this not still covered by copywrite and hence illegal?
Yes, it is. Even if a figure or range is long out of production, someone
somewhere still owns the copyright, and even very old ranges have a habit of
popping up again years later (the Superior starships are a case in point).
Jon (GZG)
> Tony spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> Nic Robson <nicr@eurekamin.com.au> wrote:
[Re makeing copies of miniatures]
> Is this not still covered by copywrite and hence illegal?
Yes, I'd have thought so.
(by the way, its copyRIGHT not copyWRITE - ie control
over the right to make copies)
> Here is a question: I've seen several figure lines that are out of
I was just wondering...
Is it still illegal if the company is no longer in exsitance?
alun.thomas@cbis.com spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> Nic Robson <nicr@eurekamin.com.au> wrote:
Thank you to the various list members for pointing this out. I sort of asked
the question off the cuff, and later considered this issue. I'm duly
chastened. Consider it a hypothetical question.
Nic tells me we might see some figs from the Italian company that bought
Grenadier soon. If so, maybe the line I want to see produced
will be re-issued. If not, maybe I can secure permission from them
(Okay, this ones a long shot) to re-cast some for personal use.
Otherwise, I guess if I made castings and figs for myself I'd be in violation
of the copyRIGHT (yes we in Canada know how to spell Right, just like
Night.... ooooh cheap shot.....a thousand pardons....sorry couldn't
resist....).
It's good to know that some people actually believe in intellectual property
rights.:)
Tom.
/************************************************
I was hopeing the copyright thread would pretty much die out, much as it is
dear to Jon's(MOST understandably) heart.
I was earlier going to reply to 'is this illegal' with 'probably'. It's a
pretty complicated business: if the company holding the copyright belly's
up, it MAY revert to the original author/designer. If that person dies,
it MAY go to the estate.
It's complicated by a number of things, not the least of which the fact we're
talking about international copyright, which has some leeway across borders,
inspite of various conventions.
However, to get this off list, PLEASE, if you have web access, try using
either http://www.dejanews.com or http://www.reference.com, and search
back though discussions on rec.games.miniatures.*. Use key words such as
casting OR copyright OR resin, and you'll get more than you'd want to know
about international copyright, the Bern(?) convention, the applicability of
'Fair Use', etc.
There may be more comments coming, but if anybody else tries to with in the
next six months, I shall challenge that they have NOT bothered to read all the
above, and have failed to give us the courtesy of avoiding ground covered by
others. There's THAT much that's been posted.
The_Beast
P.S. Don't copy. They're out there, honest.
> On Tue, 3 Mar 1998, Thomas Barclay wrote:
No problem -- just so long as you continue to put deckles on your
miniatures.:)
Doug_Evans/CSN/UNEBR@UNebMail spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> There may be more comments coming, but if anybody else tries to with
Fair enough. No more shall be said by me regarding copyright or any such
thing. I think I have a picture of the steps involved in casting now, and know
who to talk to for info, off of the list.
> P.S. Don't copy. They're out there, honest.
But they sure are hard to find.....
:) Tom
/************************************************
> On Tue, 3 Mar 1998 Doug_Evans/CSN/UNEBR@UNebMail.UNeb.EDU wrote:
> There may be more comments coming, but if anybody else tries to with
Why is this such a sore point? The law's the law, and if that hurts your
business, tough. I'm a software professional so I have to live with
it too.
To put this shortly: The likelihood of miniature molds that have fallen into
public domain for one reason or another is extremely small (unless
you want to play SGII with turn-of-the-century tin soldiers). Work from
the assumption that someone out there holds a valid copyright to any figure
you might want to copy.
BUT: Finnish copyright law makes specific exception with copying for
*personal* use, and yes, Finland is a signatory to the Berne convention.
Your local copyright law may also have this exception. It is *not* the "fair
use" exception, it is a specific exception for *personal use*
(Finnish law is a lot clearer than the ambiguous US one -- which does
not mean it is crystal clear, either).
Thus, if I were to buy a book, I could legally make copies of it, as long as I
never gave one to anyone outside my immediate family. Software firms in
particular used to hate this, until they got an exception passed.
However, Finnish law has an exception to this exception for, among a few
other things, sculptures.
***************The Bottom Line*************:
Thus, I can xerox my FT rulebook and legally give my wife a copy. But I can
not make a mold of my NAC CV and cast copies of it.
*******************************************
Personally, I don't see the point of copying a miniature in production. I'll
gladly pay the price for the professional casting work. I wouldn't
even bother with out of production ones -- for that much trouble I'd
rather scratch-build and have something entirely my own.
In the end, it boils down to how law-abiding you are. We all know taping
a friend's CD is technically illegal... but how many of us does that knowledge
stop doing it?
And the final caveat: In certain countries it doesn't matter who's right
and who's wrong -- what matters is who can afford the legal bill. Most
likely it's not you.
Jukka Korpela has written an excellent piece on copyright to be found at
http://ww.hut.fi/~jkorpela/tekoik/ -- for those of you who can read
Finnish.
Is this not still covered by copywrite and hence illegal?
> Tony spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> in the same mould.
I don't think anyone want to make copies of miniatures to avoid playing for
them. Even if it was not a lot of work and expense for the equiptment and
materials, most of not all people would rather buy a legal figure.
What is frustrating is that there are a lot of very good miniautures that are
no longer available. If I could, I'd love to buy some of the Stardate 3000
spaceship by Valiant. I can understand why some want to copy miniatures such
as these, and quite frankly I don't see any harm in doing so. Certainly no one
is missing out on any profits since none are for sale anyway. It is great that
the Superior's Starfleet Wars ships are available again, but don't count on
other old lines coming back. It is a shame that it isn't legal to make copies.
Personally I'm too busy and lazy to try and make copies, so I do without.
Enjoy,
> Is it still illegal if the company is no longer in exsitance ?
Certainly. Depending upon local laws, it may revert to a) the original
designer b) creditors or c) some other nominated agency/person.
Again, depending upon local laws, if the copyright is owned by a person then
the copyright remains until 60 years after the person's death... variations
under your local laws of course.:)
> On Tue, 3 Mar 1998, Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:
> In the end, it boils down to how law-abiding you are. We all know
Also, generally when you nuke a copy of someone's CD you won't be playing it
when you run into the producer of the CD or a member of the band. The risk
factor is very small. However, you stand a much greater chance running into
Jon at a con in the UK or KR here in the USA.
I'd just as soon buy the legit figs and not deal with the potential wracked
nerves. Also, I just don't see incredible savings in producing your own with
the very small production runs I'd need.
> On Tue, 3 Mar 1998, Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:
The
> risk factor is very small. However, you stand a much greater chance
Exactly. Provided a figure is still in production, it will cost you more in
materials, time and hassle to cast some pirate copies than to go out and buy
legit ones, unless you want literally dozens of just one figure. Generally,
the only reason you'd want to cast a LOT of one figure is if you
intend to sell them, which is VERY illegal. If it is a long-out-of
-production mini, and you just want a few for yourself - then it is a
bit more like the CD example, inasmuch as everyone does it (or is at least
tempted) at some time......
On the subject of getting caught out, a couple of years ago there was a
particular big SF demo game at one of the UK shows, and looking round it I
noticed a large number of badly-cast copies of some of our resin cargo
pods being used as scenery. There were a number of red faces from the game
organisers when I mentioned this.... The point is that if they had come to us
and said "hey, we're running a big game at the show, could we have some stuff
for it?" we'd probably have let them have them cheap or even free in return
for the publicity.
Hi there,
Does anybody know what happened to ArrowJr's 'Gallery of Custom Full Thrust
Miniatures'? The link I have in my Favourites and those on most of the
web-pages appear to be broken. Are the pics still available anywhere?
Thanks,
Nick
> Nick Dingle wrote:
> Hi there,
Stephen Arrowsmith seems to have disappeared completely. The Custom Miniatures
web page went down over a year ago, the mail address doesn't
seem to work, etc... I have no idea what's happened to him - has anyone
else?
I have most of the SSDs that went with the pictures, but not the
pictures themselves :-(
Regards,