Heresy Miniatures: Undead GHOULS! Kickstarter

Heresy Miniatures sammeln auf Kickstarter Geld um einige ihrer Untoten in Siocast zu produzieren.

PLASTIC 28mm Undead: GHOULS !

Making the Ghouls even better by producing them in plastic!

Phase 1: The Best Ghouls In The World, But More of Them And In Plastic (And Also Resin!)

This Kickstarter aims to raise enough money to pay for at least one Ghoul Tribe plastic injection silicone mould (possibly two or three if it goes crazy in the first few days and demand is high) and a production run of those Ghouls in Siocast plastic. See Full info below for details about this process.

Each set of plastic ghouls will contain a complete Ghoul King, a Ghoul Hag, Ghoul Child and then nine further ghouls – 7 of which have swappable legs and torsos to provide  loads of unique assembly options if you already have the original ghouls. Take a look at this picture for an example of the full set, these are the resin masters being sent to the caster. I will add more individual pictures as the campaign goes on, in the updates pages.

There are 12 figures in the Ghoul Tribe, supplied unpainted and unassembled. Assemble using superglue. Most figures are two-part figures, two of them have three parts, all are easy to put together with superglue. Recommended ages 13+. MATURE THEME. Does not contain nuts.

The original metal ghouls, painted here by Sonny Bundegaard and Mika

Full Info: Paul Muller’s Legendary 28mm Ghouls, But More Of Them And In Plastic!

Over the years, so many people have told me that the ghouls that Paul Muller sculpted for me are the best in the world. And I wholeheartedly agree! The only thing is, the current ghouls are  metal (lead-free tin alloy, in fact), and they’re quite fiddly to put together because metal is difficult to work with compared to plastic or resin and you have to pin the thin arms into place and so forth.  So very worth the time it takes to assemble them, but definitely an ‚expert‘ kit (superglue accelerator is a must)!

For years I’ve wanted to upgrade the Ghouls to plastic or resin but never had the funds to do so, but in the miniatures world there has recently been a big development – the creation of a new injection plastic process from Siocast, that uses vulcanised silicone moulds and a thermoplastic injection machine to produce resin-quality detail and undercuts with a durable plastic material. You can check out siocast.com for more details on that, but suffice to say, this is a game-changer. The only drawback is that the machines are proprietary and cost a fortune to buy from Siocast, over £30,000, way outside the budget of your average dungeon-dwelling independent minatures maker like me – but I do know a fellow indie that HAS invested, and they have offered to make me some plastics using their machinery. I felt like the ghouls were the perfect place to start as they’re one of the ranges I constantly have to cast up, and I think they deserve an easier-to-assemble new outlook on life. The new plastic material is easily assembled using superglue (note: it is a plastic but not a polystyrene and ‚plastic glue‘ aka polystyrene cement will not work here) and is recyclable -so any miscast or spare bits of sprue can be used again at the factory.  Not only that, but as it’s a thermoplastic, it will bend rather than snap, and bends back into shape! With their thin limbs, thus makes the ghouls ideal candidates for the material!

But Why Plastic?

Things are rapidly changing in the world of independent wargames miniatures making! The cost of the normal metal alloy that we UK indies all use has risen to astronomical heights, making the figures suddenly so much more expensive than they used to be!

But at the same time, a new process has been invented by Spanish company Siocast, a midpoint between the mass-produced injected multi-part HIPs plastic kits you see in Games Workshop and the laborious hand cast resin process we are familiar with already . This new process produces resin-like detail in a slightly flexible thermoplastic (great for those thin Ghoul ankles) at ten times the speed of regular resin production. It costs more to produce than the industrial scale hard plastic kits but retains the traditional detail and undercuts of metal and resin production. And it’s so much easier to work with, as a modeller and painter, than tin alloy is!

The Siocast process costs a fair bit to directly invest in; the machines themselves, the most important bit, are ludicrously out of reach for someone with my current budget, they cost more than a brand new family car, and the proprietary nature of the process, moulds and materials means that Siocast can name their price (and have) and you need some serious cash available to invest in it, but I am teaming up with the fine people at fellow indie Zealot Miniatures, who do have one, and will produce the ghouls in Siocast plastic for me. This means you will get all the dark splendour and detail of these classic Paul Muller sculpts reproduced perfectly, with far easier assembly and cleanup than the same figures in tin alloy, where you have to pin those thin arms and legs in place – with the Siocast plastic, a little superglue will do the trick splendidly by itself! Although this means I will make far less profit per set compared to producing them myself, the fact that I won’t have to spend the hours days and, yes, weeks standing in a cold workshop, staring at a concrete wall whilst I cast them, and can work on the next projects instead whilst they are produced at incredible speed, means I can offset the increased cost by feeling better about my life, and your models wil arrive in a fraction of the time compared to me casting each set by hand in resin. If I sold 1,000 sets of ghoul tribes in resin, it would take me about 100-200 days of solid work every day, to get them all cast, just because of the amount of time involved in letting the resin cure, then opening, cleaning and closing the individual moulds ready for the next castings. This new way, I am assured, I can get them all in the workshop, ready to send, within about a month and a bit of the mould being made! Fantastic! Well worth paying a bit more for that sort of turnaround.

(For more info on Siocast products, visit their website siocast.com)

Goal 1: Plastic Ghoul Tribe

This Kickstarter aims to raise enough money to pay for at least one Ghoul Tribe mould (possibly two or three if it goes crazy in the first few days and demand is high) and a production run of those Ghouls in Siocast plastic.

Each full Tribe set of ghouls will contain a complete Ghoul King, a Ghoul Hag, Ghoul Child and then at least nine further ghouls – 7 of which have interchangeable legs and torsoes for increased variation. If we can squeeze more ghouls in, the pictures above will change to reflect the new amount!

Stretch Goals:

Plastic Zombies @£2750 – UNLOCKED!

We’ve smashed the Ghouls target, and now ‚ve smashed the next target – a plastic Zombie horde! Zombies are something else I seem to spend my whole worklife casting, and I’d love a big old sprue of all of them, in plastic, to just bang out to people in the post instantly.

After that, we’ll be talking Manbat Vampires, and Maggotmen! I don’t want to do too many different sets in this first run, I can save some of them for the next one once these are all sent out. Plus it takes time to sort out the resin versions, cleaning them up, often recutting the original sculpt for better fitting of parts, repairing damage from the original master moulding and so forth.

If we get to the Zombies, more Stretch Goals and Add-Ons will appear!

Next Stretch Goal – Manbat Vampire @ £4000

I love this Vampire in Man-Bat form so much, and he deserves an easy to assemble plastic version – I’ve carefully drilled out his torso and made clever new connecting joints for his wings so that you won’t even need to pin him, unlike the metal version!

He will be unlocked at £4000!

Die Kampagne läuft noch 3 Tage und ist bereits finanziert.

Quelle: PLASTIC 28mm Undead GHOULS!