Casting

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Casting is the process by which a model is made. It is commonly done in polyurethanes, pewter, or resins. In the olden days of wargaming, models were often cast in mostly lead-metal mixes. That doesn't happen anymore because lead gives you cancer. Poor casting or old molds are what gives you kit, the wiry bits of metal sticking out of metal models and those paper-thin plastic vanes on plastic models. Casting will inevitably give you mold lines, however better casting will make them less noticeable. Bad mold lines give you models which look like half their body shifted about a foot to the side without the express consent of the other half.

Zee Process

Casting happens nearly 100% of the time in this manner:

1. Someone has an idea for a model, and so he sculpts it in a resin. This is called the "parent" or "master" model.
2. Next, he waits for the model to harden. Once it has, he places the model in a box and fills the box with a different, molten material.
3. Once that hardens into a block of hard stuff around the precious "parent," he carefully cracks the block along the flanks of the model, creating a two-halved imprint of the model. This is the mold.
4. From there, he drills holes in the mold so that the actual models can have their materials injected directly into the mold as it is being held together.
5. Then, the injection may commence, and models will soon be in abundance.

Mold Wear and Tear

Due to the nature of the molds, they often cannot be used forever. They were forged at a temperature not much higher than the models themselves will be forged in, and so if a delicate balance is not maintained, the mold will warp, crack, or generally lose detail. Even when all possible care is taken, molds just don't last forever (though nobody has yet told Airfix this). Model makers use several tactics for working around this:

The first is recasting the mold. More often than not, the "parent model" will be put in reverent storage, and won't be melted away like in Bronze Casting, which is similar but different. This keepsake "parent" can be used to make more molds as needed. Sometimes, however, the parent is considered too precious, so a first-generation "daughter" model will be cast in the toughest stuff the model makers could possibly use (sometimes at the expense of the original mold) in order to make a very durable model which can be used to cast molds over and over without warping.

The second tactic is making a stronger mold. Sometimes the mold will get a mold made of it, and then that mold will be used to cast stronger molds which the models can be forged in without warping the mold.

Games Workshop and You

Games Workshop is a wargame company known for making egregiously overpriced models. But if you didn't know that, you shouldn't be on this wiki. They often excuse their prices by saying that their models are of exceptional quality, and thus their molds are more expensive/break more often/need maintenance, despite that by industry standards (and as every single fucking 40K fan knows), Citadel miniatures have chunky details, low part counts and price basic plastic models in the same range as top-of-the-line multimedia kits made for accuracy fiends who masturbate with digital calipers. And that's not even considering the fucking bubbles.

Fa/tg/uys who are enraged by Games Workshop's shitty marketing ploys can turn to home casting to get their model fix, at next to zero cost.

Casting can be expensive or cheap, depending on how you do it.- a comprehensive fa/tg/uy-written guide is availiable to help you through the process.

As a side note GW likes to flail around it's netsite claiming that it's illegal to take any and all copies of minis and make conversions. That is bullcrap since that goes in accordance to the country one is living in. F.ex in some european countries you are allowed to make as much copies of things you have boughts as you want as long as you dont sell those copies/give them away.

3D Printing

This is GW's nightmare come true. 3D Printing is a method of accurately fabricating objects using a 3D Printer. 3D Printing works by giving the printer a digital blueprint of the object in question, loading the material it will use, and then watch as it fabricates the desired object before your very eyes. Originally, 3D printing was restricted for industrial purposes because of their sheer size and cost, however, by 2010s, personal DIY and commerical 3D printers have become available on the market, which are built for regular consumers. Relatively easy to understand and use, so even a regular neckbeard like you and me could manage to use one. Printing a model is as simple as getting your hands on a 3D printer and the files to build a model of the mini you want (legally or not); there's really very little stopping you from creating your own army without subjecting your financial status to GW's pricing horrors.

With this in mind, it is easy to see why GeeDubs would collectively shit themselves once 3D printing becomes a common thing everywhere, just as cars and cellular phones have; their monopoly over the miniature market would be completely obliterated in record time. Infact, it has already started, with some sites like thepiratebay.org, hosting some schematics on how to fabricate several WH40K minis. Thus, it is not that hard to imagine GW collapsing within a decade or two if they do not adpot to the times and change their marketing strategy. (such as selling the blueprints and raw plastic)

While your wild imagination runs, well, wild, keep a few things in mind while thinking about how many Mk.3-Armored Space Marines you want in your army compared to how many Mk.4's. 3D printers are still quite expensive, at least several hundred dollars for a printer of any quality (or a seed printer if you want to print more printers). Printers use spools of plastic feed, glues, or several kinds of urethane powder, which can all limit the materials available for your models. The last thing you want is your glue melting your Fire Prism, or not adhering to your Warjack, and let's not even talk about paints. Also, all that plastic is expensive; not GW expensive, but still notable. Unless you are so seriously addicted to your plastic crack that you know every kind of commercial plastic by heart, you might want to do some research first, to figure out which printers can use what plastic before you buy. And most importantly, as of 2014, 3D printers that a fa/tg/uy could buy don't print anywhere near GW casting quality, or Privateer Press or MaxMini for that matter. They have visible printing lines, hairline fractures on every print layer, and rough textures on every surface, which is bad for your pretty models. If you thought OG Finecast was bad, making a 3D print of anything Tabletop-scale is laughable.

On the other hand, the metal-printing industrial printers can make jet engine turbines. So that's cool.

Gallery of DIY

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  A concise, comprehend-able casting process description

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