Community > Other Toy Lines
Official 1:18 Military Toys Thread (21st, BBI, FOV, etc)
Greg:
Personally I will only buy factory-made toys. No resin figure kits or 3D printed dioramas for me. Factory-made toys are just what I have grown accustomed to so that is what I stick with. I don't want to worry about being gentle and delicate with more fragile pieces, otherwise I'd probably go for statues and high-end figures instead.
As for the success of the Marauder figures, I think a lot of that had to do with capturing what makes GI Joe appealing (detailed, highly articulated modern-military with a hint of Sci-Fi) while adding in the fresh modular aspect. The figures look close enough to Joes to fit right in with existing collections. The modular aspect is a cool looking feature that should appeal to troop builders, customizers, and people who always wanted to customize but don't have the time and/or skill (like me!). I certainly hope the figures perform well for Marauder once they start selling them thru there online store, and perhaps well enough to warrant real carded packaging and sales thru other retailers.
efranks:
I think there are, or have been, a couple companies that released the modular walls you're talking about, Jesse. I know one of the releases, maybe more, was done for the Gundam collectors in mind and the Transformers fans bought into it. But, yeah, I've seen guys use them as backdrops for taking photos and they work with 3.75" figures up to Deluxe, maybe even Leader class TF stuff.
It doesn't even have to be that fancy, I've seen excellent dio stories that printed a sci-fi type wall on regular paper and glued it to foam core to make walls and floors and it looked fine.
I can enjoy a good dio as much as anyone, but I'm personally more of a playset guy and that's the turning point in the arguments that I've had before. Hasbro is a toy company that makes playsets, or made them in the past anyway, while what a lot of guys on the forums want are dios even though they pay lip service to the "playset" idea. That Bespin set? I love that thing!
I'm not completely opposed to 3D printed stuff. Sean Huxter, who is a 12" GI Joe (mainly Adventure Team) collector, has recently been printing some AT themed accessory sets for his figures that have the feel of the vintage stuff released by Hasbro. Just updated for the modern world. The stuff turned out really well and looks great but it's mostly one offs or maybe a short run for a couple of friends. And they're small, he's not doing trees or large wall pieces, he did a bazooka and a flight backpack, that type of thing. There's also a guy that did a 3.75" scale AT Mobile Support Vehicle that's nice but for the cost of a low run piece like that, I'm not really in.
There's definitely a market for both playsets and dios as well as new figures and toys like what Marauder just pulled off or what Acid Rain and Boss Fight Studios are working on, but the key is finding the right market and getting people to buy in. When it comes to Star Wars specifically, I think the market is so fractured it would be hard to find a large group to get in on one or two characters if we're talking figures and I think it gets narrower when you start talking playsets and dios. I mean, how many carded collectors are out there, are they going to be in the market for a dio when they have no loose figures?
I think 3D printing could be really incredible going forward, but I feel like it eventually will be more in the model of people that want dios and custom pieces investing in a printer and downloading plans, or making them, and printing them at home or, like Jesse mentioned, ordering online rather than backing kickstarters. I'd rather have a printer and make my own stuff than throw $50 to a guy in Australia to print me a tree. I live in the woods, if I want a tree I can take a saw for a walk...
E...
Jesse James:
Yup those were the things I was talking about E... The walls. I have some coming in with a big order I made recently, and can't wait. I love stuff like that, but I can see OTHER uses too... Interior fit stuff for ships, bases, etc.
I'm obviously not opposed to 3d prints myself since I've been working to teach myself that stuff for a little while now, and can do some pretty decent things when I want to, but mostly for myself or a friend, and we just order up a shipment and send them to ourselves. So long as you can paint, it's a good way to avoid sculpting (which I'm NOT good at). It's a bit of a learning curve, but really unless you're with Boss Fight, etc., you're not doing that level of work anyway... Trust me, haha.
I like printing more for small accessories than entire scenes, but that's me maybe.
You should see some of the 3d print stuff I got for 1:18 military though... MG tripod from WW2, etc. The one guy even did tanks, and a Ketenrad. Other guys used resin, but it's not really efficient, most people don't know how to work with it to create flawless casts (Again, something you learn with time), and resin's incredibly toxic so most people don't work safely with it either.
Everything has its place though.
Now if people could just figure out how to paint so it bonds chemically to plastic, resins, etc., ala the process in manufacturing, and replicate it, we'd be set.
Jesse James:
EDIT: Wrong location to post that, sorry.
Meant to post in the other 4" scale thread.
efranks:
My Marauder Gun Runners figures showed up Friday and I had a little time to play around with a couple today. I ordered a set of 3 as my main pledge; black, grey and desert tan. I added on the red and green versions. There was a bonus head with a painted balaclava, a MGR figure stand for each figure and a random pistol and rifle for each figure.
My order came with two extra tactical vests, tan and grey. I'm assuming that was just a thank you type thing because I don't remember it being listed in any of the Kickstarter updates. The pistols were random and mostly the same but the rifles were all different. I received a Barrett .50, FN P90, QBZ-95, FAMAS, and one of the old G.I. Joe style laser rifles.
Each figure has a head, a tac vest and a bunch of various pouches, holsters and knives to attach to the mount points both on the figures and vests. The figures all have modern Hasbro Joe type articulation with the exception of the chest, these have waist articulation which works better with the web gear and vests.
The gear all seems to fit the mount points, I didn't have anything that had a post too large for any of the holes I tried them on. The tan vest that came with my figure did seem to have holes that were too large, everything kept falling off so I swapped in the extra and stuff fit better. But everything is pretty loose, especially on the tac vests. It's even mentioned in a letter with the figures that if you're just displaying you'll be fine but if you're going to play with them, you may want to think about gluing stuff on. At least with a water based glue unless you're sure you want to make something permanent. Getting everything on and arranged was a little finicky but looks good when it's done.
Of the two helmets I've looked at so far, the helmet on the green figure in the pics doesn't fit very well and is loose. The other is solid and I like the look of that type of spec ops helmet. The vests are really nicely done and I like the number of and positioning of the mount points, you have a lot of options of how to arrange the gear. Each of the figures have two pouches that will hold magazines but I didn't have any MGR rifles with removable mags to try out...but I'm assuming they're working pouches and that's a solid design choice. The holsters and sheaths all hold the pistols and knives correctly and are pretty stable so the whole assembly will probably fall off before your weapon falls out when posing the figs.
All of the joints on the figures that I've looked over so far work well but do take a couple flexes to limber up. They all seem pretty solid with two exceptions; the hips and knees. The hips have a socket on the leg side and a post w/ ball on the torso. They're friction fit together and can come apart without damaging anything. I'm fine with that but the black figure has a really loose right socket on the hip and the leg kinda falls off. All of the figures have the same knee "issue" in that the plastic insert feels really weak. You can flex the leg side to side because the plastic is so soft. It seems to hold up ok with the little moving I've been doing but I'm worried that over time it could break down or I'll snap it not paying close attention or something.
These are definitely geared for collectors and are perfect for customizing by swapping heads, vests and gear or even painting them up. They'll work almost as-is with your Joes but you can also work them into sci-fi stuff and even Star Wars. Some of the parts are really small and easily misplaced if you aren't paying attention. They're not really designed to get on the floor with and play unless you want to get into gluing some stuff in place.
Overall I'm happy with the figures that I got. I still need to get the grey, red and black figures out and assembled to get a look at the alternate tac vests and helmets with those figs. I was interested in the green as sort of an Aliens Marine figure and red as a Crimson Guard type character for my joes. Not sure yet what the other three will be for or where/how I'll fit them into my collection. They may just end up being generic Joe type figures somewhere.
I would recommend these for anyone that has a use for highly customizable figures in dios and that type of thing. Know what you're getting into with the accessories and you'll have a lot of fun with them I think.
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