A while ago, Brian-B came to me and asked me to paint his eidolon for his Home Game summoner. He has a summoner with a monstrous eidolon (aren't they all?).
Brian wanted a creature that looked very "nature-y" so he bought himself one of GW's new Finecast treants. Now I have to admit that when I saw the model, I was excited for a few reasons. First, this was going to be my first direct contact with GW's new Finecast models. Like many others, I had read a number of reviews about them. Second, I was really excited about trying my have at a large model like the treant. I wanted to paint one for myself for the longest time.
For those two reasons, I was really happy about painting this model for him.
Building the model
One of the things one cannot help but notice is how lightweight it is. I mean really. I *knew* resin models were light, but this is lighter than metal 28mm ones.
The resin itself is very easy to file and trim the flash from, even though some of it was difficult to differentiate from the actual mini. The sprues were full of bizarre casting bubbles and flash that at first looked like part of the mini. Only when I tried to put it together did I manage to figure it out.
Now this is where I started to hate this resin. There are many people who have already mentioned the bad casting, the bubbles in the mold and the odd flash. The bigger the model, the bigger the issues. Using my carpenter's glue & Zap-a-gap combination, the pieces held together fairly easily. I had to score the resin a little (which was easy). However the creature's arms feel very weak.
I have been working with hard plastic and metal, both of these have their problem, but this resin just beats them all.
By a mile.
At this time, I really am happy to have completely dropped GW games and their models. Everything about this Finecast crap makes me want to stay away. The model feels very weak. The casting bubbles turn some of the detail into "mushroom blowout". I am very worried about the model holding together - and I had to warn Brian about my concerns.
Because of all of these issues, the price hike really broke the camel's back. They went from a quality models company to... THAT? If the moved to this cheaper quality mold, they should've lowered their prices - if only on a temporary measure, they jack the prices.
"We will give you cheaper material models with many casting problems at a higher price!" That's exactly what they did. Really? Really?
Really justifies my move to Warmachine/Horde and Malifaux (I'll post my own warband tomorrow).
Painting the model
Once cleaned, built and primed, the painting was fairly easy. I did a number of inks and dry-brushing to make it look like a tree. The resulting look is pretty cool.
Touching up the model with a few highlight on the model: the mushrooms, the little imps, and the skulls hidden in the creature's body. These added a number of colorful highlights to a relatively "dull" model.
Yup, I spent a lot of time making the model look "dull". Achieving that look was far from easy.
Remember those "mushroom blowouts" I mention as I ranted earlier? Well I "hid" the worse of them by using foliage. Thus the final model looks good, very "nature-y". Brian could use it either as his eidolon, a tree (as terrain) OR as the treant it was intended to be.
My final concern was for transport... I don't know how that will be achieved... I don't know how to bring it to Brian, and I know even less how he will take it to his regular game...
The model
The finished product is nice - but fragile.
JP
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