I am a little sensitive to the problems with physical part of miniatures. Bad assemble design, gaps, strange poses. All of that. For some people it is not a problem, and I envy them. Of course some moments would be easily fixed with green stuff to cover some gaps, but not all of them. Last night I was trying to start assembling of my Tunguska starter and found terrible moment, that securitates have different size of weapons (and not only them). Spoiler: Here is an example. As you can see on example, combi rifles in female hands look like smaller copies. Even their bullet cassets are smaller. Is it "special smaller bullet for ladies"? xD This looks so stupid... Now I see it like someone decided to reduce miniatures scale without thinking about details. Why not to make female figures same height? Or give them a proper size weapons... Now I am going to sell them and forget like a bad dream. But such a moments are not good. I wonder, if other probucts have the same moment...
Yes, the female troopers have smaller versions of the same guns for some stupid reason. It's been a thing going back to N2.
It's odd sometimes they get it right. From Invincibles they have the same size rifles on males and females. The female models are still significantly smaller but the Yu Jing combirifle has a telescoping stock that is extended on the male model. Yet when Winterforce released later the same problem came back with the Zhanshi having different sized weapons for the male and females.
It's been an issue primarily since switching to digital modeling. A lot of the hand-sculpted models were built around the same weapon bits regardless of gender. That being said, weapon scaling was updated multiple times over the years; the original N1 models tended to have massively oversized weapons.
That´s an issue I realy dislike. I had it with my Mobile Brigadas: the female moells are so muich smaller they look like they fit int the male´s armor.. I see that that´s part of the anime-style aesthetics, but that looks comically undersized... On the other hand i was realy happy about the release of Wabara. Finally a woman with some size different to the one-shape-fits-all of the rest of the modell-range :-/
Since switching to digital sculpting this is the problem. Females in general are much smaller than males ( IMO to save material ) and they get baby sized equipment to match. Not just weapons, things like backpacks as well. On the other hand of that silly design choice we have TAGs that get enlarged version of weapons that infantry carries :insert throwing up emoji: I am fighting against this for 5+ years now. Bostria is their creative director so he is to blame. I think few years back he mentioned they do this for aesthetic reasons.
Well, not without a good things then. I really like her too. Now I am confused. Friend once described this like perfectionist paralysis, and may be this thing is that one. What a pain... By the way, may be I would try to make observance team, but make them more in buddhistic or some eastern thematic. At least there would be female miniatures and hopefully one size weapon. Today there was a joke in my head: - Hurry! Give me a casset! I am out of ammo! - I cant! They are B size. Your gun needs C. *drums* "An idea of a different sizes of ammunition was born on Bakunin. Independence and right for selfexpression everywhere. Diversity without limits. Now, follow me. Excursion is going to the famous violence quarters." *drums* Sorry) Oh... That is aesthetic fail then. Or a very dark joke from CB...
100% this. My internal military geek keeps being bothered by it, too. However, at the end of day, it's just toy soldiers and also, at arm's length (which is a rather close distance to look at the miniature when it is on an actual gaming table) I can't really see the difference (okay, I know it is there - since I've buildt and painted all my models myself - but this still doesn't mean I actually see it all the time). Plus, when you look at it, the weapons are out of realistic scale anyways - too big and too bulky (just compare them to 1:35 model kits / figures), which is as much a result of sculptor's aesthetic decision as a requirement of the material and of practicality: the mdoels are intended as gaming pieces, meaning they'll be touched ans moved all the time. Tiny, flimsy, thin parts, like barrels, aren't going to stay as they are meant for long in such a case. So, you need to make them sturdier... which, in this case, means thicker. ...once I get to that point, I decide it is not worth the time and energy to worry about all that stuff. So - shrug. Keep calm and carry on.
It is a conscious design decision that weapons are internally consistent and proportional to the model that holds them, and not universally consistent across the line.
I think it is fine if many female models are a bit smaller than the male counterparts - as it is in real life. Exceptions are weclome, too. The different weapon/ammo sizes do not worry me personally, but I get it that for some it may be bothersome.
This is the point. So, as I told, I am not happy of this situation in my head. I really want not to worry about such a things. Now I am looking for my army from the biginning because of it. Well, at least I understand something because of this, but it doesn't make me happy. I really want some standards and unity among miniatures. This "disign dicision" looks rather like "noone cares". Like if an artist would not care about perspective in the picture of proportions. (but ok. In this example it could be really disign decision) I am trying to think that way, but still too far.
While I ultimately understand you and I will agree, unfortunately what you describe has been tested around the era were the old military orders were released and mostly on them, all weapons including blades are realistic and the same regardless of the models proportions, some of my favorite sculpts, but, swords bend too easy, weapons look big on female models small on heavy infantry models and nobody except few loved them, I do not see going back to that design in the future. When the digital sculpting was introduced as I said it was a conscious design to have each model be proportionally consistent and have weapons easily identifiable, yes, it means that smaller miniatures have smaller weapons and bigger miniatures have bigger weapons, but as individual sculpts they are proportional.
Back in N2, many weapons were too big even for male models. Chain rifles were bigger than entire upper body of some ( male ) models. Weapons needed scaling down in general. Difference in size from male to female is crazy in many cases, like Mobile Brigadas or ORCs ( not to mention proportions of females in those power armours, only way they fit inside is they don't have muscles just skeletons ). If CB sculpted more realistic sized females and proportionate size power armour troops, size of the weapons should not be an issue. TAGs should have special models for their weapons IMO, it is just lazy design when they have enlarged infantry weapons, you cannot defend it in any way. Look up images of female soldiers and tell me they all look silly because weapons are too big for them ? I would say they most definitely don't.
+1000 This is also very true. I understand the justification offered, so faction identity is maintained, but it's bad justification in my eyes.
Personally I like the more compact power armour on the female sculpts, but I do go out of my way to avoid ever having different-gender HI on the field close to each other. Male ORCs look like a whole different species to the girls.
Carlos Torres is creative/art director and co-founder. Carlos Llauger (Bostria) is brand ambassador, photographer, photoshop monkey, graphic design, and occasional concept artist. Carlos Morales (Koni) is Warcor Admiral and marketing dogsbody. There are also other Carloses in production/packing IIRC.
So, whatever is CB doing and one finds it not to their liking, one can always blame Zathras... I mean, Carlos. One or another Carlos. It's Carlos' fault! ;)
I need to remind that CB sculpts models over a digital mannequin and it has been shown multiple times people said a human does not fit inside XYZ model, for example Azrail and the bow Ninja. Yes, with the old pre digital sculpting sculpts there were models were a human could not fit inside, not with digital sculpts.
