As examples, begining with Yara. Amazing concept, terrible sculpt design and execution. Same with Hussein. All I can say about him is, by the goatee of Saladin, I'm so glad I've got the original sculpt, he has so much more character. The new guy looks like an imposter ;)) Haq seems to have polar opposites in the quality of design execution. Am I seeing things? What does the community think?
My personal opinion is that CB has fallen in the "3d sculpt by reusing assets" mentality that's turing GW into fools with assembled STLs not even 12 hours after they release photos of a new model still to reach their store. Sure, nobody is asset-assembling Infinity's models, since the number of players can't be compared (I don't even imagine which franchise could get close to GW's customer -paying or not- numbers), but the feeling of recycled poses, and seeing the same exact assets time and again within each factions is there, leading to a feel of copy-paste and "I'm paying for skins". Sometimes we get something entirely different or new (for example, jackals), or a reimagination of old models that truly get things right (Yuriko oda more or less, since she now looks more Mercy than ever, or the new Bipandra, the HVT in that box was also a fun touch, Yinkies!), but more often than not we get slop. This tools (3d sculpt, premade poses, and assets) are becoming more of a cage than a helping hand, making it really hard to turn the illustrations into interesting models instead of boring ones... a great example is Neko Oyama in JSA (I'd say it's a sin to turn a model with a strong call-back to a classic anime/manga like Ruroni Kenshin into boring, gray backdrop grunt-style pose). Sadly, I'm very pessimist with CB, and feel they will sooner nerf the concept art than make the sculpts really attractive instead of just... there.
@xagroth, thanks for the reply. I agree that Yuriko, Bibandra, and HVT in the latest Dire Foes are all excellent, and this is exactly the direction I want to see new designs moving towards. I think that re-using assets is not objectively a bad call, but I absolutley agree that execution of any final design that uses those assets, should be well considered, and passionately embellished by the artist.
In SP they made a lot of new sculpts worse. Acmon for example looks boring in his new incarnation. I keep the old one. Alpen Proxy MK5 is a bit akward compared to his old ego. A big boring one is new Carlotta from CJC with all hands full of things and her personal Zondcat Moriraty wich is just an ordernary Zondcat. The older model may be not everyones fav, but she IS a character- definitly. Saladin on the other hand - I do not see, whats wrong with him. Yara could indeed much more they her mini is. Niko is a good example for a mini, that I would see to get the old one - also boring for a character.
I agree, old Neko Oyama is much better than the new sculpt. With JSA, I see a consitency in quality of execution, and what I mean by that, is even when I don't like a particular sculpt, the quality of design is however present, and not so with Haq, where I see a night and day difference in the execution. New Hussein, for example, looks like a childrens cartoon character next to other Haq sculpts, and also when compared to the old Hussein.
The new SP sculpts are either sidegrades or straight up downgrades from the older ones, to me, aside from Eudoros/Winter Soldier with shield (which didn't need much effort, the old one was the ugliest of the whole SP range). The absolute worst new one is Phoenix, the Disney Prince... he no longer looks like a veteran and old mentor, but a meme :( I totally agree, some were horrible, some were strange, some were eternal (for example, the old Zero with a knife is simple, has enough detail, and only has a scale problem with the newest models). But without exception all felt, to a degree, unique. The pose certainly helps to make a model different to others, and I understand there are some poses that are horrible for casting with a good degree of success (even if 100% of the material can be recycled, the time and energy spent, plus degradation of the mold, are there), but nowadays we see the same legs posing with a tactical rock (the rock changes, but that's it), mirror posing, etc... We even got the Haqq and Aleph 6 model reinforcement boxes (released the same month) with one model each in the exact same pose...
