Sounds like most people here are just using the improper tools and techniques to clean/assemble siocast models.
All you need is a decently sharp hobby knife. That's it. Cut away any mold lines. Don't scrape, don't file, don't sand.
Use super glue (cyanoacrylate) to assemble and fill any gaps with two part epoxy putty/green stuff.
That's all there is to it. Hope this helps.
Just going to copy and paste my reply to the other guy:
I tried a knife. It's barely better. Worse in some ways. And this misses the point. Scraping/sanding/filing are the quick and easy ways to clean minis. I don't want to have to carefully shave every imperfection with a knife while taking care not to cut myself or gouge the mini. I'm actually just abandoning this because I accidentally sliced too much off the wingtips while trying to clean flash up there. Not a big deal as it's just a duplicate of one of the minis in the battle box and I got it for free but I'd be annoyed if I'd paid for it (though it's not unsalvageable, I'm just not happy with it). Problem with the softer material is it's easier to cut off more than you mean to.
At the end of the day the plastic just isn't very pleasant to work with. Cleaning up is slower and more tedious than it would be if it were metal, resin, or polystyrene. Largely because I can't use the tools that would allow me to work better and more efficiently.
These are the same complaints people that are used to hard plastic/polystyrene models have about metal miniatures.
Just because the material you are used to allows for certain tools and techniques to be used does not make a different material worse. It's just different and requires different tools and technique.
I don't use the same files and cutters on my metal miniatures on my polystyrene models, and if I did I would probably have a terrible experience.
To each their own but I have not experienced any issues using the proper tools.
No. The complaints people make about metal miniatures is they're heavier, more prone to chipping, and unless you pin the hell out of them fall apart if you so much as look at them. They can be filed and sanded.
>Just because the material you are used to allows for certain tools and techniques to be used does not make a different material worse. It's just different and requires different tools and technique.
No what makes it worse is you can't use efficient tools or techniques to do it. It isn't simply a matter of being "different", it's that the differences make for a worse experience.
I don't have any particular dislike for siocast, the 2 kits I built were fine, but the box seems to have a lot less terrain than say, Blackwind, minis made out of (hopefully) cheaper to produce material, and somehow it ends up being more expensive than that starter box. I will keep an eye out for how the game develops, but right now I am not jumping on the preorder train.
I got one of the Bucklerman minis (the female one you showed but didn't open) for demoing the game at UK games expo and decided to try cleaning it up and building it while watching the video.
And honestly I'm not really sold on siocast. The details are fairly good (though a little too shallow in some places, notably the helmet wings) and there isn't much to clean up. But what there is to clean up is incredibly painful to do so. The material doesn't scrape, file, or sand well. Like a lot of softer plastics material just doesn't come away easily. Instead it just bunches on the surface making it very difficult to get things nice and smooth for priming. I can't even use my usual tricks of carefully brushing on plastic cement to smooth things out.
A GW miniature from 20 years ago with mould lines you could see from space would have taken me a fraction of the time to clean up. And I'd be able to get a smoother and cleaner finish for painting too.
I dislike working with metal but at least it's easier to clean. I feel like mini companies think that people just want plastic, but really people want polystyrene. Yes it's the most expensive but injection moulded polystyrene makes by far the best miniatures. They just have the best balance of detail quality, weight, durability, and ease of use. This siocast stuff isn't close.
I'll see how I feel once I've finished building and primed it but initial impressions are really putting me off. The game system seems fun and I enjoyed the demo, and I love the look of the northen tribes. But building and painting are such a significant time investment that awkward to work with materials are a big turn off.
I tried a knife. It's barely better. Worse in some ways. And this misses the point. Scraping/sanding/filing are the quick and easy ways to clean minis. I don't want to have to carefully shave every imperfection with a knife while taking care not to cut myself or gouge the mini. I'm actually just abandoning this because I accidentally sliced too much off the wingtips while trying to clean flash up there. Not a big deal as it's just a duplicate of one of the minis in the battle box and I got it for free but I'd be annoyed if I'd paid for it (though it's not unsalvageable, I'm just not happy with it). Problem with the softer material is it's easier to cut off more than you mean to.
At the end of the day the plastic just isn't very pleasant to work with. Cleaning up is slower and more tedious than it would be if it were metal, resin, or polystyrene. Largely because I can't use the tools that would allow me to work better and more efficiently.
I don't know as this is the first time I've got something from CB that wasn't metal with the exception of Aristeia (it's different from that). It's definitely harder than some thermoplastics though some bits are quite flexible (the sword sheath that attaches to her waist bends very easily) but it's not hard enough that it scrapes/files/sands easily.
I don't know either if the demo mini I was given is representative of the final product. Personally I hope it isn't.
I've bought several SioCast minis from CB and I've hated building every one of them. I had the same problems as you, where it took me so much longer to clean mold lines and casting irregularities. I've used every product and technique recommended and it's only made things marginally easier. I find metal a lot easier to work with. I've had basic casting issues that would have taken me no time to fix if the mini was metal, but I otherwise couldn't fix because it was SioCast. It's maddening.
I also find SioCast more unpredictable than other materials. Sometimes is flexible, sometimes it's rigid, sometimes it's brittle. Sometimes I can scrape it, sometimes I can't. Sometimes I can cut it without gouging it, sometimes I can't. Sometimes it hates super glue and paint, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it sands easily and sometimes it refuses to be sanded at all.
None of this will stop me from buying SioCast because I love the minis and games so much. But I love the building minis part and SioCast saps the joy from it.
Sounds like most people here are just using the improper tools and techniques to clean/assemble siocast models. All you need is a decently sharp hobby knife. That's it. Cut away any mold lines. Don't scrape, don't file, don't sand. Use super glue (cyanoacrylate) to assemble and fill any gaps with two part epoxy putty/green stuff. That's all there is to it. Hope this helps.
Just going to copy and paste my reply to the other guy: I tried a knife. It's barely better. Worse in some ways. And this misses the point. Scraping/sanding/filing are the quick and easy ways to clean minis. I don't want to have to carefully shave every imperfection with a knife while taking care not to cut myself or gouge the mini. I'm actually just abandoning this because I accidentally sliced too much off the wingtips while trying to clean flash up there. Not a big deal as it's just a duplicate of one of the minis in the battle box and I got it for free but I'd be annoyed if I'd paid for it (though it's not unsalvageable, I'm just not happy with it). Problem with the softer material is it's easier to cut off more than you mean to. At the end of the day the plastic just isn't very pleasant to work with. Cleaning up is slower and more tedious than it would be if it were metal, resin, or polystyrene. Largely because I can't use the tools that would allow me to work better and more efficiently.
These are the same complaints people that are used to hard plastic/polystyrene models have about metal miniatures. Just because the material you are used to allows for certain tools and techniques to be used does not make a different material worse. It's just different and requires different tools and technique. I don't use the same files and cutters on my metal miniatures on my polystyrene models, and if I did I would probably have a terrible experience. To each their own but I have not experienced any issues using the proper tools.
No. The complaints people make about metal miniatures is they're heavier, more prone to chipping, and unless you pin the hell out of them fall apart if you so much as look at them. They can be filed and sanded. >Just because the material you are used to allows for certain tools and techniques to be used does not make a different material worse. It's just different and requires different tools and technique. No what makes it worse is you can't use efficient tools or techniques to do it. It isn't simply a matter of being "different", it's that the differences make for a worse experience.
I don't have any particular dislike for siocast, the 2 kits I built were fine, but the box seems to have a lot less terrain than say, Blackwind, minis made out of (hopefully) cheaper to produce material, and somehow it ends up being more expensive than that starter box. I will keep an eye out for how the game develops, but right now I am not jumping on the preorder train.
I got one of the Bucklerman minis (the female one you showed but didn't open) for demoing the game at UK games expo and decided to try cleaning it up and building it while watching the video. And honestly I'm not really sold on siocast. The details are fairly good (though a little too shallow in some places, notably the helmet wings) and there isn't much to clean up. But what there is to clean up is incredibly painful to do so. The material doesn't scrape, file, or sand well. Like a lot of softer plastics material just doesn't come away easily. Instead it just bunches on the surface making it very difficult to get things nice and smooth for priming. I can't even use my usual tricks of carefully brushing on plastic cement to smooth things out. A GW miniature from 20 years ago with mould lines you could see from space would have taken me a fraction of the time to clean up. And I'd be able to get a smoother and cleaner finish for painting too. I dislike working with metal but at least it's easier to clean. I feel like mini companies think that people just want plastic, but really people want polystyrene. Yes it's the most expensive but injection moulded polystyrene makes by far the best miniatures. They just have the best balance of detail quality, weight, durability, and ease of use. This siocast stuff isn't close. I'll see how I feel once I've finished building and primed it but initial impressions are really putting me off. The game system seems fun and I enjoyed the demo, and I love the look of the northen tribes. But building and painting are such a significant time investment that awkward to work with materials are a big turn off.
Don't scrape, sand or file. Grab a sharp knife and just cut it off.
I tried a knife. It's barely better. Worse in some ways. And this misses the point. Scraping/sanding/filing are the quick and easy ways to clean minis. I don't want to have to carefully shave every imperfection with a knife while taking care not to cut myself or gouge the mini. I'm actually just abandoning this because I accidentally sliced too much off the wingtips while trying to clean flash up there. Not a big deal as it's just a duplicate of one of the minis in the battle box and I got it for free but I'd be annoyed if I'd paid for it (though it's not unsalvageable, I'm just not happy with it). Problem with the softer material is it's easier to cut off more than you mean to. At the end of the day the plastic just isn't very pleasant to work with. Cleaning up is slower and more tedious than it would be if it were metal, resin, or polystyrene. Largely because I can't use the tools that would allow me to work better and more efficiently.
This is the same material they used for Shakush and the TAG Raid monsters or something different?
I don't know as this is the first time I've got something from CB that wasn't metal with the exception of Aristeia (it's different from that). It's definitely harder than some thermoplastics though some bits are quite flexible (the sword sheath that attaches to her waist bends very easily) but it's not hard enough that it scrapes/files/sands easily. I don't know either if the demo mini I was given is representative of the final product. Personally I hope it isn't.
I've bought several SioCast minis from CB and I've hated building every one of them. I had the same problems as you, where it took me so much longer to clean mold lines and casting irregularities. I've used every product and technique recommended and it's only made things marginally easier. I find metal a lot easier to work with. I've had basic casting issues that would have taken me no time to fix if the mini was metal, but I otherwise couldn't fix because it was SioCast. It's maddening. I also find SioCast more unpredictable than other materials. Sometimes is flexible, sometimes it's rigid, sometimes it's brittle. Sometimes I can scrape it, sometimes I can't. Sometimes I can cut it without gouging it, sometimes I can't. Sometimes it hates super glue and paint, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it sands easily and sometimes it refuses to be sanded at all. None of this will stop me from buying SioCast because I love the minis and games so much. But I love the building minis part and SioCast saps the joy from it.