Is frameworks and nolzurs dead

[Daedalus]

... Here's the thing: you can't build out the collection of miniatures you need to run a D&D campaign when a single minotaur runs you $25.

So very much this. As a DM and also someone that is supplying minis for other DMs, while quality is nice, quantity and variety are more important. I use my Man-At-Arms minis all the time to represent armies. They're not exceptional minis, but I have 20+ of them, and that quantity is a quality of all its own. I've been lucky to pick up most of those minis at around the $2.50 mark.

The Frameworks line seems more geared for player minis, as most players could spend $25 once per campaign for the mini they're going to use at the table repeatedly. The big baddie at the end of a module or campaign might also be worth investing a little more in, but if the price is so high for these that I can get a pre-painted version for less I'm absolutely going to do just that.

I understand this point, but I think there's a disconnect between your desire to have a broad collection of miniatures and the Frameworks line's general purpose. I don't think that Wizkids ever targeted you or others with the same mentality as their primary customer base for Frameworks, but instead wanted to expand into a more hobby-oriented market. Whenever Frameworks is discussed, we always derail to comparing to PPMs and Nolzur's, and that's understandable for the members of this forum, but I think it's important to separate between two categories of miniature enthusiasts: (a) those that the line was never going to reach, because they're DMs more interested in the gaming aspect of collecting a variety of miniatures than the hobby aspect of assembling and painting them. They are therefore already served by Wizkids's other offerings of Nolzur's and PPM miniatures.

Then there is (b): those that the line was targeted to, but still missed the mark. There is a market out there for high-quality sprue miniatures. For those customers, building and painting your miniature is a feature, not a bug. It is a big part of the experience, and probably the biggest altogether. There are dozens of manufacturers of sprue miniatures out there, and not all of them are running pay-to-win gambits such as Warhammer. So it was a feasible idea.

That market does not purchase Nolzur's miniatures (the plastic and primer lead to poor definition and poor paint results), and is willing to pay high prices for high quality. The popularity of the Kingdom Death models is a testament to that. The Frameworks miniature sprues are printed by the same company as the one that creates the Kingdom Death sprues, and we know that the quality of the plastic and detail is quite good.

So why didn't it work for that market? Again, this is not about collecting vast arrays of miniatures for gaming purposes. Why didn't it work for the hobbyists? I'm sure that's what Wizkids is wondering as well. From what I can gather, the blunders were the following:

1) the price was way to high, even for high-quality miniatures. It is not that the customer they were targeting is purchasing the Nolzur's orcs instead, it's that the customer has 10 other companies producing very detailed orcs on sprues, and they offer both high-quality and better prices. The first wave's prices were not competitive with Games Workshop, of all companies, as has been pointed out repeatedly but probably best by Goobertown Hobbies.

2) the art direction is not distinctive enough to warrant the premium price tag for the miniatures chosen for that first wave. Kingdom Death might charge $25 for a medium-sized miniature, but they're all quite unique in design. On the other hand, D&D's ogre looks like every other ogre I have ever seen. D&D's Balor looks like a generic big demon. Etc. There are unique monsters to D&D, and I think those have fared better: for example, the beholder from the first wave sold much better than its counterparts, if memory serves me well.

3) sometimes, and this was not always the case, the design of the sprues missed the mark. Some of the seams lines on the sprues were amateurish. While the plastic itself was premium-quality, and so was the sprue printing, the sprue design could leave much to be desired in certain boxes.

I do think that there are opportunities for a sprue-based future in D&D miniatures, but it needs a more thoughtful approach.

[SkyDomer]

I feel like I was part of the target audience that Frameworks was going for. I wanted some unpainted dnd branded minis that were a higher quality than Nolzur’s and I was excited when the line was first announced. Then I saw the price and it killed the desire don’t get me wrong I was expecting to pay more for a higher quality mini but the price was far too high. I did however buy some Frameworks minis but they were heavily discounted from sales (if you visit the painting thread you can verify that I bought the Balor 60% off though).

I don’t think the target audience was for hobbyists who like to paint and assemble minis for display purposes. That target audience is too small for Wizkids they were definitely hoping for DMs and players to buy these minis for use at the table however they fumbled the ball pretty bad. 1. As everyone has agreed on the price was far too high. 2. They marketed the line as being very customizable and the minis aren’t all that customizable you only have a few options and the poses don’t change much. 3. Monster minis are minis that a DM buys if you want to sell to them you need to offer more minis in a box to get them to buy. 4. The sprues were poorly designed I had multiple breaks where the connection points were on very delicate places where they never should have been.

[Clint]

I agree - I think the market for extremely detailed, high priced miniatures is very much a boutique, and not feasible for a Wizkids line. For me, it wasn't clear who Frameworks was targeting. I would think that someone like me should be a primary target, though: I collect a LOT of miniatures, and I enjoy painting them, so I do pay attention to quality. There's a cost/benefit ratio that matters to everyone, and I just don't Frameworks has ever communicated what their mission is.

What I'd like to see happen is for Nolzur's to get upgraded more towards Frameworks quality. Use stiffer plastic. Quit with the pre-priming of the miniatures; it's a mess.

[jmpowell]

I would LOVE Nolzur’s to abandon pre-priming. It’s hard to imagine them doing that, though. Nolzur’s has stolen a lot of Reaper’s market share in game stores. Reaper always had two things going for them (apart from their sculptors): they were cheap, and they could be painted right out of the box (after a quick bath). Both these aspects made them perfect entry-level minis for new painters. I myself started with a Reaper learn-to-paint kit. Now, Nolzur’s are not cheap, instead they have the D&D brand going for them. But I suspect the “ready-to-paint” aspect is a real selling point among people who aren’t (yet) heavily into painting. I have talked to several players over the years who have offered to try painting a mini but only if I would prime it for them first—mysteriously, priming seems more complicated than painting to some folks who haven’t tried doing either. Or maybe it just seems more like work.

[DnDYuan-Ti]

I would LOVE Nolzur’s to abandon pre-priming. It’s hard to imagine them doing that, though. Nolzur’s has stolen a lot of Reaper’s market share in game stores. Reaper always had two things going for them (apart from their sculptors): they were cheap, and they could be painted right out of the box (after a quick bath). Both these aspects made them perfect entry-level minis for new painters. I myself started with a Reaper learn-to-paint kit. Now, Nolzur’s are not cheap, instead they have the D&D brand going for them. But I suspect the “ready-to-paint” aspect is a real selling point among people who aren’t (yet) heavily into painting. I have talked to several players over the years who have offered to try painting a mini but only if I would prime it for them first—mysteriously, priming seems more complicated than painting to some folks who haven’t tried doing either. Or maybe it just seems more like work.

I think you may right on the money about this, just anecdotally based on my own experience as a beginning painter. I can’t explain why, but priming seemed somehow too technical even though it’s not difficult. I was very attracted to the pre-primed nature of Nolzur’s. That isn’t too rational, and I would prefer unprimed minis now, but it’s just the way I thought back then.

[deadsmurf]

I would LOVE Nolzur’s to abandon pre-priming. It’s hard to imagine them doing that, though. Nolzur’s has stolen a lot of Reaper’s market share in game stores. Reaper always had two things going for them (apart from their sculptors): they were cheap, and they could be painted right out of the box (after a quick bath). Both these aspects made them perfect entry-level minis for new painters. I myself started with a Reaper learn-to-paint kit. Now, Nolzur’s are not cheap, instead they have the D&D brand going for them. But I suspect the “ready-to-paint” aspect is a real selling point among people who aren’t (yet) heavily into painting. I have talked to several players over the years who have offered to try painting a mini but only if I would prime it for them first—mysteriously, priming seems more complicated than painting to some folks who haven’t tried doing either. Or maybe it just seems more like work.

As someone who has been painting for a number of years now, I can say if Nolzurs stopped pre-priming their minis, I would be out except for a very select set of possible minis.

Deciding to do some painting is generally a pretty spur of the moment thing for me, so having to decide on which minis I want to paint, prep them and a safe place to prime them and then spray on a primer and wait a few hours for it to dry... yeah it'd never happen. Right now, I just go to my box of unpainted minis, grab one package, crack it, and start painting.
The only reason I get clear coating sprayed on after painting is because the minimal prep time to work with it since I don't really need to worry about a little getting on my deck from overspray, since you know ... clear.

The primer might be a little too thick on Nolzurs, but to me its not bad - better than the job I would consistently do. It has also improved over the early nolzurs/PFB releases - those early ones often would have eyes etc basically completely filled with primer a good chunk of the time, but that basically doesn't happen anymore.

[Brophy]

I hate Nolzur's primer.
Airbrush + any primer you want = 1,000% better than Nolzur's goop.

[berk the black]

How hard is it to prime a mini? My experience is only with spraying bases, which is trivial compared to a three dimensional mini with crevasses and protrusions. Still, it seems like it wouldn’t be all that hard to sparingly spray the mini to coat it. Or am I missing something here?

[Brophy]

You aren't missing anything. It's crazy simple and quick. Technically you should let it sit for 24 hours before you go painting on top of it, but I rarely wait at all.

[Imbalance]

It must be a mental block kinda thing. Actual difficulty is zero with any method. I don't have an airbrush, been using the same bottle of Vallejo grey for years. Brush on a thin first coat, dry, brush on either a slightly shaded or tinted layer next, dry, maybe a third layer for zenithal, all thin but making sure all plastic is covered by at least one layer of primer. A batch of 6-10 minis takes 45 minutes to prime, tops, and that's me being pretty slow and easily distracted. The hardest part for me is forcing myself to sit down and do it. Gettin'er dun is an easy dopamine hit.

[jmpowell]

The primer might be a little too thick on Nolzurs, but to me its not bad - better than the job I would consistently do. It has also improved over the early nolzurs/PFB releases - those early ones often would have eyes etc basically completely filled with primer a good chunk of the time, but that basically doesn't happen anymore.

There is a real and obvious advantage to not having to prime and then wait before painting. And yes, the Nolzur's priming has improved over the years (on average). I get that it's a choice between convenience-and-time vs. quality, and everyone will value those things differently. Your preferences are of course totally valid.

The part I don't understand is the first sentence here. Surely you are selling yourself short? I guess with rattle can primer and high humidity you might get a grainier surface, or with any priming method you might miss spots. But unless either of those things is happening, it's hard to imagine failing to exceed the standards of Nolzur's. I can honestly say every mini I've ever seen that someone primed themselves was still better than the best Nolzur's priming job I've ever seen.

(Actually, I thought of one: a guy who was using the wrong kind of primer entirely—Testor's enamel primer rather than acrylic primer.)

[Daedalus]

I agree - I think the market for extremely detailed, high priced miniatures is very much a boutique, and not feasible for a Wizkids line.

I don't think it's as boutique as you might think. That minibuilding and minipainting hobby precedes D&D as a whole and seems quite alive and well in a multitude of other companies' offerings. Mantic Games alone has about 8 different lines. Even Games Workshop, which does sell Warhammer, sells mostly to the hobbyist market (the company itself thinks ~80% of does not play its games at all, most are simply modelists). Of course there's overlap: maybe some hobbyists that would have purchased a better-done Frameworks line also play D&D and can DM using the minis, but that's not the main point of the product for them: the appeal is assembling and painting the kit.

What I'd like to see happen is for Nolzur's to get upgraded more towards Frameworks quality. Use stiffer plastic. Quit with the pre-priming of the miniatures; it's a mess.

I don't think this will ever happen. Nolzur's has a large customer base: you and I know the basics of miniature painting, but WizKids also targets Nolzur's to those that don't -- some don't even know what priming is. The plastic used is meant to offer durability, not definition, and that's all ok. I've seen excited children chuck their new Nolzur's minis around the gamestore, and they always survive unscathed. I say this as someone who buys tons of Nolzur's and adores that line.

I remember from way back that you confessed to rooting against Frameworks because you were afraid it would cannibalize Nolzur's, but I don't think you ever had anything to worry about on that front. Nolzur's is a fantastic line for its purpose: a cheap, nigh-unbreakable, sprawling line that covers most of D&D's creatures (there are thousands!). I don't think Wizkids ever thought they were competing with themselves, it is such a different product.

Personally, I like the fact that Nolzur's comes preprimed and that they're indestructible. These miniatures were never going to look outstanding anyway, priming is boring, I have way too many unpainted miniatures, and I only have a set amount of hours I can dedicate to painting. If I buy a guard and can get it ready for tonight's game, that's a bonus in and of itself. If my friends drop the Player's Handbook on them and they survive, that's another bonus on top of it. And they're cheap!

[DnDYuan-Ti]

I agree that market is not super boutique. 80% is high, and even higher when you consider all the Warhammer players who do play, in theory, but rarely get the time or chance to break their armies out in real life. I know quite a few people like that, who continue to buy and paint regardless. It does seem like every IP under the sun has some nice high-quality minis now, so I don’t see why DnD couldn’t if the price point was more reasonable.

[berk the black]

I agree that market is not super boutique. 80% is high, and even higher when you consider all the Warhammer players who do play, in theory, but rarely get the time or chance to break their armies out in real life. I know quite a few people like that, who continue to buy and paint regardless. It does seem like every IP under the sun has some nice high-quality minis now, so I don’t see why DnD couldn’t if the price point was more reasonable.

I think some folks just buy unpainted minis to bolster their piles of shame. He whom dies with the most toys wins…

[DnDYuan-Ti]

Heh…I may not buy minis too too often, but I paint even slower. Damn eyes…my pile of shame has grown ridiculously large. I should be busy for 4-5 years, seriously, even if Nolzur’s really was dead.