Prodos Gives The Lowdown On New UniCast Technology
May 3, 2016 by brennon
Prodos Games have introduced a new way of casting your miniatures called UniCast. An article on their website goes into more detail about just how exactly this new technology works and shows off examples of their work...
So, what is this new technology?
How Does It Work?
The UniCast technology is a unique combination of plastic injection manufacturing process combined with traditional utherene resin casting.
The idea is that they are able to create resin quality miniatures while reducing the time it takes from around two or three months all the way down to around two to three weeks.
Additionally they have mentioned that this new technology allows them to create miniatures like the one above in any shape and with no limitations or undercuts.
We did wonder just exactly how they were managing to make these miniatures!
What Does This Mean?
This means that we could see a lot of board game companies changing the way in which they produce miniatures. While PVC miniatures are all well and good having these higher quality products included within your board game might be the new step forward.
The lower costs and other added benefits to this make it a very attractive proposition. The one thing that stopped people looking towards resin for their board games was that the models would take assembly but with this technology they just come out in one piece.
What do you think about the way UniCast could change the industry?
Drop your thoughts below...
"...they are able to create resin quality miniatures while reducing the time it takes from around two or three months all the way down to around two to three weeks"
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"The one thing that stopped people looking towards resin for their board games was that the models would take assembly but with this technology they just come out in one piece..."
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I so fuc..g love sience! well done prodos, they trully are moving in to top of gaming companies, FF and GW look out!
If these figures work out then I wouldn’t be surprised if a larger company tries to buy Prodos for their manufacturing capability.
Imagine what CoolMiniOrNot could do with this for some of their games…quite interesting.
They and GW spring immediately to mind. Although there are lots of people who like sprues with pose-ability and build options, to be able to sell sets with high quality pre-assembled minis lowers the barrier to entry to picking up a GW game. Plus they could lower the price of entry level sets using this (don’t laugh…)
Single Pose miniatures are ideal for board games. If you look at some of GW’s recent offerings (primarily Space Hulk and Deathwatch) the miniatures, while not single piece casts, are push fit and are not posable in any way. I could see someone like Prodos being able to manufacture pieces like the Space Hulk terminators as single cast pieces. This might not necessarily lower the price of the game (because, you know, Games Workshop), it would more likely increase GW’s profit margin. Obviously that’s all speculation and maybe they would opt to go for a halfway point; a slightly reduced… Read more »
If the technique is revolutionary then you could see non gaming companies making offers just to own the patents
It is very nice to watch technologies evolving this way. But keep in mind Prodos also is a company…
This has the potential to be the biggest thing to hit the industry since KS took off in 2012. If anything it looks like the chart buries the lead a bit with its figures, as not only is this cheaper for producing 60,000 minis, but it looks like it would be viable for much lower quantities too, something PVC and HIPS is not. As long as only Prodos are doing it then there’ll be a bottleneck (a la the old Renedra bottleneck), so it’ll be interesting to see if any other factories try and replicate it.
There are parts of the chart while in theory are certainly accurate are in practice very optimistic 🙂
I think a reorder quantity of 1 – is more about making a point than actually deliverable 🙂
From their point of view it would make sense to accept orders and re-orders for large runs, but in principle it means a run of 500 minis per shot becomes financially viable, which isn’t the case with HIPS or PVC, especially on the initial order. $350 puts the cost towards the realm of spincast moulds for metal, and I assume the per mini material cost is less than metal. I guess this will partly depend on whether other manufacturers can replicate this or whether it’s only Prodos doing it.
I’m thinking they’ll do it if someone calls their bluff, but given shipping, turnaround time etc it really won’t make sense to ever order “1” for a restock.
I don’t know why anyone would ever want to order a 1 mini restock. You wouldn’t even do that for hand-pouted resin.
*’hand-poured’ even. ‘Hand-pouted’ sounds weird :s lol
Exactly, casting to order like that only works if you’re the one doing the casting, and even then you never get the amount of resin you need right so you get another mold of little things handy to use up the excess.
The only reason to do it would be to see if they followed through on the promise, and its a fair investment just to be petty.
Small point, but I don’t think it’s 1 mini – it’s 1 casting – which could be 5 minis – scout unit or something…
It could be one mini. It just depends on what you’ve got tooled.
The cost are low enouph not only for companies but for individuals to do some work with them.
It reinforces to me the idea that Prodos is quite more interested in establishing themselves as a manufacturer for other companies, not a bad idea.
A few questions I would be interested to see answered, would they work with individuals and not companies? can they work this method from digital sculpting and can they cast them in different colours?
slightly related to that, I wonder how big, small, and how many things it can cast in one shot, EG can they print off a bunch of heads or weapons etc for conversions or scenery.
Having them cast up 20k rifles or heads is probably not viable since you’d never need that many, but if you can cast a model with an alternate weapon or head on the side that’s a quick way to double the variants.
Some people said some of my miniatures were uncastable, so this might actually be an answer to that…never did hear back from them after i sent pics though :/
hmm looks like me making a line of miniature with out going to KS is poseble
I picked up the unicast version of Nyx at Salute and I’m extremely impressed; I don’t have a ‘traditional’ resin version of the same sculpt to compare it to, but I have plenty of Warzone stuff and I can say that it compares favourably. There isn’t a single mini-based board game on my shelf that I wouldn’t want in this material and with the exception of Imperial Assault and Battletech, they are all KS projects who have suffered to one degree or another with their mini production (Sedition Wars, Guardians Chronicles.. even Shadows over Brimstone). As long as Prodos can… Read more »
WOW this looks amazing! Great job Prodos, looks like you guys are gonna blaze a trail for them big ‘uns in the industry! Well done
Very interesting, one of the main things that keeps me away from certain games and manufacturers is pvc.
Really excited by this.
This is quite exciting. There have been some really decent sculpts produced for board games recently, but they just don’t feel top quality because of the material they’re made from. So although I like multipart miniatures, there is definitely a (large) time and a place for single piece figures.
Cool stuff
@warzan
Do you think you can reach prodos and get answers for our questions?
Sure, Make me a list 🙂
Are you sure about that 😉
Thanks.
First and foremost are they willing to work with private customers, not companies?
can they produce the models in coloured resin? can they produce them in clear/ tinted resin?
Can the customer submit his own 3D files and if fixes need to be made does the customer need to make them or does Prodos design do them (with the necessary fee of course).
Can Prodos work directly for digital files or the models should be submitted in printed format?
I am sure I forget one or two things, but the costs mentioned are quite low for some custom projects individuals may have in mind.
@Warzan
Any news on it?
And they say that ,agic doesn’t exist. If this isn’t sorcery I don’t know what is. They’d have been burned at the stake for this in the olden days.
*magic
You guys don’t really explain what “unicast” means except in the vaguest of terms – but looking at the mold it looks like the molds that we used to use at Northrop-Grumman when I worked in their model shop. A traditional mold for casting polystyrene (or HIPS as the cool kids are calling it these days) are all metal. Creating one of these molds is time consuming which is why they are so expensive. On the other hand, they are great for doing huge runs of plastic parts because the molds effectively last forever. The other molds that we used… Read more »
I just realized that I said that was a B2 in that photo when, in reality, it’s an early design for a drone that Northrop/Grumman did in the 90’s.
I suspect describing it in the vaguest of terms might well be deliberate, after all if they believe unicast to be competitive edge, they’re unlikely to want to share the method. I believe it is simply called “unicast” because it allows them to cast complex miniature designs as a single cast that would previously have required a multipart kit. I have some of the new crusader miniatures from prodos and I can testify that this is the case. Personally I think they’re using black magic.
But as I pointed out, this is not a unique or new technology. These kinds of molds could be why we’re seeing more and more tiny companies putting out injection molded miniatures. It’s just that nobody else had yet decided that it was worth a press release.
Well, without details, we can’t possibly know whether it’s unique or not however what I would say is the shape of the drone in your pictures is remarkably simple compared to the shapes cast by Prodos. That’s not a dig at Northrop-Gruman, aerodynamics are what they are and most aircraft have very smooth, flat surfaces with few if any undercuts. I have some pictures of some of the stuff Prodos have made using their Unicast method compared to something by Games Workshop. Prodos Prodos Prodos Prodos Space Hulk Dark Angel The Dark Angel wears a long robe which is cast… Read more »
Does anyone know what utherene is? Looks like a misspelled urethane…
Warzan…. If you have contact with Prodos can you ask them where my AvP stuff is? Thanks. Few hundred euro in and nothing from them yet.
@warzan Yeah Warren, if you are in contact with Prodos ask them where my AvP stuff is too. I’ve been waiting patiently for over two years and nada! I don’t feel like ordering something in their site for a “maybe we’ll send your stuff earlier”. I see them doing new projects like there’s no tomorrow with no problem, they mentioned that they had some cash set aside for shipping cost for the AvP backers stuff but now they are without funds again???? Brother G BTW: Congrats on your vows, salute to you and your new wifey from us. ( Me… Read more »