Are Resin Figures Really Worth it ?

Another question I hear regularly is “Are resin figures worth buying ?”

Well that’s really a hard one to answer because value means different things to different people, so I figure the best thing to do is to look at what you get in resin versus plastic and then let the buyer decide if the premium is worth paying.

Using photos of a mix of resin and plastic figures hopefully I’ll be able to show the differences in quality between the two. As I have on hand some Legend figures who are probably the most budget friendly and some Verlinden who are probably one of the better recognised names I have used those two to represent the resin side and for the plastic side I’ve randomly chosen a Tamiya figure, an older Dragon figure, a Gen 2 Dragon figure, a recent Masterbox figure and a current Academy figure.

In doing this one also must remember that it isn’t always a case of comparing apples with apples, some resin figures are very good, some are very poor and of course there are some resin figures out there that are better than Verlinden and Legend but they are also usually incredibly expensive. Equally all plastic kits are not equal, but what I will try to look at today are things which in general are true to both mediums.

There are two main advantages to resin over plastic. Uniqueness and Detail. Uniqueness being that often times it will be a subject not represented in plastic, for example civilian figures, Italian military figures, SAS figures. But detail is the key selling point of resin. In resin figures you will find that they have ears, sometimes teeth, eyeballs, fingernails and small uniform details. This is because resin is harder than plastic and because they are usually hand cast in custom moulds so they can take and hold very fine detail where plastic just cannot get the same level of crispness, the same thinness or the same undercut detail. Uniforms will have sharper creases, weapons will have finer detailing, sleeve cuffs can be hollowed and bootlaces can be undercut.

Over time plastic moulds have gotten better and today we see faces from the likes of Miniart that are close to resin like in detail but because injection moulding requires two halves we still usually end up with blobby ears and soft mouths. Dragon with their Gen 2 figures and slide moulding technology brought plastic moulded kits to their pinacle to date. These figures moulded the heads in two halves so that we got ears, and hands were moulded separately so that we got hollow cuffs, collars were moulded separately so that we got undercuts and weapons had bolts and mags made as separate parts. All this equalled a much higher level of detail than previously available in plastic.

But the model buying public is fickle, the Gen 2 sets didn’t sell well so Dragon is now discontinuing that line. People didn’t want to pay $28+ NZD for four figures even though the $7 per figure still made them half the price of a cheap resin figure. They also complained of the figures being too finicky and having too many parts. So we’re now back to where our choices are the best plastic moulded figures being close to resin cast in overall detail but still just lacking that little extra that plastic just can’t produce without the cost going up too much.

Whether you choose to pay the premium for a figure that has a high level of detail and can be assembled and painted with no further improvement in the end comes down to personal choice. They will often have the advantage of being a subject not dealt with anywhere else or a pose that is specific to a vehicle which has an advantage for those not confident enough to resculpt figures and shouldn’t be overlooked solely because of the price.

Let me just round this off with my own personal view. Generally I never buy a plastic figure to use OOB, I buy sets to create piles of arms, legs, heads, equipment etc from which I build my own figures, often paring away existing detail to apply putty that I can resculpt. As such I find plastic kits cost effective and easy to work with. I like Gen 2 figures and I can’t believe people actually complained about a kit having too much detail. I also thought the price per figure was more than reasonable. Occasionally I will buy resin figures because the pose is exactly what I want, but I will usually only do so where the cost makes it worth not having to do the resculpting myself. I actually like to sculpt and resculpt my own figures, it makes them unique, and plastic is a medium that allows easy remodelling and resculpting. But I do know that there are many modellers without the skill or the confidence to tackle remodelling a figure. So my PERSONAL choice is usually plastic over resin.

So one last though to keep in mind – If the expensive resin figure you buy makes your build then it’s worth the cost, because a cheap figure on an expensive kit can pull an entire diorama down - why spend $80 on a kit, $50 on AM parts and then scrimp on a figure.

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