Calpe Miniatures: Price Increase & More Announcement

Calpe Miniatures: I remember being very uncomfortable when the price of a figure went up past the £1 barrier. I am now announcing a price increase which makes me feel much the same.

A couple of weeks ago, I started putting out feelers for a new batch of metal. The metal I use is a high grade alloy with over 90% tin content. This gives me a crisp casting with enough resilience to endure the rigours of postage and then use on the tabletop. The one time I tried to use a lower grade alloy I had so many miscasts and breakages in transit that I have not tried this again. When the quotes for the metal came in, it was clear that the price of tin has experienced a sharp increase. The increase in price for the grade of metal I use has gone up by almost two thirds! The price of my metal has hovered around the £14-16 mark per Kilo for some time, the new prices are now between £25 and £30. This is a huge increase caused by the fall in production of tin ore due to Covid and then an increase in demand, particularly in China, as the electronics industry has resumed manufacture post-Covid. Having done some research on the subject, prices are expected to keep rising until mid 2022 when they will stabilise at some lower value. They are not expected to come back down to pre-covid prices.

This unprecedented price increase is of such magnitude that I cannot continue production without raising my prices. I have a metal fund specifically for the purchase of metal which I keep topped up to ensure continued production. This fund will not meet the new cost of metal. For the first time I have considered production in some other medium – resin or plastic. I have even considered selling up and retiring. After some thought I have decided to continue doing what I love but to put my prices up. Figures will now sell for £1.50 and horses for £2. Guns will be £7. I know this is an eye watering increase but without it, I simply can’t continue producing metal figures with the price of metal as it currently stands. On the figure front, the 3D sculpting is going very well with lots of figures ready to print, but my 3D printer is still in storage as the building work on the house continues. I am hoping to be able to set the printer up before the end of the year but will have to pack it away again in February as the next stage of the build commences. I will keep you informed. Peter.

Calpe Miniatures: Temporarily Not Shipping & Going The Digital Sculpting Way!

Calpe Miniatures: Calpe Miniatures is now closed until the 2nd September. The website itself will remain open and you can send your orders in if you so wish, but no orders will be sent out until after the 2nd of September.

It has been a busy year, particularly on the family front, as two of my children managed to get married despite Covid's best efforts. In mid June we started much delayed building works on our house and it has been a struggle keeping Calpe going while this has been going on. We have reached a point where it is actually impossible to work in the house and we are vacating it and going for a holiday until the worst is over. Our builder assures us that by September the house will be habitable again.

You might think from these comments that all I have done for the past year is deal with weddings and builders but, in fact, the main thrust of my activity has been the conversion from traditional to digital design for the figures. The process of learning to sculpt digitally has taken most of my time but the transition has been easier than I expected. Yes, I have had to learn how to use a new software programme but the fact that I could already sculpt has made things much easier. I would compare it to moving from using a type writer to a word processing computer, the skill set you use is the same but the digital medium makes the process much faster and more user friendly. The fact is, that having acquired the basics, it is amazing what can be done with digital design.

Several customers have expressed concern that the "look" of my figures will change.This was a major concern of mine when I started working digitally. Many sculptors produce figures which are anatomically correct but look too thin by the time they have been printed and moulded. I circumvented this by buying a jewellery scanner and working from scans of my own figures. This keeps the proportions of the figures the same as the traditionally sculpted figures but the detail now is far superior as I can blow up the head of a screw on a musket to the size of the 24 inch screen on my pen tablet. What this means is that sculpting the smallest of details is now possible. Figures are scanned and either reworked digitally or chopped up (digitally) and used to make new figures.

I have a library of finished figures and horses awaiting 3D printing. The printing side of things has slowed things down as I needed a top quaility jewellery 3D printer and choosing the right machine took time. It also had to be a machine that could print in a resin that was capable of withstanding the moulding process in silicone rubber. I made my choice in late May and the 3D printer was delivered in early June - a week before the building works started! I managed to get one very promising print out of it before I had to pack it up again and put it in storage. Roll on September!

The question really is what to release as my first digitally sculpted figures? After some thought, I have decided to redo, and complete, the Lutzow Freikorps. When I first sculpted these figures I did them because I wanted them for my collection but did not expect them to sell. Infact, they have become one of my best sellers but I get constant complaints from customers that the set is incomplete and that there is no cavalry, light infantry or artillery. I have scanned the original figures, reworked them digitally and expanded the "musketeer" set. The new figures will conform to the new format of packs in 4 or 6 figure sets. The "musketeers" are almost complete and will probably be the first release. The light infantry will follow and then the cavalry and artillery if I can find what artillery pieces they used - apparently they had both foot and horse artillery. The logic behind using this set as my trial release is that it enables me to try out sculpting and printing techniques for all arms of the Napoleonic army - infantry, light infantry, cavalry and artillery.

The Saxon light cavalry is also sketched out digitally and will be completed and released as soon as I feel confident that the figures I am producing digitally match up to, or surpass, the rest of the figures in the Saxon range. Peter 4th July 2021