No news is good news!

Yesterday I created a new record with 908 page-viewers in a day!

Why?

Because bad news are good news!

Just a joke!

But the fact that one important model producer canceled some announced products and additional rumors about a possible production stop of historical figures sets on an another producer alarmed a lot of collectors and hobbiest!

Thats the good sign!

The fact is, we all LOVE our hobby!

Yes, we do! (OK; not the way we love our wifes and kits, but there is a connection between us and the hobbby!)

and we care for it!

But on the other hand, ther are some facts, which we may and shouldn't ignore; like

"Money talks!"

and

"Demand creates offer!"

1-The producers should make money and the demand is not SOO great, I think.

We all can imagine that those "small plastic soldiers" are not on the first place among the popular free time activities of the coming generations. (I personally dont call those activities "hobby"!)

IMHO, the similarity of Haet products to the announced napoleonic figures of Italeri could be one of the reasons in this ever shrinking market!

2-I can imagine that a 1/35 scale tank brings more profit than a 1/72 figures set.

Big boxes with additional gadgets are bringing more profit!

No suprise, that only 1/72 scale sets are on the list!

3-And some producers could/should co-operate for minimizing the risk, like, "Italeri" with "Waterloo 1815".

In this case, it was for me not a surprise, that the "apache warriors"-set, which were announced in the 2010 catalogue of Italeri, were canceled, after the production of "Waterloo 1815"'s "sioux"-set.

But the "U.S. cavalry" set was not among the announced items.

4-Maybe, the technology is settinng even, in this small market, the production trends slowly, but surely!

Dragon is using the 3D-moulding technology and Zvezda cooperates with Dragon.

With the infantry figures for their new boardgame "The great Patriotic War 1941" they made the first steps, into the new direction, producing figures with this new technology, without any sculptor:

http://worldin172scale.blogspot.com/2010/10/more-photos.html

Producing with less cost, more products and faster, in the meantime hoping more profit!

What's wrong with that, folks?

Nothing, I know!

But, we, who are collecting, painting, remodelling those small figures find the sculptor-designed figures more natural, better, beatiful...

I hope, through co-operations and low-cost-new technologies the producers will be able to promote so-called "special sets" in periodic intervals to the market, created through sculptors!