The next WNW kit..? 3 wishes...

[Tony T]

 

Sir Peter Jackson's microwave-sized auto rigging machine. 

 

Ping! Rigged!

 

Tony

[Pup7309]

8 hours ago, Tnarg said:

The difficult thing with WNW is that they do all of these great kits, but they seem to focus on one person's passion. (And I don't say that like it's a bad thing, look at all he has given us). If he doesn't find an obsession with French or Austro-Hungarian or Italian aircraft, then there is no hope for something like Polish, Middle Lithuanian, Russian or Ukrainian machines other than by conversion or by someone like Copper State. Special Hobby had a Hansa Brandenburg C.I on their list, but that seems as likely as a TBD from Trumpeter in 1/32 scale. Roden seems to have withdrawn to only smaller scales.

 

We are all sitting here like a Dicken's character... "Please Sir, could I have some more?" Maybe we need to be a bit more adventurous with conversions or scratchbuilding.

 

Tnarg

Yes, in the words of Gollum: ‘We wants it, precious!’ 

On the other hand Im sure plenty of us are glad they only announce a few every year for the sake our wallets, and hard stares from the Mrs.

 

Barring a zombie apocalypse or some other catastrophe WNW will probably be going for at least another 5-10 years so if they announce 1-2 totally new kits a year that’s 5-20. So there will something in there for everyone, maybe even a French or Italian kit and Eastern European (including Austrian) versions.

 

Ive got a feeling the Lanc is a one-off, but who knows. I wouldn’t have a problem with him doing a night-fighter duelist pack. But any projects for WW2 or ‘Silver Wings’ would cut into their WW1 production, you’d think?

 

Anyway the future looks bright 

[ringleheim]

On 2/28/2019 at 11:26 AM, Tnarg said:

The difficult thing with WNW is that they do all of these great kits, but they seem to focus on one person's passion. (And I don't say that like it's a bad thing, look at all he has given us). If he doesn't find an obsession with French or Austro-Hungarian or Italian aircraft, then there is no hope for something like Polish, Middle Lithuanian, Russian or Ukrainian machines other than by conversion or by someone like Copper State. Special Hobby had a Hansa Brandenburg C.I on their list, but that seems as likely as a TBD from Trumpeter in 1/32 scale. Roden seems to have withdrawn to only smaller scales.

 

We are all sitting here like a Dicken's character... "Please Sir, could I have some more?" Maybe we need to be a bit more adventurous with conversions or scratchbuilding.

 

Tnarg

Yes but WNW does have the directive of needing to break even.

 

I have mentioned this before, but every single kit WNW makes doesn't have to be directly related to Peter Jackson's passion.  Some projects could and perhaps should be established simply b/c they will be great sellers and will help feed the coffers, so that the next project can feed Peter Jackson's passions, if you see my point.

 

For example, I would imagine the Gotha bomber was a horrible business decision, but he wanted that plane.  But those losses are offset by what I assume are very strong Sopwith Camel sales.  Who knows; Jackson may have no interest in the Camel at all but the business, overall, has to break even.  

 

So the Camel kits exist to keep the party alive so that it can produce subjects of passion like the upcoming Handley Page 0/400, which I assume will consume huge amounts of WNW resources while not bringing in much revenue.

 

 

 

 

[John1]

1 hour ago, ringleheim said:

Yes but WNW does have the directive of needing to break even.

 

For example, I would imagine the Gotha bomber was a horrible business decision, but he wanted that plane.  But those losses are offset by what I assume are very strong Sopwith Camel sales.  Who knows; Jackson may have no interest in the Camel at all but the business, overall, has to break even.  

 

So the Camel kits exist to keep the party alive so that it can produce subjects of passion like the upcoming Handley Page 0/400, which I assume will consume huge amounts of WNW resources while not bringing in much revenue.

 

 

You seem to have a great deal of inside knowledge of WNW as far as what kits made/lost money, what their financial goals are, etc.    

 

As such, can you let us know what their next release will be?   

[ringleheim]

4 hours ago, John1 said:

You seem to have a great deal of inside knowledge of WNW as far as what kits made/lost money, what their financial goals are, etc.    

 

As such, can you let us know what their next release will be?   

Ha!  I wish.  I have made a hobby out of following the company very closely since its inception and there are a number of interviews, videos, etc., out there that you can learn from.

 

I'm just guessing at what are sales successes or failures. But I can't imagine they sold very many Gothas, and the $300 (US) and up they fetch at Ebay now speaks to that.

 

I assume another loss leader is the Felixstowe, which again strikes me as a project of passion.  Then you have the Junkers D.1 which I suspect was not a project of passion, but designed to be a strong seller as it is simple and has almost no rigging = popular among people who are not accustomed to building in the WWI genre.

 

A number of their more recent kits that are light on rigging specifically push the "not much rigging to have to hassle with" angle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[John1]

1 hour ago, ringleheim said:

 

 

A number of their more recent kits that are light on rigging specifically push the "not much rigging to have to hassle with" angle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m down with the “not much rigging” approach. Waiting patiently for the Dr.I or for that matter a Fokker D.VIII.

 

Or even better, eliminate all rigging and start popping out some interesting WW2 subjects. 

[mgunns]

22 hours ago, ringleheim said:

Ha!  I wish.  I have made a hobby out of following the company very closely since its inception and there are a number of interviews, videos, etc., out there that you can learn from.

 

I'm just guessing at what are sales successes or failures. But I can't imagine they sold very many Gothas, and the $300 (US) and up they fetch at Ebay now speaks to that.

 

I assume another loss leader is the Felixstowe, which again strikes me as a project of passion.  Then you have the Junkers D.1 which I suspect was not a project of passion, but designed to be a strong seller as it is simple and has almost no rigging = popular among people who are not accustomed to building in the WWI genre.

 

A number of their more recent kits that are light on rigging specifically push the "not much rigging to have to hassle with" angle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can't imagine they sold very many Gotha's?  They sold out!  I think that would constitute selling a lot of Gotha's.  

[Tnarg]

I believe that the Gotha's sold out for the same reason that the large WWII bombers sell. We have some rather large fantasies about a grail kit that we'd like to build and don't think so much about how large it might become. Those are big kits and don't fit on the small shelves where WWII or WWI fighter planes in 1/32 will easily find a home. It doesn't stop us as from wanting that large plane with some amazing detail. LIke with that 11 foot spaceship model I want to put up in our living room, these larger kits don't always find a happy reception with my wife. Oh well. I still like those big planes, but have few places to put them. It didn't stop me from putting the kit box on the stash shelf, but it has stopped me from building it until I figure out where to put it.

 

Tnarg

[ringleheim]

11 hours ago, mgunns said:

You can't imagine they sold very many Gotha's?  They sold out!  I think that would constitute selling a lot of Gotha's.  

I assume production levels of all kits vary, and that the Gotha was produced in very small numbers.

 

The fact that a kit has "Sold out" tells us nothing about unit sales.

 

[ringleheim]

10 hours ago, Tnarg said:

I believe that the Gotha's sold out for the same reason that the large WWII bombers sell. We have some rather large fantasies about a grail kit that we'd like to build and don't think so much about how large it might become. Those are big kits and don't fit on the small shelves where WWII or WWI fighter planes in 1/32 will easily find a home. It doesn't stop us as from wanting that large plane with some amazing detail. LIke with that 11 foot spaceship model I want to put up in our living room, these larger kits don't always find a happy reception with my wife. Oh well. I still like those big planes, but have few places to put them. It didn't stop me from putting the kit box on the stash shelf, but it has stopped me from building it until I figure out where to put it.

 

Tnarg

Maybe I'm wrong, but I would suggest you are in the minority with that type of thing.

 

A huge WWI German bomber is not something the average modeler is going to buy, especially when it comes at a relatively high purchase price.  The entire WWI genre is a niche, as we can see right here at our website.  A giant model with crazy display limitations is a tiny niche of a niche.  

 

I feel like a tiny minority of modelers here are actively building and enjoying WNW models, despite the abundance of threads that crop up talking about them, like this one right now. 

 

 

 

 

[ringleheim]

On 3/2/2019 at 9:42 PM, John1 said:

I’m down with the “not much rigging” approach. Waiting patiently for the Dr.I or for that matter a Fokker D.VIII.

 

Or even better, eliminate all rigging and start popping out some interesting WW2 subjects. 

Eliminating rigging from a WWI aircraft pretty much eliminates the "WWI" from the aircraft too.  WWI aircraft are entirely about use of primitive materials, natural wood finishes, canvas, and rigging.  At least from my perspective. 

 

I have now rigged 2 WNW models and found the procedure to be challenging, but ultimately not that difficult and extremely rewarding.  It also adds an enormous amount of visual interest to the finished model.

 

I would urge you to try rigging before you dismiss it! 

 

Modeling without constant new challenges is boring, at least for me.

 

 

[John1]

4 hours ago, ringleheim said:

Eliminating rigging from a WWI aircraft pretty much eliminates the "WWI" from the aircraft too.  WWI aircraft are entirely about use of primitive materials, natural wood finishes, canvas, and rigging.  At least from my perspective. 

 

I have now rigged 2 WNW models and found the procedure to be challenging, but ultimately not that difficult and extremely rewarding.  It also adds an enormous amount of visual interest to the finished model.

 

I would urge you to try rigging before you dismiss it! 

 

Modeling without constant new challenges is boring, at least for me.

 

 

I think one thing that is scaring me off are turnbuckles.   However, in reading some of WNW's comments, they are pretty emphatic that you shouldn't be using turnbuckles since in 32nd scale, they aren't even visible.   They suggest just going with basic stretched sprue.     Wondering what the thoughts are here on pro's and con's of using turnbuckles.   To me, they do seem to mostly be out of scale when you compare models to pictures of the real thing.  

[mgunns]

14 hours ago, ringleheim said:

I assume production levels of all kits vary, and that the Gotha was produced in very small numbers.

 

The fact that a kit has "Sold out" tells us nothing about unit sales.

 

You don't know what the production numbers were as you assume they were in very small numbers, but you don't know.  No one outside of WNW knows what they are.  The fact that they are gone would indicate that all the units were sold.   

[STWilliams]

15 hours ago, ringleheim said:

I assume production levels of all kits vary, and that the Gotha was produced in very small numbers.

 

The fact that a kit has "Sold out" tells us nothing about unit sales.

 

That's a huge assumption.

[The Phantom]

Cant see a manufacturer keeping kits if sold out. I would love them to do WW2 odd bods too.

An Anson. Beaufort. Defiant. Halifax would sell handsomely