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Some Infinity Models rumours


Largescale32

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8 hours ago, Largescale32 said:

Hello,

spent last weekend with my friends from HpH/Infinity Models.

There are no news, except thinking about a 1/48 laminate/resin Space Shuttle with booster rockets. Had a llok on 1/48 plans and this will be really huge.

The other news are not that good: their sales of the 1/32 Infinity Helldiver kit are not as expected, they will look how the sales of the 1/32 Vampire kits will be and then they will make some new decisions about forthcoming kits.

One is the cancellation of 1/32 Me-410 plastic kit.

Fact is, that the 1/32 S.M.-79 now will be produced in laminate/resin instead of plastic, because production in plastic is too expensive for a small company.

Additional sets for the Vampire kits will be ready in about one month.

Also the sales for FLY Models 1/32 Saab Tunnan are not that good (about 700 sold kits so far).

KP Models cancelled their 1/32 L-29 Delphin project. They will stay with simple, easy to build 1/72 kits.

 

Cheers, Heinz

 

I'm very much a 1/32 model kit buyer and occasional maker, and have yet to get the Fly Tunnan but will buy one. I suspect that there are many like me who, in these difficult times, need to spread out purchases and not just go for it on release.

Would be nice to know what's happening with the third edition of the Fly Wessex. 

 

Infinity made the ugly fighter version of the Vampire. Had it been a T.11.....

 

I hope our picky buying habits don't scupper the "must get" 1/32 Beaufighter and Draken projects. I wish them well,

 

To

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crisis ! what crisis ?

see over - Eduard leaflet discussion!

 

Why not go for bread and butter eversellers. Am I the only one waiting for a Bf 110 G-4, a P-51BC, a Tiffy, a Hayabusa or La 7 ??????

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7 hours ago, tony.t said:

 

 

 

I hope our picky buying habits don't scupper the "must get" 1/32 Beaufighter and Draken projects.

 

 

There is aready done a lot of work on the Beaufighter, I think it will come. Different thing with the Draken.

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7 hours ago, ABeck said:

Why not go for bread and butter eversellers. Am I the only one waiting for a Bf 110 G-4, a P-51BC, a Tiffy, a Hayabusa or La 7 ??????

Bf-110G-4: Dragon/Revell with the outstanding AIMS conversion

P-51B/C: announced from ZM

La-7: HpH

 

I´m glad that HpH/Infinity isn´t one of the 109/Spitfire/Mustang companies (with a little bit of luck I will get my 1/32 He-177 in the next few years ).

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/2/2022 at 1:25 PM, JohnT said:

Nice also to see a 1/48 Marauder - a much overlooked machine in lager model scales

Lager 🍺 model scale is proportional to the number of lagers 🍺 consumed. 4 lagers is around 1/12th scale.

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3 minutes ago, VMA131Marine said:

Lager 🍺 model scale is proportional to the number of lagers 🍺 consumed. 4 lagers is around 1/12th scale.

I have seen some sensational lager models 💃in my time but they never quite looked nearly as good when sober the next morning 

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I've always been more partial to whiskey models, myself. Come to think of it, since I quit drinking whiskey (and everything else), my model production has plummeted.

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

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On 7/18/2022 at 5:35 AM, Largescale32 said:

Hello,

spent last weekend with my friends from HpH/Infinity Models.

There are no news, except thinking about a 1/48 laminate/resin Space Shuttle with booster rockets. Had a llok on 1/48 plans and this will be really huge.

The other news are not that good: their sales of the 1/32 Infinity Helldiver kit are not as expected, they will look how the sales of the 1/32 Vampire kits will be and then they will make some new decisions about forthcoming kits.

One is the cancellation of 1/32 Me-410 plastic kit.

Fact is, that the 1/32 S.M.-79 now will be produced in laminate/resin instead of plastic, because production in plastic is too expensive for a small company.

Additional sets for the Vampire kits will be ready in about one month.

Also the sales for FLY Models 1/32 Saab Tunnan are not that good (about 700 sold kits so far).

KP Models cancelled their 1/32 L-29 Delphin project. They will stay with simple, easy to build 1/72 kits.

 

Cheers, Heinz

 

I am waiting for their Val and Kate

 

to be honest I don't have a huge amount of sympathy with them... the Val and the Kate - especially the former because it is slightly smaller - have been longed for in 1/32 for as long as i have been modelling in this scale

 

why on earth didn't they release the Val first and make loads of sales, then see what they want to do?

 

similarly with the Vampire, I quite like British Cold War aviation but it certainly wouldn't have been my choice as a first subject from this genre

 

The cancellation of the 410 is their loss as well - rightly or wrongly, Luftwaffe sells; so ditching that because the Helldiver didn't sell well and the Vampire probably won't either is just bonkers.

 

The Saab Tunan... I just have no words

 

Honestly, I would love to know what these guys were thinking - assuming they were trying to sell as many kits as possible in 1/32.

 

Nick

 

 

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12 minutes ago, nicholas mayhew said:

Honestly, I would love to know what these guys were thinking - assuming they were trying to sell as many kits as possible in 1/32.


If that were at all true, their first three releases would have been a P-51D, a Bf 109 (any Bf 109) and a Spitfire. Then they would follow on with an Fw 190.

 

You really have to empathise with kit companies because, outside of the subjects listed above and maybe a couple of others, there are no sure things in the model kit business. I’m sure that kit manufacturers must hold their breath every time they release something different from the handful of “cash cow” subjects. It’s great that companies are still willing to try more esoteric subjects despite the risks. If Infinity has only sold 700 Helldivers so far (and I got one of them), they can’t have come close to paying for the tooling development. That’s a shame as it seems to be a decent kit.

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25 minutes ago, nicholas mayhew said:

to be honest I don't have a huge amount of sympathy with them...

 

The life of a model manufacturer is very simple - no matter what you release, it will always be the wrong choice.

 

Do you release a Bf 109 or a Spitfire?

Wrong, after all there are so many of them on the market, who will buy it. You should have released something less popular that nobody does, it would have been a money printing machine.

 

Do you release a less popular theme?

Wrong, after all nobody is interested in it, so who will buy it. You should have released a Bf 109 or a Spitfire, that would have been a money printing machine.

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39 minutes ago, Piotr Mikolajski said:

The life of a model manufacturer is very simple - no matter what you release, it will always be the wrong choice.

Best way to turn a large fortune into a small one: start a model manufacturing company…

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11 hours ago, VMA131Marine said:

Best way to turn a large fortune into a small one: start a model manufacturing company…

Or start a modelshop. Invest in a stock of the new infinity Vampire just to hear your customers say, "Oh nice that it is available, I might buy one, one day...  "

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The online builds of the Helldiver were not very encouraging for would be buyers and the number of extras required to bring it up to spec were also off putting, I do have one in the stash as I want to build USN subjects.

I only build WW2 subjects in 1/32 so the Vampire does not interest me at all, but the Kate and Val will be bought, I would snap up a Defiant very quickly if one were to appear.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

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20 hours ago, VMA131Marine said:


 If Infinity has only sold 700 Helldivers so far (and I got one of them), they can’t have come close to paying for the tooling development. That’s a shame as it seems to be a decent kit.

700 kits are the sales of FLY Models Saab J29, I have bought 22 of them so far. Infinity has sold about 2400 kits of the Helldiver.

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Jiri Hodan is a very busy man, he runs HpH/Infinity, he´s pilot and instructor and he´s designing a new trainer aircraft, see www.aircraftdesign.cz.

Main business at HpH are custom made models for private clients, aircraft companies and museums.

Producing model kits is more a passion and hobby. He likes to make fiberglass/resin kits, because he can do all the work in his company and he likes the more unusual kits like Me-323 Gigant.

I like real largescale aircraft, so I´m glad that I have got a Catalina, C-47 and DC-3 from him. End of the year the Gigant will be ready, next year the Bv-138 will be ready and there will come the SR-71 in 1/32. And with a little bit of luck he will do the Heinkel He-177. I´m begging for it each time we meet.

He has started the Infinity line because lot of modellers don´t want to pay the prices of resin kits or they don´t like the extra work you have with resin kits.

His choice of subjects I also do not understand in some cases, but it´s his company and his decision. But that´s the same with Tamiya, Hasegawa, Zoukei-Mura, etc.

But, as mentioned above, it´s always the wrong plane, if it´s the right plane, then it´s the wrong version.

Jiri doesn´t read model forums, so he will never know that there is the perfect business strategist living in Kent.

He´s not that happy with the current situation, but maybe it changes after the Val/Kate and Beaufighter. It comes as it comes.

 

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On 7/18/2022 at 5:35 AM, Largescale32 said:

 

KP Models cancelled their 1/32 L-29 Delphin project. They will stay with simple, easy to build 1/72 kits.

 

Cheers, Heinz

 

 

Thats gutting !

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It's a real shame about the L.29, and to a lesser extent the Me 410, which I do have the HpH kit of, unlike the Delfin.

 

Sadly short run kits get bad press because they require more work, but with that comes a better sense of satisfaction, and no less a completed model than one from Tamiya.

 

The Helldiver was criticised because it didn't include all the extras in the box, for the same price, yet it's a large aircraft with a price compatible with Hasegawa kits.

 

Hopefully the sales of the Helldiver and Tunnan improve, and all their future releases. My Vampire is being delivered on Monday, can't wait.

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5 hours ago, Largescale32 said:

700 kits are the sales of FLY Models Saab J29, I have bought 22 of them so far. Infinity has sold about 2400 kits of the Helldiver.

Thanks for the correction.

 

2400 kits is at the lower end of the range I would have expected. I doubt the market is much larger than 5000 kits, especially at the price point they were asking. I don’t actually think the price is unreasonable, but there are a lot of modelers who would balk at a price tag in excess of $100 no matter what the subject.

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If they sold stated 2400 kits, that is everything but bad sales in timeframe since kits release, full run kits in bigger scales seldom reach more than 10k in their first few years, and their popularity is far surpassing limited injection moulding kits of second tier subjects.

And if mentioned number is correct, taking their provenance into account , they amortized costs early down the run.

For 100€ people expect premium quality, while having nice surface details, its still short run kit. But even as such I have no doubt that it made/ will make money for HpH.

 

 

Edited by Thomas V.
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On 7/29/2022 at 11:41 PM, gunpowder17 said:

Whatever they make i hope they put the riveting tool away.

Couldn't agree more.....I'd definitely have bought the Vampire if it hadn't been covered in 'divots'!

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1 hour ago, hopkp said:

Couldn't agree more.....I'd definitely have bought the Vampire if it hadn't been covered in 'divots'!

Its actually a really nice kit other than the rivets. i quick pass with vallejo putty and a coat of mr surfacer and things look alot better.  Would have been great if it hadnt have had them in the first place though.

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