Cost was how I got into sculpting. It helped that I had a flair for the
art, of course, but for the cost of one single resin 1/16th figure, I
can buy a one pound kit of Magic Sculpt and make dozens of 1/16th
figures of anything I darn well please. Of course I realize not
everyone has that ability, but that was a big factor, in my younger
years, for trying it out and discovering that I could actually do it.
It was definitly a skill born, in part, of neccessity.
Like I said, a good white metal figure in 54mm can cost almost as
much as a low end 1/16th scale figure. But if you're doing mainly
modern stuff, the Tamiya/DML/ect. route does it in a pinch for money's
sake. Though a lot of the resin companies are starting to put out some
really nice non modern stuff now. I didn't get into older stuff until
about a year after I focused on figures, and that was after I branched
off into other scales and had started toying with sculpting. If you're
into Napoleonics, Midieval and anything other than modern day, Tamiya
and DML aren't going to be able to help, other than Tamiya's 47 Ronin
Samurai sets and DML's Civil War sets.