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The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

matduggan.com

81–90 of 154 posts

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#81

This was a very enjoyable read for me. I’ve never played 40K but have always been impressed with the craftsmanship and dedication of the community. I remember a lot of the early hype around 3D printing, most of which hasn’t panned out where the consumer-hobbyist-level machines are concerned. My local game shop makes a lot of cool 3D printed stuff and sells it online or at cons, but even Etsy is now cracking down on p…

> But I think they also make the authentic item _more_ valuable by being so cheap and fake by comparison.

Depends.

Here in the balkans, for some reason, Louis Vuitton bags (the ugly brown one with lighter/gold lettering) have become popular with 'the kids' some years ago.. those bags normally cost as much as a modern laptop, some even much more, but due to chinese manufacturers and local market sellers, you can get counterfits for 10-30eur, depending on the design. Are the materials, seams, zippers, metal parts (well.. metallic painted plastic), etc. worse? Sure. But from far away, it's hard to notice the difference.

Now, due to the huge cost difference between the original and the fake and easily obtainable fakes, most of such bags you see in the street are fakes.

Since it's hard to tell them apart, people just assume it's a fake bag, when they see someone carrying it. I personally know people who are pretty rich and buy expensive stuff "just to show it around", and they don't buy those bags anymore, because no one thinks it's an original bag. A 100k mat black mercedes? Can't fake that. 30k gold watch? Sure it can be fake, but few people wear watches nowaday, even fewer notice them, and very few people assume that the watch is fake. But a 3k louis vuitton handbag? In whatever shopping center or larger cafe/club you go with that, there will be a couple more girls with similar, fake ones.

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#82
post #6

This was a very enjoyable read for me. I’ve never played 40K but have always been impressed with the craftsmanship and dedication of the community. I remember a lot of the early hype around 3D printing, most of which hasn’t panned out where the consumer-hobbyist-level machines are concerned. My local game shop makes a lot of cool 3D printed stuff and sells it online or at cons, but even Etsy is now cracking down on p…

Do they? The high quality fake Rolex that only a watch nerd can tell apart, vs the shitty fake Lolex are different worlds. Similarly, the AI fake Ghibli of myself is just fun. Would it mean more if if flew to Japan and commissioned a painter at Ghibli-world for $3,000 to make the same picture? Sure, but I'm not going to do that.

There's a part in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance where the narrator's friend's bike needs some fixing, and the narrator said (I paraphrase) "you could use this piece of aluminum from a soda can to fix it", but the bike owner thinks that's blasphemy, the only way to fix it is with a part from the bike manufacturer...

https://www.excitant.co.uk/rip-robert-m-pirsig-why-zen-and-t...

But I suppose a Rolex has the property of "a token to remind me of my prosperity" that a Lolex doesn't...

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#83
Thanks for sharing. I've recently been thrown into the 40k universe thanks to my son (who is 9) becoming obsessed with it.

What started out as a "oh look, they've opened a Games Workshop store in this shopping centre... hey it looks like they're giving away free miniatures and showing you how to paint, lets kill 5 mins in the store" has turned into starter packs, combat patrols and lore deep dives with books. All in the span of... 4 weeks.

That said, I have to say, it's been awesome learning about everything Warhammer 40k from him. Normally, I would research something myself to the point of overkill so I could answer his questions, but on this one his enthusiasm is driving it all and he's constantly telling me about this particular faction or that faction.

It's just nice to have a hobby that keeps him away from screen time these days. It also requires patience, dexterity, and creativity - plus there is obviously an incredible amount of lore, world building, backstories, etc, plenty to keep his imagination entertained.

The one big problem, of course, is the money required! Which is why someone recently said to me "maybe get a 3d printer" and we had this exact discussion about quality of printing etc, and regardless, I just don't see that impacting things like book sales or codex's.

Anyway, cool to read about how people got into it and just thought I'd share!

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#84
The author has a sharp poetic knife he writes with. I first came across war hammer while in school for jewelry design at FIT while the other students had painting miniatures as side gigs. At the time I was heavily into 3d printing jewelry models and it was much more involved because personal printers didn't really exist for easy consumption yet. Several years later and I have moved on to designing even smaller things (too small! No one can see them only feel their effects!) now I've tried to scale back up again, and keep coming back to 3D printing. The hassle of owning my own machine continues to make sending out for prints more appealing.

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#85

Honestly, resin printers are a god send to the miniatures community. Hands down best tech to print warhammer, n-scale, D&D, you name it.

I get it though. I'm the kind of person who's willing to learn slicing, architecting supports and all the other wonky shit that 3d printing begs of because it provides essentially priceless (read: nonexistent custom things) for me. Someone who's already well steeped in a hobby as demanding as WH40k and who already has access to items they can purchase alternatively probably is not searching for something else they ha…

You would be surprised at the custom WH40K models I’ve seen. Not armies, but props!! Oh my!!

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#86
post #27

Honestly, resin printers are a god send to the miniatures community. Hands down best tech to print warhammer, n-scale, D&D, you name it.

The quality of resin printed minis is amazing compared to regular 3d printing. There's actually facial features.

It’s good enough to make a mold and cast mini’s the old fashioned way. With liquid resin and a two part registered rubber mold.

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#88
post #83

Thanks for sharing. I've recently been thrown into the 40k universe thanks to my son (who is 9) becoming obsessed with it. What started out as a "oh look, they've opened a Games Workshop store in this shopping centre... hey it looks like they're giving away free miniatures and showing you how to paint, lets kill 5 mins in the store" has turned into starter packs, combat patrols and lore deep dives with books. All in…

> free miniatures and showing you how to paint

First hit is free; it is a cool hobby though and I like how it combines arts and crafts with gaming, strategy, world lore/building and storytelling, as you noted.

Also the skills are likely transferrable to RPG minis as well as general model building and painting.

I think custom game pieces for basically any tabletop game are a killer app for 3d printers. Also custom scenery and minis for RPGs (for example a mini customized for a player character, a custom monster, a key NPC, etc.)

Probably good for making doll house (or action figure hideout) furniture and accessories as well, though I expect part of the charm of that hobby is making tiny furnishings etc. out of realistic materials like wood, fabric, or ceramic.

And of course for creating replacement components for any toy or model as needed.

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#89

I'm part mechanical engineer and I 3D print things on a near daily basis. My job would be a lot slower and more cumbersome without it. Mind you this is all FDM. I only played with resin printers briefly, and not only do they produce extremely brittle and off-dimenension parts, they are extremely messy and use chemicals that you really should think twice or three times or four times about having under the same roof as…

Bambu; their app and their website of things to print from your phone without any fuss, means that even if you don't do any CAD yourself, there's still a vast library of things you can print without opening fusion 360 or a hacked copy of SOLIDWORKS.

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#90

I'm part mechanical engineer and I 3D print things on a near daily basis. My job would be a lot slower and more cumbersome without it. Mind you this is all FDM. I only played with resin printers briefly, and not only do they produce extremely brittle and off-dimenension parts, they are extremely messy and use chemicals that you really should think twice or three times or four times about having under the same roof as…

It sounds like you underestimate the enthusiasm for miniatures in general. There is a lot of demand for finely printed models––look at Tribes on MyMiniFactory, or the success of primarily 3D printed games like Trench Crusade.

On the other side of this _is_ the affordability of 3D printed miniatures. The linked-to article is salient/cogent/great, but the secondary topic at hand––lowering the price of entry for miniatures-based table top gaming––is still salient. 3D printing won't necessarily upend GW's business model, but it does provide an entry point that is more affordable by some calculus.

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