A good friend of mine does illustration work for Battletech, amongst other things. Well, he recently bought a 3D printer. Here's his first original creation. It's called the 'Master Blaster', and is only 5.25 inches tall.
Tick... tick... tick...
Here's another of Dave's prints all painted up.
Here's another giant robot (16" tall) from a guy named Jodprak over on Deviant Art. Cool eh?
And another one I found online.
Now, think about GW's recent strategy of larger and larger robot/tank kits. Does this make sense, long term, in light of what 3D printers are now capable of? Or should GW be launching a 15mm update of Epic that can't be printed (yet) with the same clarity as injection-molded plastic?
WOW! Those look amazing... :-) Was looking at the 3d printers in the labs here and thinking something like that myself...
ReplyDeleteI made a post about how I felt that 3d printing would save the miniature gaming industry from the game companies that have a tendency to wring them dry. They scoffed at me when I wrote it, but this seems to lend a bit of credibility to it. Nice post, thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeletetick...tick...tick is right. It's what I was thinking yesterday when I saw the news releases about the 3D scanners.
ReplyDeleteI know 3D printing is better than a lot of people give it credit for.
in a few years... 28mm will be pretty different. esp for the large kits in 28mm.
RepRap or box? Cost of the printer?
ReplyDeleteNice resolution. How much post printing clean-up?
That ticking sound, it's getting louder and louder. :)
Afina ABS printer. See comment below for costs.
DeleteThe higher the quality, the more excited I get about this. :)
ReplyDelete"GW's recent strategy..."
ReplyDeleteWhy limit it to GW? PP's Colossals are under the same threat I would think...
Fair enough. But not knowing much about PP, I just assume they have at least some level of clue. Maybe I'm wrong (shrugs).
DeleteBattlefront and GW certainly don't. At least Battlefront is branching out into other games though, and their smaller scale will protect them longer.
What printer is this?
ReplyDeleteI guess the obvious idea is to be printing things like wraithknights/riptides which would be totally viable. I can't see the faces of 28mm figs looking like much but that's not really the issue.
There's that litho printer from formlabs for $3,300 coming out. Litho printers would be the breakthrough that makes printed infantry viable but the cost of the printer + the resin is probably too high for it to be remotely cost-effective for now.
The mech at top was printed on an Afina ABS filament printer. It costs $1500.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.afinia.com/3d-printers
Dave says it takes about 2-3 hours to print, and materials are about $5.
Games Workshop aren't clueless to 3D printers. As can be seen in this report for Enter the Citadel.
ReplyDeletehttp://taleofpainters.blogspot.de/2013/07/report-enter-citadel-july-12-part-2.html
They may be underestimating the time frame... but they are far from clueless.
Well, Jes isn't clueless (never thought he was). But that awareness has to seep up into management. Who have to start investing now in the technologies, processes, and the digital model library that would allow them to roll out a custom-print service once the tech becomes viable. Playing catch-up once the tech is established was the mistake that Kodak made.
DeleteThat's an interesting read. I get the sense from the way he reported it, they have a casual regard for consumer level 3d printing. As an Epidemiologist, it's similar to how my colleagues and I look at the new trend of "google reported illness tracking"...Novel and interesting, but hardly close to what we do on a daily basis.
DeleteGood stuff. At $1500 for the printer itself, it's still out of range of the "average hobbyist", but the future is approaching quickly.
ReplyDeleteA better question would be, what is the pricing break point where the average consumer can make the leap? Maybe look at the infancy of personal computing for answers? I'm going to put it at $300 to $500.
$1500 doesn't sound too pricey considering what some people spend on their gaming hobby. 3d printing is exciting! Tabletop 3d scanners are also getting better.
ReplyDeleteFor the price or two GW armies, you can have a 3D printer...
ReplyDeleteThey can be had for as little as $400. This is just on the nice end of the filament printer spectrum.
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