Bring me thy miniatures!

[Baron]

Didn't have dollars in the first place, freedom bucks are worthless in the motherland.

On a serious note, I keep seeing videos about 3d printing as a new option and keep meaning to look up more information on it! At the moment, it seems rather far flung to me - I don't understand how the business model could sustain itself, since I imagine a schematic is very easily shared, even if it was illegal to. On top of that, 3D Printers aren't exactly press a button and go at the moment and you're looking at £100 odd for a small one - not everyone can operate them effectively and there's a rather niche amount of people who use them.
That being said I have no idea what I'm on about and the future always has more in store! Do you have an opinion on it, Baron?

License schematics to local businesses. You make a royalty on every mini they print, while drastically reducing your production costs and entirely doing away with the supply lines.

Local businesses purchase their own commercial grade printers, which are higher resolution than personal ones, and can use more interesting materials (e.g. metal powder composites to make metal goods) and print faster than you could.

The end customer goes to their local shop, pays for a selection of minis from a catalog, and browses the store while they print. Alternatively order online and pick them up, pick out your paints of choice, and off you go to customize them.

End: Games Workshop saves a fortune on production & shipping, while expanding their product's range massively. Local entepreneurs can set up printing businesses that use licensed schematics (from GW and others), and pay no costs other than rent, electricity, and print substrate. The customer can get minis quickly, made to batch order, and more cheaply than they could now, while everyone else in the process is still making money.

 

[Seth_Jenkins]

da smart gubbinz

It's an interesting idea, but I can see issues.
For a start, how does one begin to unify quality? At the moment, we already have issues with recasts that're absurdly low quality and mirror companies who's moulds just aren't as good as the Citadel ones. This is avoided by just buying Citadel, but if each miniature was printed on a personal business level, you'll begin to see drastic variety in quality and this becomes a wider issue. It seems simple why it would occur to - higher profit margins. Businesses could use cheaper substrate, or they hire technical staff who aren't properly trained (or even just do it themselves and make a mess of it) to use a 3D printer. On top of this, I can't imagine there being a sole specified printer that is required to be used, so what happens when someone buys a shoddy printer that can't replicate the detail of the schematic as well as others? In my eye, it could end up negatively affecting the brand even more so and causing a lot of disconnect, especially with how it could just create a crazy market.

The other issue I see is depersonalising the experience. Miniature painting is a hobby and you go to a Warhammer/Games Workshop store and expect a hobby store. It means on top of just having the product to sell, they host events, help new players out, give painting lessons and try to build a local community. With shops being able to set up quick and easy like you say, I could see it becoming a game of make a quick buck instead, which might be alright for some but has the potential to push a lot of people out. It could also see staff who just don't give a damn about the game as well.

As it was so aptly put before -

takes the fun out of it.

The money advantages though and wide availability would be amazing! I can imagine it would take quite a bit of time to create the entire range in schematics, but it'd also mean we'd definitely see new miniatures for neglected models and more new miniatures regularly. Plastic Sisters, updated Chaos Berzerkers, plastic Ork Deffkopta?! I can definitely see it being a lot better for store start up as well - the amount of drain that retail has at the moment for GW could be drastically reduced, which I could see helping with store ethics (I've heard a lot about store managers ending up sacked because of not meeting targets, so hopefully it'd help them there!)

My next question would be, how do you reliably collect royalties?

 

[Paint]

I don't have any pictures of my progress on my Space Vikings rn- But I've been considering 'redoing' some of them. I've been thinking about making a bit of lore for my own Chapter/Clan of Wolves, I'm thinking of taking inspiration from the old Eldsvart stuff I use to do here, change the chapter colors over. Thought it might be a fun way to make it my own.

 

[Sailing_Elf]

Here's some Warhammer stuff my fiance painted. I just put them together :3

Spoiler: Big Ol' Images

 

[Paint]

Here's some Warhammer stuff my fiance painted. I just put them together :3

Spoiler: Big Ol' Images

Fuck yeah.

A+

 

[Seth_Jenkins]

Let's b-b-b-bump this thread with some MOAR ORKY GOODNESS, YA GITZ. I've just finished painting up this next lot of ten boyz and still need to base them, but hey, who could resist a little post ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Spoiler: HERE'Z ALL DA BOYZ TERGETHER, GETTIN' REDY TER KRUMP SUM SCUM

Spoiler: 'EREZ A CLOSEUP OF A GIT

These're very messy as well - I didn't have too much free time recently so they were just krumped together. Finally got to finish them up today though!

 

[Paint]

Working away on my Azetc Fire Lizards!

Spoiler

Planning on basing them on a mix of a lava/magma flow mixed with ashen stone, small tuffs of grass, and I'm making my own aztec symbol clay pieces to base them- Once I get my supplies in for that.