Publishing Advice - Shapeways | Minis on Demand

Posted by: Gregor Hutton On: Dec 31st 2010

I've had someone write to me about making some 3:16 minis available via shapeways.com.

It's a nifty site and offers digital printing in 3d (it actually creates the object in layers). I've seen the games designer Nathan Paoletta use this technology at his art school and the minis on the site are pretty cool too.

Check out these two as examples from shapeways:
Elven Healer
Darmian The Wizard

If there's any progress I'll let you know, but I think it could be a useful site for games projects.

Posted by: Paul On: Jan 1st 2011

This seems really cheap for 3D printing, mind you, the technology seems to have really come on since I first looked at it (for no other reason than curiosity).

Posted by: Matt On: Jan 1st 2011

That tech seems to have come on a huge amount since I last saw it. The fact that you can use Google Sketchup to create models for it seems a huge advantage too.

The process doesn't look great for small and detailed, yet. I think a 25mm figure pushes the boundaries a bit judging from the wizard figure, might just be the model though. I'd love to try it with some Pulp stuff all the same. Maybe some scenery would be a good place to start?

It would be ideal for game pieces where the detail is less important. Or for props collectibles. You could do a 3:16 belt buckle or some such quite nicely, I reckon...

Posted by: Matt On: May 8th 2011

So I was browsing Shapeways for some other, non gaming, ideas I had and noticed that they now do a variety of materials. Not just resin, but silver and steel, great if you want to do rings or pendants. They also have a new ultra-high-detail resin, which looks like it'll handle minis much better: high detail info