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Is there any demand for 40k dioramas?
Could someone make any real money by selling medium sized dioramas of various armies and conflicts from the 40k universe?
Do any of you have experience building and selling 40k dioramas?


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... Anyone?

My friend Pinoypower and I made one of a commissar headshotting a trygon and it's brain flying out, but was later scrapped to make a trygon and grot commissar.

With dioramas, it's more important to get dynamic poses than cool gear, if you want buyers. A brass plaque can't hurt, either.

I'm thinking of a couple dioramas to build involving IG, SM, nids and/ or necrons. One of my big ideas is to have a squad of catachans wading through waist-high swamps acompanied by a half-submeged chimera, having the guardsmen looking like US soldiers in Vietnam, some holding their guns above their heads, others sloshing up the edge of the swamp.


something like this

I've often thought, if you wanted to make money, that making chess sets, with suitably nicely done boards as well, would be very cool.

I'm going to start up on this to make some extra cash after my Tau list has enough units to be playable.

I'd buy a 40k chess set, depending on which forces are on each side (guard vs. tyranids FTW) and how it looked, and how much it costs, and if someone else was willing to buy it for me as a gift.

I really like a good diorama, it doesn't always have to be some insane fight scene, subtlety and light touches are always the best... Once and a while though insane over the topness is good.

I would buy if the quality is good. Would also be interested in commissioning things for a new store display.

Would need to be fairly good to do more than break even on the dioramas unfortunately.

I think you'd make more profit building display boards instead of dioramas as the materials are a lot cheaper than the minis.

I'm not sure how I feel about that, I like the idea but I'd probably only do them for commissions

killykavekommando wrote:I'd buy a 40k chess set if someone else was willing to buy it for me as a gift.

Not the most sterling endorsement.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:I've often thought, if you wanted to make money, that making chess sets, with suitably nicely done boards as well, would be very cool.

I knew a guy at my local flgs who would mke chess sets with warhammer pieces, they looked pretty awesome. The last one I saw him work on was lizardmen and WOC. He says they sell pretty well on online.

What if someone were to do a chess set with ambient terrain, stuff that would make the board look like a battlefield without changing the game. certain tiles being higher than others, trees and weeds growing between tiles, etc...

Serious collectors will pay top dollar for decent diorama work. But you need to be right at the top of your game; basic tabletop work won't cut it.

How about a chess set with IG against Eldar?
I would have had IG and Nids but monsterous creatures would be next to impossible for a chess board.
perhaps SM instead of guards?

If you paint/convert miniatures and sell them, you're catering to the wargamer and the collector.

Dioramas only cater to the collector. Considering you're losing out on sales from the people into the actual gaming, it seems like a significant loss because most collectors are into painting themselves.

I don't think there's a market for dioramas aside from the aforementioned Chess Set, but that's more of a game anyways.

If I were to do anything, I would start out with a chess set, I have my sketches and such layed out for this and future projects. I won't be doing these until my Tau are playable, hopefully within a month or two... or three...

Discussion of 40k chess

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/287486.page

To keep things simple, my first board will be more chess than 40k, both sides will be Necrons. One side will be white, the other black, cool detailing, etc...
Opinions?

There's a market for nearly everything, just not necessarily a big and/or lucrative one. Fantasy/sci-fi display models and dioramas lack the historical value that traditional armor/aviation/automotive modelling has, so the market is, I imagine, by its very nature a bit more narrow.

I suggest you consider this venture as I feel one should approach commission painting - a way to occasionally make back some of the money spent on a hobby you enjoy anyway, and fuel further efforts, provided you have sufficient talent. Most folks have trouble "[making] any real money" with something like this, even if the results are phenomenal, simply because the time and effort put into each piece would make them prohibitively expensive if the artist were to make a proper wage.

As a hobby venture, I could see you making a little bit on top of your model/material investment, if you do good work.