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I am a 3D modeller (mostly CAD, but some organics/Zbrush experience) who works in the industry. I am exploring the possibility of modelling for hire- you'd contact me with your idea (custom bits, models, etc.) and I would create the 3D Model. Once you were happy with the model, You'd pay me, and I'd send you the files, cleaned up and ready to print.

It seems the good part of the idea is " I want X bit with my custom insignia on it, or Y weapon option that doesn't yet exist, or Z cool idea for a model that no one else has done yet." The bad part is "So, I have to pay for the modelling, THEN pay to have it printed." What I'd like to know is, would the additional step of getting the item printed be too off-putting to pursue such a service, or does the idea of getting your own custom parts designed to your specs sound good enough to deal with the extra step?

Opinions? (I hear the internet is full of 'em!)

I reckon you could definitely pick up a bit of work given the growing popularity of 3D Printing and the lack of 3D skills of the majority of wargamers.

I think the hardest thing would be figuring out pricing. I realize that if I wanted to charge anywhere near what I normally get per hour, nobody would be interested. I get that, and I know I wouldn't be making anywhere near that kind of cash if I did this. But secondary lines of income are always good.

Another alternative would be to offer a discounted price if I were able to retain reproduction rights for the model. Then I could upload it to Shapeways (once a certain amount of time has passed after delivering the model to the client) and sell through their store. The only issue there is whether or not the model is something other people would want.

Lord Derp wrote:
I think the hardest thing would be figuring out pricing. I realize that if I wanted to charge anywhere near what I normally get per hour, nobody would be interested. I get that, and I know I wouldn't be making anywhere near that kind of cash if I did this. But secondary lines of income are always good.

Another alternative would be to offer a discounted price if I were able to retain reproduction rights for the model. Then I could upload it to Shapeways (once a certain amount of time has passed after delivering the model to the client) and sell through their store. The only issue there is whether or not the model is something other people would want.

Rates would be the issue. The market is expanding. You can get a decent 3D sculpt for $250 these days. Of course, you can also pay up to $1K-$2K. Much like traditional sculpting, it depends.

By 'works in the industry' do you mean the TTG industry?

weeble1000 wrote:
Rates would be the issue. The market is expanding. You can get a decent 3D sculpt for $250 these days. Of course, you can also pay up to $1K-$2K. Much like traditional sculpting, it depends.

Well, I'd probably be more focused on custom bits for existing models, rather than full sculpts, so prices would be in the $15-$50 range, depending on the complexity of the part. I'd also likely do some "blank" parts for common customizations, like shoulder pads. So if you wanted a shoulder pad with your custom chapter logo, it'd only be a matter of applying the logo to a pre-made base, and so the customer wouldn't be charged for the base pad.

By 'works in the industry' do you mean the TTG industry?

Yes. I mention it only to emphasize that my experience in modelling is specifically geared towards miniatures. That is, I don't spend my days designing cell phone cases, with no real-world knowledge of what it takes to make produceable miniatures with good, clear details that stand out on the table top and don't get muddy and unrecognizable when printed. (Probably should have been clearer about which industry. My bad.)


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Also, to be clear, I'm talking private commissions only, not freelancing for other companies. That would not go over well with my employer.

Pricing is usually done by millimeter of height, or longest dimension, along with complexity and quality.

I do both the digital miniature sculpting for my game, and contracting out to others for pieces I can't do.

I'd suggest that you actually learn techniques for 3D video game modeling and texturing, going cross medium is usually more acceptable to employers when looking for freelance.

 Vertrucio wrote:
Pricing is usually done by millimeter of height, or longest dimension, along with complexity and quality.

I do both the digital miniature sculpting for my game, and contracting out to others for pieces I can't do.

I'd suggest that you actually learn techniques for 3D video game modeling and texturing, going cross medium is usually more acceptable to employers when looking for freelance.

I disagree. I have to find and hire sculptors, and video game sculptors by and large make the worst miniature sculptors. I would say that 90% of the video game sculptors I've hired, ended up getting paid a kill fee and having their sculpts reassigned. They've turned in some beautiful work, but it's usually unmanufacturable. To be fair, a few have been able to be helped along and have become decent minis sculptors, but they are the exception and not the rule.

The best advice I can give is learn how to cast resin, actually do it; cast about 100 units of a model, sell them and then move to a more complex model with difficult geometry, undercuts, overhangs and places air bubbles get caught.

Just reading about it will not give you an understanding of what is involved and casting just a few will not teach you about what makes for a good master. Once you have a foundation in casting you will understand what can and cannot be done.

I cannot tell you how many times I have been asked for advice on how to fix a model created by an artist that had no idea what it takes to actually produce the kit.

If you already have that under your belt then you can find work fairly easily

What you charge is up to you, I have had quotes form 500-2000 for a master, which is why I stick to doing my own.

Edit: I see you are mostly interested in custom bits, this may be a tough niche, as you are talking about mostly working for a single customer at a time with very limited ability for a return if they 'are' selling the items. Most likely they are wanting bits to customize their collection. It would be hard to find a person willing to outlay a fair price for a personal custom item they are not reselling, you may find this market to be unable to pay what you need?

I meant for you to go and learn it.

If doing freelance for other miniature companies is a not allowed for some reason, you can probably make more money jumping medium to freelance in other media. Such as going bits and bobs for game engine asset stores. Doing bits and bobs for commission under the table is still likely to land you in trouble eventually if your employer is really that strict.

As for your comments on digital sculptors. There are good artists, and bad artists. A lot of problems you'll encounter are from trying to hire bad artists cheaply and expecting the same breadth and flexibility as good artists that cost more.

I think most of the business that you will get will not be bits- but that is from a more amueturish perspective. If I may ask, what program do you use primarily?

First post. He uses autocad and Zbrush.

Two very common software.

Autocad is software that's geared toward modeling real world objects, with real world measurements and dimensions.

Zbrush is the big name in digital sculpting, incredibly powerful, but also incredibly obtuse in its UI design. Even I struggle with it on a daily basis. But, chalk that up to it being a pioneer in the kind of software it is, and being designed with a lot of unknowns.

 NoseGoblin wrote:
The best advice I can give is learn how to cast resin, actually do it; cast about 100 units of a model, sell them and then move to a more complex model with difficult geometry, undercuts, overhangs and places air bubbles get caught.

Just reading about it will not give you an understanding of what is involved and casting just a few will not teach you about what makes for a good master. Once you have a foundation in casting you will understand what can and cannot be done.

I cannot tell you how many times I have been asked for advice on how to fix a model created by an artist that had no idea what it takes to actually produce the kit.

If you already have that under your belt then you can find work fairly easily

What you charge is up to you, I have had quotes form 500-2000 for a master, which is why I stick to doing my own.

Edit: I see you are mostly interested in custom bits, this may be a tough niche, as you are talking about mostly working for a single customer at a time with very limited ability for a return if they 'are' selling the items. Most likely they are wanting bits to customize their collection. It would be hard to find a person willing to outlay a fair price for a personal custom item they are not reselling, you may find this market to be unable to pay what you need?

I have a vacuum rig and pressure system for resin casting. I will likely do limited runs of bits I think might have general interest, or of bits I made for my own armies in order to get my hobby to pay for itself. But I don't want to start a full time modelmaking business. I am quite happy with and decently compensated by my day job- I am just looking to supplement my income a bit with the skills I have. Anybody can send a digital file to a printer and get 3D prints; not everybody can make that digital file, which is the niche I'm hoping to fill. If I can make $100-$150 a month in my spare time, that's worth it to me.

My main reason for staying with bits is to keep things affordable to the average modeller who is okay spending a little more than he or she might otherwise spend on an army to get custom, unique stuff. I certainly have no problem with doing full models, but as you've noted, Average Joe 40K Player probably doesn't want to spend $800 for digital model of a custom dreadnaught. But Average Joe 40K Player probably has no problems spending $20-$30 for a 3D model of a Space Marine shoulder pad with his homebrew chapter insignia on it or a unique Farseer head for his general. Certainly, if a customer wants to spend the cash for a full custom dreadnaught, I'm going to take the job and have fun with it, but my suspicion is that would be the exception.


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 Vertrucio wrote:


As for your comments on digital sculptors. There are good artists, and bad artists. A lot of problems you'll encounter are from trying to hire bad artists cheaply and expecting the same breadth and flexibility as good artists that cost more.

These were all very talented professional sculptors, getting around $400-$500 for a 32mm sculpt. They just have a hard time understanding what will and what won't translate from what's magnified 100x on their monitors into something that's only 32mm high, and mostly viewed from thee feet away, when their training and experience is geared towards highly detailed and textured video game assets. With some of the more promising artists, I sent out their files to be printed, so I could show them how they would look. Facial features that look great on a monitor look almost featureless at size. Some of them would understand then; most wouldn't. I'd get sculpts with free hanging details that when manufactured would be no thicker than a human hair. I'd ask them to bulk it up, and they'd make it as thick as two hairs. Yes, I know it looks wrong on the screen when it appears that the wizard's staff is about four inches thick, but it has to be that big if we're going to make it. Things need to be way over-emphasized and caricaturish to work as a miniature. One guy kept submitting a sculpt with geometry that had no thickness. A piece of tattered cloth was literally a planar surface bent and folded into shape. We asked him to thicken it, and he would make it larger, but still not add actual mass to the object. He didn't want to "waste polys" on an such a small object. He could not understand that it is impossible to manufacture an item in real, Euclidian space that has no mathematical thickness.

To be fair, that's not all of them, and I'm not belittling their talent in any way. There are a few I still use who eventually got it sorted out and produce wonderful work. But as a general rule, I look for sculptors who have experience in manufacturing as well.


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 Vertrucio wrote:
I meant for you to go and learn it.

If doing freelance for other miniature companies is a not allowed for some reason, you can probably make more money jumping medium to freelance in other media. Such as going bits and bobs for game engine asset stores. Doing bits and bobs for commission under the table is still likely to land you in trouble eventually if your employer is really that strict.

Maybe. But my passion is miniatures, and I would like to stick with what I love and enjoy (especially if it's in my spare time) even if it brings in less revenue.

OP: Gotcha. I get what you are trying to do now.

Your idea sounds pretty good. I expect that it can be challenging to find a sculptor willing to sculpt a small piece for a relatively modest fee, as that generally won't put food on the table. You'd need lots of clients to make a real go of that as a standalone business.

It might be worthwhile talking with bits manufacturers and seeing if any of them will be willing to discuss their business with you. Getting a sense for the ways in which gamers purchase custom bits could help you figure out how to fit inside the particular niche you are looking to fill. Heck, maybe companies that don't want to do once off custom sculpts for a customer can refer them to you.

So which services in particular are you looking to offer? Just the 3D sculpting, or will you be able to send the file to a print service and/or do the casting?

The more help you can give your customers, even if it is just a referral to a company that you've vetted and worked with, would help. Putting myself in the mind of a gamer who wants a custom bit for my special army, it would be a lot of legwork to track down a sculptor, track down a printing service that will do the job well, track down a casting service, price all of that out, send all of those emails and crap.

If you could make that process simple and easy, I think that would provide a lot of value, even if you only did the 3D sculpting yourself.

There's all sorts of different services popping up as 3D printing becomes more democratized. Some people, like Prodos Games, are offering 3D design and printing services. Some are just offering printing services. Some offer casting services. Some do printing and casting. Some do sculpting and casting.

But even with all of these services around, going from concept to production run is not exactly a simple prospect. And we're sort of in the wild west here. There's lots of ways to get burned. You can get a bad sculpt, a bad print, a bad mold, and a bad cast. If you are only offering 3D sculpting services, you're going to be another guy with CAD software that someone with an idea can look into hiring.

If you can take clients that know nothing other than that they want a bit they can't find anyone selling and guide them through the process end to end, I think that would have a lot of value.

 Vertrucio wrote:
First post. He uses autocad and Zbrush.

Two very common software.

Autocad is software that's geared toward modeling real world objects, with real world measurements and dimensions.

Zbrush is the big name in digital sculpting, incredibly powerful, but also incredibly obtuse in its UI design. Even I struggle with it on a daily basis. But, chalk that up to it being a pioneer in the kind of software it is, and being designed with a lot of unknowns.

Oops, I thought CAD was more general than the program Autocad. What are the advantages of autocad over 3d max for 3d printing?

weeble1000 wrote:
OP: Gotcha. I get what you are trying to do now.

Your idea sounds pretty good. I expect that it can be challenging to find a sculptor willing to sculpt a small piece for a relatively modest fee, as that generally won't put food on the table. You'd need lots of clients to make a real go of that as a standalone business.

It might be worthwhile talking with bits manufacturers and seeing if any of them will be willing to discuss their business with you. Getting a sense for the ways in which gamers purchase custom bits could help you figure out how to fit inside the particular niche you are looking to fill. Heck, maybe companies that don't want to do once off custom sculpts for a customer can refer them to you.

So which services in particular are you looking to offer? Just the 3D sculpting, or will you be able to send the file to a print service and/or do the casting?

The more help you can give your customers, even if it is just a referral to a company that you've vetted and worked with, would help. Putting myself in the mind of a gamer who wants a custom bit for my special army, it would be a lot of legwork to track down a sculptor, track down a printing service that will do the job well, track down a casting service, price all of that out, send all of those emails and crap.

If you could make that process simple and easy, I think that would provide a lot of value, even if you only did the 3D sculpting yourself.

There's all sorts of different services popping up as 3D printing becomes more democratized. Some people, like Prodos Games, are offering 3D design and printing services. Some are just offering printing services. Some offer casting services. Some do printing and casting. Some do sculpting and casting.

But even with all of these services around, going from concept to production run is not exactly a simple prospect. And we're sort of in the wild west here. There's lots of ways to get burned. You can get a bad sculpt, a bad print, a bad mold, and a bad cast. If you are only offering 3D sculpting services, you're going to be another guy with CAD software that someone with an idea can look into hiring.

If you can take clients that know nothing other than that they want a bit they can't find anyone selling and guide them through the process end to end, I think that would have a lot of value.

Ideally, I'd just offer the 3D modeling. But the more I ask around, the more it seems people would at least like the printing taken care of as well. It's possible that I could pass the files on to the customer as well as send them off for printing, and have the parts shipped directly to the customer. The problem with that is if the customer isn't satisfied with the printing, they need to go to me to get it rectified, as I would be the one placing the order with the printing company. Which I would be fine with, if I were intending this to be a full time startup business. But since that's not my goal, it's a hassle I'd rather avoid if I can.


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FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:

 Vertrucio wrote:
First post. He uses autocad and Zbrush.

Two very common software.

Autocad is software that's geared toward modeling real world objects, with real world measurements and dimensions.

Zbrush is the big name in digital sculpting, incredibly powerful, but also incredibly obtuse in its UI design. Even I struggle with it on a daily basis. But, chalk that up to it being a pioneer in the kind of software it is, and being designed with a lot of unknowns.

Oops, I thought CAD was more general than the program Autocad. What are the advantages of autocad over 3d max for 3d printing?

No, I use SolidWorks, not AutoCAD. I'm not familliar with 3d max, but I would guess it's a mesh-based modeller. CAD programs are typically NURBS/Parasolid based. Best way to think of the difference (if you're familiar with graphics terminology) is that meshes are like raster art(jpegs) while parasolids are more like vector art (Illustrator.) When you scale up a mesh, you just enlarge the triangles or quads- there's a point where a sphere would become faceted, as the triangles/quads that make up the surface become large enough to see. When you scale up a parasolid, you're scaling up the math that drives the object creation, so a sphere scaled up is still mathematically a perfect sphere, regardless how large you go. CAD is more suited to inorganic objects, like guns, vehicles, equipment, etc. You can do "organic machinery" (think Eldar) very easily, but if you wanted to make a cloak, you'd probably be better off with a mesh based modeller like Zbrush, which allows you to push and pull the mesh like digital clay.

I believe you can do NURBS and meshes in 3d max. NURBS modifiers are implicit geometry, right?

Yea, but you can also simply make referrals.

Here is the file. I recommend using company X for printing. If you use Y service from company X it will cost you such and such amount. So and so at company X is a nice person. This is his email. Tell him I referred you.

Once you get the print you will need to clean it before making your mold. Here are some links to tutorial videos. If you want to hire a service to clean, master, and mold, and cast the piece, I and company X recommend company Z.

So and so from company X can ship the printed piece directly to company Z if you like. The costs involved are usually about such and such amount.

If you can build some relationships and at least make reliable referrals, that alone would add a great deal of value to your services without putting you directly on the hook for any problems with printing and casting.

If you can't provide recommendations, your pool of potential customers is going to be limited to people who have already done a lot of this legwork, and if they've done the legwork already, you are going to be in more direct competition with other 3D sculptors as your services will essentially be a commodity.

If you are looking to make 3D sculpts for what are essentially miniature production amateurs, I think you are going to have to offer some hand holding. The kind of person that will go through all of the effort of locating, evaluating, and learning about the processes of 3D printing and casting probably already knows a handful of sculptors or are hands on enough to have a go at it themselves.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
I believe you can do NURBS and meshes in 3d max. NURBS modifiers are implicit geometry, right?

I'm not sure. My understanding of NURBS is that they are essentially spline-driven four-sided surfaces, which are trimmed into shape. They can be readily converted into meshes, but going the other way is tricky and difficult, and few pieces of software that can do it can do it well.

Parasolids are also parametric- think like a permanent undo history. Each step builds on the previous, and all the steps stay part of the model, and can be rolled back and edited/ altered, or deleted at any time. Additionally, you can go back and delete steps without deleting everything that comes after. Doing so may break parts of the model, however, if you delete things that future steps require. You can even go back and add in things you should have earlier, and have those additions influence steps that come after. As noted by Vertrucio, it's great for real-world items and manufacturing- if I want to change the shape of the cell phone housing I built, I can go back, make the change, and have that change cascade through everything else, auto-updating all the other shapes. But if you want to put some creases into a cloth object, you're going to have a bad time.

Just recommend that they go to moddler for high quality prints or shapeways for so-so quality prints. They should be able to do the rest themselves I think.

EDIT- Or you could just buy the print and have them mail it to the client directly. I know you don't want to do to much work, but if they are technologically impaired I suppose you could just do this and add the cost into your fee.

That (ordering the print and having them ship it to the customer) might be what I end up having to do. And most of the time, it'd probably be fine. My main concern is that in those rare times when a problem does arise, I get stuck in the middle between the customer and the printing service, since the customer dealt with me, and I'm the one that paid for the print. Referring printing services may be the best option.

In a perfect world, I'd have my own printer, and handle the whole thing from concept to print. Maybe someday...

I've got some samples up now.