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I was doing some scouting around today, and I spotted several models designed for use with the X-Wing game but not made by FFG.

First up was a Stormtrooper DX9 Troop Transport and a Senate Starship on Shapeways:-



http://www.shapeways.com/shops/toposolitario

Second was a chap on ebay doing his own versions of TIE Phantoms/Defenders/Avengers & Droids, alongside a Missile Boat and a Z-95 Headhunter.


http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Star-Wars-Custom-Models-X-Wing-Miniatures-compatible-with-Ship-Card-/181202395728?pt=UK_Toys_Wargames_RL&var=&hash=item2a30812250

Another chap on shapeways selling Turbolaser Turrets, Skipray Blastboats, more TIE's (droids?), correllian corvettes and more:-



http://www.shapeways.com/designer/Gosric


To be frank, I'm surprised Disney legal haven't stomped on these guys yet.

Ah, that first picture brings back happy memories...

Be warned, it's super grainy shape ways stuff, be aware before you buy!

 MajorTom11 wrote:
Be warned, it's super grainy shape ways stuff, be aware before you buy!

What?

Shapeways is 3D printing, and as such the material isn't super smooth, it's grainy. Kind of like a freshly filed area on a model before you blow away the dust that sort of grainy.

The GAT-12j....my dream ship to field in this game!

Anyone know where I can get an appropriately sized Winnebago? Wings on the model are option as I can likely add those myself....

Not just grainy, but also brittle as all hell. Especially that frosty stuff.

 ironicsilence wrote:
Anyone know where I can get an appropriately sized Winnebago? Wings on the model are option as I can likely add those myself....

Micromachines?

Hrm...If I still had a working copy of Solidworks, I could've totally CAD'd one up.

I have the senatorial shuttle (3 actually) but have not gotten around to painting them.

 Jin wrote:

 ironicsilence wrote:
Anyone know where I can get an appropriately sized Winnebago? Wings on the model are option as I can likely add those myself....

Micromachines?

Hrm...If I still had a working copy of Solidworks, I could've totally CAD'd one up.

I might have found a guy that has 1/72 scale resin kits of Spaceballs Eagle 5. I've emailed him to see if he still has them. If I can get my hands on one I'm planning to use it as a counts as Falcon. Would likely create a custom card for Pilot Lone Star with an ability called "Jammed" making him immune to target lock

 BrookM wrote:
Not just grainy, but also brittle as all hell. Especially that frosty stuff.

It's actually a choice between the two- the cheap, grainy material is actually not brittle at All, but won't give you the detail you want on models like this.

The detail "frosted" material is smoother, but probably very brittle. I haven't tried it, but the white detail material was absurdly brittle compared to the cheapest "white strong and flexible".

I happen to have a 3D printer arriving Today, though, so at some point I may try my hand at printing a custom ship . I prefer unique designs that are not copyrighted, hence my signing up for the Xia board game KS, which is going to release at least 3 free-to-print 3D ship files to backers.

 Manchu wrote:
I have the senatorial shuttle (3 actually) but have not gotten around to painting them.

What material did you get it in? I've gotten some minis from shapeways in Frosted Ultra Detail and had mediocre results. If you got FUD or FD, can you post some pics?

Hello. came across this thread while researching something and had to chime in. Even though, i suppose, the thread has been a bit inactive
The fragility of material can be offset by the designer and most of the designers who use Shapeways (yes, im one of them *L*) are happy to work with people to make sure that what we make available is both sturdy and detailed.
There are tricks, like adding thin support ribs to spindly guns etc, that can counteract the breakability of the detail materials and ways (in some cases, though i still dont suggest it as a material option) to reduce the fuzzy texture of the WSF material.
As a way to get the obscure ships one wants until FFG gets around to releasing them Shapeways can be a viable option. Though of course i do not condone unofficlal minis over official ones.

Just as an example of the level of detail that can be made. Here is a Starwing . Any mini, whether metal, plastic or 3d printed, benefits from a good paint job of course. And while i didnt do the lovely paint job myself (the artist gave me permission to post it) I did make the 3d model that it comes from and will admit to being pretty pleased with it.

Ahh Shapeways. If only it were around 8 years ago, then all those talented starship modellers would be making Star Wars Starship Battles ships instead. I really want a Doomtreader :(

Was that 'want' or wanted'? It would be an easy enough ship to make

..Yeah, I still want one, and reckon it would make a pretty sweet ship for use in X-Wing too.

That's the problem with WotC's stuff.. the selection was so random and they canned the line before they filled out any one time period. No V-19s, no Attack Shuttles, no Gunships.. running a Clone Wars era campaign was tough!

I could put one together easily enough if you like. Starship battles was what got me into the 3d modelling thing in the first place so it would be like a trip down memory lane

yeah,

 warboss wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
I have the senatorial shuttle (3 actually) but have not gotten around to painting them.

What material did you get it in? I've gotten some minis from shapeways in Frosted Ultra Detail and had mediocre results. If you got FUD or FD, can you post some pics?

I posted this on facebook. not sure if I posted here...

Frosted ultra detail


My plan is;
*minor smoothing ( the frosted version is pretty good as is! )
* sculpt armour panels to match the art work.
* to complete the model! sculpt an underside.
* give it more details.
* adjust the engine pod area

Once done I think I'll cast up a few.
I think It'll be fun to have multiple shuttles for custom missions / decoys etc...

Panic...

 Gosric wrote:
I could put one together easily enough if you like. Starship battles was what got me into the 3d modelling thing in the first place so it would be like a trip down memory lane

After seeing how many ships you have created already on Shapeways I would say.. that sounds like a plan! I'd suggest making one scaled for X-Wing since that will probably sell better (although at 50 meters long, it would be ~50% longer than the Falcon and considerably wider ) and then shrinking it down to SSB size. Apart from the stubby laser cannon on the front I don't think there's much that would become too fragile once reduced in scale to fit with the other medium-based ships. PM me if there is anything I need to do to make this happen!

it might be overly expensive in X Wing scale. The material cost from shapeways is the bulk of any price and that ship in that size, to say the least, would use a lot of material *L* (though it never really looked that long to me,50mtrs width maybe but not that long)
Once something gets above 5 or 6 inches the price seems to increase exponentially so the less material used the better The best bet is to make the smaller model first as it is easier to increase the size and then reduce the wall thickness of a model when you hollow it out to save material. If you make the larger one first then upon shrinking it parts or wall thicknesses can get too thin and render the model unprintable.
I'm working on a 1/270 gunship of my own design right now but once it is complete ill give this one a go.
If i remember the scale of SSB was a bit weird and fluctuated between classes so any suggestions on length and width of the ship in that scale?

That's right, all the craft were lumped in to three categories and scaled to be of a similar size to all other ships in that category.

So the fighters were all around 30mm long and mounted on small 25mm bases. The "medium" sized ships which included everything from Wild Karrde (125m) to the Sith Infiltrator / Scimitar (26.5m) were generally between 50 and 65mm long and mounted on 50mm bases. The "large" sized ships were what you would consider capital ships e.g. Star Destroyers and were generally 100mm - 120mm long.

I suspect this decision was made to ensure that each ship didn't significantly protrude from the footprint of the base and thus, extend into the next "square" since SSB used a grid as I recall.

So the Doomtreader would go in the medium sized category and since it supposedly has a wingspan of 70m, a length of 50m and a height of 18m, I guess you could scale that down to 70mm x 50mm x 18mm or thereabouts

That should work nicely. i shall get onto it as soon as im done with what im doing now which shouldnt take more than a day or two

I literally can't wait. When I start up my second 'season' for my Star Wars RPG campaign my players will be pretty chuffed if their Doomtreader no longer looks suspiciously like the Imperial Shuttle!

Camouflage technology is amazing isnt it? *L* Making a Doomtreader look like a shuttle. what will they think of next.
3d printing made our rpgs a lot more fun since we were no longer limited to official ships. It gave us a special feeling to attack TIEs in a ship that noone else had

 Gosric wrote:
Camouflage technology is amazing isnt it? *L* Making a Doomtreader look like a shuttle. what will they think of next.
3d printing made our rpgs a lot more fun since we were no longer limited to official ships. It gave us a special feeling to attack TIEs in a ship that noone else had

Heyyy.. I see your Gunboat is up. That thing looks mean! I especially like the weapon mounts on either side of the bridge. They put me in mind of the KOTOR-era Hammerhead and they give it a really unusual (in a good way) profile view.

Thank you. I always like to hear objective opinions. especially good ones *L* though bad ones serve a purpose as well of course. Should be starting on the Doomtreader in the next day or so

Fascinating. Those ships that ebay user was selling are MY ships. Including the stands, the cards and tokens :S

Anyway, like Gosric, you can find more of my ships if you google my nickname. There are many more, much more detailed than the ones that ebay user had and with free printable stats and tokens.

yeah,
It's a bit hard to complain when your designs are based on someone elses IP!

If they are casts of your shapways prints you've still made money.
If they are shapeway prints you're still making money! he's just reselling

I might make resin copies of the shuttle when I complete it and sell them.

Panic...

I guess it's one of those things that falls into a grey area.. a lot like fan art which gets sold at conventions where it's an argument between derivative work and fair use. FFG have been pretty good about these things - at least when it comes to ships they haven't made themselves - but even if there is no legal protection in this case.. actively reselling* is still pretty rude I guess. A bit like buying someone's homebrew D&D adventure from DriveThruRPG and then selling on copies of the PDF.

Then again.. I don't suppose Shapeways itself has a policy on the ownership of printed files, only that the designer retains the copyright (if indeed they could claim it in the first place).

* as opposed to buying something, deciding you don't want it it / need it anymore, and selling it second hand.