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Posted this in here because I'm particularly curious about how people are using their printers.

There's a constant barrage at the moment of Kickstarter campaigns for STLs, with projects for actual, physical models seeming to be an endangered species. And for the people who are interested in such, that's great. Thing is, while I have aPhoton downstairs for work, I use it for prototyping. I have absolutely zero interest in trying to print an entire army on the thing... Just seems like way too much work. So I see all of these STL Kickstarters and find it really frustrating, because I'm seeing a lot of models that I would be all over if they were resin, or metal, or plastic... But just have no use for as an STL.

Am I just being a grognard?

Financially, STL files are more cost effective and profitable for a miniature company, especially a small scale operation.

With physical models, you have the overhead of Kickstarter's fees, creating the physical sculpts, creating molds, casting the models, spoilage from miscasts, shipping, etc.

With the STL files, you create the renders, collect enough money to pay yourself with a handful pledges, then every other pledge after that is pure profit (minus Kickstarter fees again). You don't have to worry about the hassle of shipping; just an email to each backer with the appropriate link to their rewards. You're not at the mercy of something like COVID shutting down some aspect of your manufacturing, or the vagaries of politics.

It's just more sound economically.

That being said, you as the consumer are at the mercy of the STL developers to get the models you want. Damned if I've been able to find any decent Anglo-Saxon infantry 3D files, and have gone with Gripping Beast and Wargame Factory plastics for my group's current Ravenfeast campaign.

STLs are only more sound economically if they actually sell. What they are though, and the reason there's so many of them, is that they're lower risk. Obviously just sculpting models and selling the sculpt files is considerably less work and expense than going through all the hassle of actually moulding, casting and shipping them, particularly if you're a sculptor with no experience in all that other stuff, trying to go into business for yourself, but that's a bit like saying that selling sewing patterns is more economically sound than selling clothing, or selling a typewriter is more economically sound than writing a book. People have to want to do it themselves for those business models to work.

Clearly there's an interest in 3D printing at the moment, and I suspect that will get bigger as time goes on and printers get better and easier to use. But getting market share is hard enough for a new miniatures company, and I wonder if by going the 'easy' road and focusing on STLs exclusively and thereby excluding the majority of their potential customer base, these starter sculptors are shooting themselves in the foot in the long run.

Yeah, STLs are a lot easier to do with a small team. Selling physical products take a whole supply chain and doesn't scale as easily.

Maybe check etsy? A lot of 3D designers have deals where they have people sell prints.

I'm amazed at how fast I went from being irritated by STL kickstarters not being clearly marked as such, so normal people without 3d printers could avoid clicking them, to being irritated by physical model kickstarters not being clearly marked as such, so normal people with 3d printers could avoid clicking them.

That being said I also have no interest in printing mass battle armies unless it's something OOP like Epic. Gimme HIPS any day. But kickstarting some boutique resin casts for 15 bucks a mini plus shipping and customs? AHAHAHAHAHAohwaityou'reseriousletmelaughevenharder

It definitely brings a whole other aspect to the hobby. Those of us that like to print, are adept at it and really want what the company offers will spring for the stls. I find it easier to have a big file library of stl files for models I might print someday than a box full of plastic kits that I might assemble one day (and as you might guess, I have loads of both!)

I am a hard and fast old Bretonnia fan, so the KS Kingdom of Mercia sculpts were just too good to pass up. Will I print an entirely new army or just use select sculpts to print and bolster my existing? Hard to say...

Will I back any further KS projects that are NOT stls? Even harder to say...

 Carlson793 wrote:
Financially, STL files are more cost effective and profitable for a miniature company, especially a small scale operation.

With physical models, you have the overhead of Kickstarter's fees, creating the physical sculpts, creating molds, casting the models, spoilage from miscasts, shipping, etc.

With the STL files, you create the renders, collect enough money to pay yourself with a handful pledges, then every other pledge after that is pure profit (minus Kickstarter fees again). You don't have to worry about the hassle of shipping; just an email to each backer with the appropriate link to their rewards. You're not at the mercy of something like COVID shutting down some aspect of your manufacturing, or the vagaries of politics.

It's just more sound economically.

That being said, you as the consumer are at the mercy of the STL developers to get the models you want. Damned if I've been able to find any decent Anglo-Saxon infantry 3D files, and have gone with Gripping Beast and Wargame Factory plastics for my group's current Ravenfeast campaign.

It's really not. The labor cost and time of making models far outweigh the return on STL file dumps, which can easily be ripped off and resold on multiple platforms. Physical models are far more lucrative in small batches than the much smaller pool of people with 3D printers Providing the popularity of the product is on a level playing field. .

You have a wider audience of people who don't have printers that just want to buy miniatures. . There are a few people who pull off STL dumps through Patreon but they're working for peanuts per hour worked. It's potentially possible they could make the ends meet through the number of sales. If and only if you're popular enough to make it work that way.

The Majority of board games, meeples, and war games with similar success always far outsell STL files. STL dumps are a niche within a niche. It's not only completely destroying the industry as a race to the bottom it's unsustainable as people have to give more and more and more to an increasingly narrowing market.

People will stop buying miniatures STLS when they have more than they can print, store or paint. Very few people get the same quality of print you can get from a plastic miniature or factory-produced resin model/cast medal.

Unless you're working your ass off selling sub-par miniatures that are just generic rip-offs that can land you in hot legal water. It's unlikely you're making money. And if you manage to get a few people interested how long until they lose interest in your Patreon/ whatever STL dump your selling and move onto the next guy offering 100 miniatures for 10$.. Then you're now on the hook to create 105 brand new miniatures to compete.

I can sell a single commission piece for anywhere from 300$ - 2000$ for custom work. There is no possible way I can get 300$ from an STL dump unless it's risking my neck legally to copy something that's very similar to GW. I'm sure it works in some countries where laws are much looser. But here in the western world someone just has to make a copyright claim that could end you financially. Larger companies will see the temp boost in popularity and move to crush it if it threatens their bottom line just wait for Disney to buy out 40k for example.

Furthermore, I can sell a physical model for 20 to 200 $ And I'm not on the hook to create hundreds if not thousands of miniatures for that 20$ and I may even sit on that miniature for 20 plus years but eventually, it will sell out entirely. And the cost of miniature production has fallen through the floor.

It's a complete waste of time talent and money and it's killing the industry in the short term. In addition to that, you can get miniatures entirely free of charge because someone is selling someone's STL file online, in Russian websites(allegedly) torrent like websites or other sources like it . etc. And the more people explore 3D printers also tend to be 3D modelers themselves which further decreases the number of people willing to buy STL files.

I personally feel it's nothing more than a fad, and nothing more than short-term cash grab that very few people succeed at. Many of which are probably barely just going unnoticed by the copyright holders they're ripping off copying or plagiarising.

I've only heard of a limited amount of successful sellers and they often work in teams. As a solo 3D modeler you have better financial success rigging v-tubers making furry characters or some other pop culture nonsense than you would be selling STL files for less than half the workload.

As a solo artist, I can't imagine soullessly grinding out 100 miniatures a month that you rush to compete with a team of people with nearly triple the popularity who started 10 years before me selling STL files online.
That does not make it lucrative.

Physical merchandise is the way to go. George Lucas built his empire on physical merchandise, games workshop built their empire on physical merchandise. Even Nintendo built their brand on physical merchandise through their console. You can't have something sustainable that people want to pay less and less for the same value.

Bayonet&Ricochet wrote:

You have a wider audience of people who don't have printers that just want to buy miniatures. . There are a few people who pull off STL dumps through Patreon but they're working for peanuts per hour worked. It's potentially possible they could make the ends meet through the number of sales. If and only if you're popular enough to make it work that way.

Unless I've grossly misunderstood the platform, the Patreon model isn't relying on sales, though. It works through getting subscribers to pay you a monthly access fee for whatever content you manage to put out and share with them. The more subscribers you get, the more you get paid... and since subscribers are essentially paying for 'first access' to your output, it doesn't really matter that much if the models later wind up shared elsewhere. It might discourage some from subscribing if they know the models will be available for free, but given that Patreon seems to be working fine for some artists, those numbers obviously aren't critical.

And the cost of miniature production has fallen through the floor.

That's not been my experience. We've moved away from resin production precisely because it was just getting too expensive.

Plastic tooling is somewhat cheaper than it once was thanks to technology advances, but is still a significant investment.

Outside of knowing the company or person running the KS campaign and wanting to see them succeed, I rarely backed KS for models. Partly because the stuff offered didn't appeal to me, but more because I knew the pipeline of production often takes longer than projected and I'd like to just be able to buy them when available from a store than get strung along for a year ( or more) waiting on a release. Or in some cases eyeballing some of the WIP digital files could tell what would and wouldn't make it into production from my own experience in model design. Not going to pay for overpromises. I'm more likely to back physical rule and artbooks than models, still kicking myself for not getting in on the LancerRPG book.
While having the STLs puts the onus of quality in production more on the backers, there's more immediate pay off: the return on models depends on how soon the files are released and how soon the printer gets fired up. And if there are issues, it's usually a missed email, broken download link, or meshes that can be fixed quicker than...waiting months for the factory on the other side of the planet to inform the KS project manager why their models can't be made, delaying everything and costing thousands of extra dollars.

I think a sweet balance we're probably starting to see would be having more reputable printer farm and/or casting companies that get licenses to be the local store front producers of the KS models, giving people an option to either buy stl and/or wait for physical licensed castings. So someone from Australia can get physical models from their local licensed seller than pay the ridiculous S&H import fees.

*thanks, sorry I was coming back to edit that out.