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Just curious what folks' motivations are for purchasing 3d printed miniatures.
-Please check as many as apply to you.
-Note that this is aimed at those who purchase 3d printed miniatures, not those who primarily print their own.

Other: I need something and there's no option to buy a proper cast resin version of it.

I often buy 3d printed if it’s something that doesn’t fit on my printer, or if it’s just me working alone.
I didn’t hit other as the other category fit better, and this is more a timing thing

I choose Customizing. I have an IG army and Love to add vehicles/ equipment that fit my idea of that force. Often enough those are quite specific and 3D printing offers a nice opportunity. Last additions were a Chimera based Minethrower and Bridgelayer as well as a bunch of Shotlas.

I print now, but before I did I bought some printed Varghulfs for better sculpts and a lot cheaper than what GW is charging for failcast.

I said uniqueness and rarity. I’ll buy terrain bits or upgrade kits that are unique, unavailable in plastic (or resin, even). I also bought some BFG lookalikes because 1. my metal ships are heavy, chipping and losing little bits, and 2. the BFG ships I want are no longer in production, can’t be found, or were never in production. Someday I’ll look into buying prints of other ships from TV shows or movies that have never appeared in plastic or resin.

Interesting responses all around. Thanks!

I'm relatively new to purchasing 3d miniatures as until this year I could generally find miniatures I wanted more affordably via plastic kits and used miniatures. However, in many instances that has changed. I selected value, uniqueness and scale.

My first purchases were very much based on value. Regiments of Chaos Warriors and Sisters of Battle for around $1.30 a figure proved impossible to pass up.

My recent purchases are based on value, uniqueness and scale. Quite a few 28mm not-Star-Wars miniatures have made it into my possession because they are quite affordable (about $1.30 each), often of less common subject matter and printed at the 28mm scale that fits my collection (as opposed to 35mm Legion figures from FFG).

I do find it interesting that as scales creep up, those of us sticking with 28mm, often find that 3d printing is often notably less expensive for us than for those moving into what seem like only slightly larger scales but represent considerably-more-than-linear increases in mass and print time.

I marked off every option. It really just comes down to why I'm buying any particular mini in the 1st place.

Eilif, are you getting those deals on Etsy?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Eilif, are you getting those deals on Etsy?

I found the Warriors and Sisters on Etsy. The SW figures from here
https://wargamerprinting.com/

I've only bought 3D printed twice, I think:

* Some 3D printed plastic filament (?) dungeon terrain on the cheap. Resolution lines (or whatever they were called) were terrible, so would have to sand down the print if I were to use it.

* War of the Teddies, resin 3D prints. Bought them for the not-ewoks, and the mini-diorama of the drunk teddies.

* Also got a sorta promo crab man from SJG, as part of a swag bag KS. Supports weren't removed, so more of a novelty.

 Eilif wrote:
I do find it interesting that as scales creep up, those of us sticking with 28mm, often find that 3d printing is often notably less expensive for us than for those moving into what seem like only slightly larger scales but represent considerably-more-than-linear increases in mass and print time.

Indeed. A 25% increase to 28 equals 35. But a 25% increase to height, width, and depth is multiplicative; it works out to about 55. Obviously speaking in oversimplified terms here, but it is going to make for a much greater resource increase than 25%.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
I do find it interesting that as scales creep up, those of us sticking with 28mm, often find that 3d printing is often notably less expensive for us than for those moving into what seem like only slightly larger scales but represent considerably-more-than-linear increases in mass and print time.

Indeed. A 25% increase to 28 equals 35. But a 25% increase to height, width, and depth is multiplicative; it works out to about 55. Obviously speaking in oversimplified terms here, but it is going to make for a much greater resource increase than 25%.

That jibes with what I've seen price wise. The markup to 35mm from 28mm does seem to be around 50% for the few sellers I've taken note off that sell 28 and 35mm versions of the same model.

I've not bought any 3D printed models, but I have four friends with printers - one has 3! - so they can print stuff for me.

I don't like copies of existing models (ie. I have a 3D printed Leviathan... I'd rather have a real one), but I do like getting prints of things that otherwise wouldn't exist - shoulder pads for various Marine chapters being a good example.

For buying, price and availability - recently bought some 3D prints of models that I couldn't find in scale for Bolt Action/Flames of War, as well as cheaper variants of some existing kits/tanks.

I do have a 3D printer at home, and I got it specifically to print some models that are out of production.

All of the above.

I also got a 3D printer (as a gift), but I find I mainly use it for yelling at, pacing angrily around, cursing the heavens above it, and glaring at while purchasing 3D prints online.

For me it's getting extra bits that otherwise wouldn't exist - chapter specific shoulder pads, or alternate heads are two good examples.

I've bought chapter-specific iconography via Shapeways in the past, as well as some custom iconography that the artist was able to do for me.

For me to buy prints these days, they'd have to be significantly better or cheaper than plastic kits or the resin/metal characters that they represent/replace - or be amazingly unique (and again, cheaper/better in some way), particularly since resin isn't as nice to work with as plastic and doesn't net you a bag of cool bits left over.

Buying STLs is a very different kettle of fish, of course.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I also got a 3D printer (as a gift), but I find I mainly use it for yelling at, pacing angrily around, cursing the heavens above it, and glaring at while purchasing 3D prints online.

Sounds like its working perfectly

Maybe I don't know the ideal sources but I've yet to see 3D printed Minis that are cheaper/ model than plastic minis. They're usually on par with single model resins. It gets cheap once your buddy has the printer, before that it's a sidegrade. If you buy Kromlech Minis or 3d printed Minis isn't a question about saving money, it's more about Design.
So I voted for aesthetic, uniqueness and conversion parts.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Maybe I don't know the ideal sources but I've yet to see 3D printed Minis that are cheaper/ model than plastic minis. They're usually on par with single model resins. It gets cheap once your buddy has the printer, before that it's a sidegrade. If you buy Kromlech Minis or 3d printed Minis isn't a question about saving money, it's more about Design.
So I voted for aesthetic, uniqueness and conversion parts.

Whole minis tend to be around the same cost or more expensive than getting plastic minis. Where the cost savings can come in is with bits. Quite often specific bits are very expensive if they're very popular. Things like Thunder Hammers, for example, are quite hard to get hold of from bits sellers. 3D prints allow people to get those pieces at a more reasonable price and without having to wait for stock to be available.

Yep 3D printing makes bits affordable.

Also the only times I tend to see 3D prints being sold for way under cast model costs is when its someone running a hobby business. So not paying taxes, not paying themselves a wage for work hours; not likely producing in large quantities or regularly and might well actually be losing money overall. But they sell a few models here and there and its enough to help buy the next bottle of resin for them to print with.

Once you factor all the business elements into costs and such 3D printing is just another production method.

Could it be a regional difference related to density of printing business?

What drew me to finally start buying 3d printed figures was that the price had ticked down below the cost of plastic figures. Not for generic historical figures, but for figures in the style of WHFB, Star Wars, etc there was a massive price savings to the point I was paying of half or less for figures.

I own a few 3D print minis that I've purchased, not counting bases that a friend ran off for a fee. The reasoning was that I couldn't justify $60 a pop for 3 Vindicator tanks, and a soldier at my old unit was more than happy to run those and some Rhinos off for me for $5 each. Given the absolutely stupid price of Warhammer Quest/Talisman Minotaurs on the aftermarket I may have to resource this as well. Not sure how easy it'll be to scan those in...

Does that only concern 40K? The poll options make it look more like purchasing in relation to or instead of GW designs.

 SgtBANZAI wrote:
Does that only concern 40K? The poll options make it look more like purchasing in relation to or instead of GW designs.

Any trip through Etsy will show that GW players are a huge portion of the 3d printed figure market. However I deliberately designed the poll to fully include users outside of GW and other popular games . Only about half the options apply to those using 3d minis with existing big-name games

I have no relation to GW games, but I actively buy 3D printing both for 28 mm fantasy armies (to add unique monsters and heroes into the plastic and metal mix), 28 mm sci fi skirmish and low scale, 10 mm sci fi large battle forces. Reasons are pretty simple: despite all its flaws, 3D printing is already vastly superior to many sets available for the aforementioned themes, especially if you compare them with some old, terrible looking pewter monstrocities that are like 99% of the 6-10 mm sci fi range in "conventional" materials. Also, 3D printing has made Reaper's Bones series somewhat obsolete for me, because they were cheap, had good range and paid for that with the material quality, but now my range is even better and sculpts are so superior it's not even funny to compare them, and material is not worse or sometimes even better, so why bother with inferior product?