Attached Link: http://www.pluginmagazine.com/news/3637

Crikey, these guys need a little marketplace competition ! Wonder if they have a monopoly ?

"...one of the largest 3D printing service bureaus in California..." Nah, not a monopoly. There are various places that do it. There was one that used to show up in the banner ads here I think. It's just not cheap. Even at this discount, I wonder if you couldn't find some artist in China or somewhere to hand carve you one cheaper. Wouldn't be polygon accurate but as long as it looks right...

speaking as the son of an artist.. $434? thats cheap. lets see.. before he retired, my dad would have charged you, 2000 (pounds) for the Master. Mouldmaking would have been another 700 with casting (bronze) about 800. so.. 434 for that? reasonable.

$434 for that? reasonable.
There are times when the Poser community's idea of "overpriced" is amusing. Anyone who wants to "compete" should have fun finding out what the equipment costs.

Reminds me of the university propeller-head standing in front of one of the first laser printers (the size of a truck) and explaining to me that one of laser printing's merits was "it's practically free!" He meant, of course, free for him. The university paid a quarter mil for his toy, and it used more electricity than an afternoon of TV to print a page. And his "perfect" pages he was trying to sell us on (we were there as part of the book publishing division) were of roughly the quality of photostats. Not that quality meant anything to him.

A local company does exactly what TEKPRO does, which has its major application in defense contracting, and when I was working on their web site, the guy who brought me in offered to make me a 12" statue of a favorite Poser image of mine. Street price would have been a few hundred bucks, if they'd been willing to work on such a small scale.

How appropriate, and original, that the picture with the story is a NJWSOP, rather than a NVITWS. For less than $100 (4" model), we can bring our latest randy cliches to life!

M

Message edited on: 01/19/2006 08:19

I actually do think that's pretty cheap... also if you know how to make Japanese style Garage kits (Create a Silicone mold from the original statue into which you pour plastic resin) you can create infinate copies of your model. :).

THE AGE OF SAILOR SUITED AIKO GARAGE KITS HAS BEGUN! ^_^

Message edited on: 01/19/2006 08:38

"also if you know how to make Japanese style Garage kits (Create a Silicone mold from the original statue into which you pour plastic resin) you can create infinate copies of your model." actually your're looking at about 10-15 casts per mould before the mould needs to be replaced (thats using Silicone rubber as the mould agent - releasing the model from the mould forms 'stress' cracks on the rubber that tear it apart after so many times used)

Yeah But you can make another mold... no? :)

It's not cheap though, One of the reasons garage kits are so expensive.
A friend of mine attempted to copy one of his Bubblegum Crisis models once, but was only partially successful because he tried to substitute cheaper materials :)

Message edited on: 01/19/2006 08:51

I'm thinking - gosh, what about all those anime / manga collectibles which a Poser artist could churn out - I mean original character designs, not rips from published anime. That could be quite a little business.

^_^ Watch "Otaku no video Graffiti of Otaku generation 1985" for inspiiration in starting your buisness. :)

my company actually bought one of these, though theirs was more like 50k..;) But then they're good for it. I'm going to stop by some day and check it out..

great, now even real inanimate statues have bad shoulder joints :P (bad shoulder bending has been a long time plague in poser characters and bugs the hell out of me)

I wonder if this could be used as the mold to make bronze castings? If so it could be a way to make some money.

Message edited on: 01/19/2006 17:33

For the record, we have an STL machine at my work. A 10" figure derived from a detialed .stl file would cost us less than $20 U.S. in time and materials to produce. I should tell my boss to start taking orders with this kind of mark-up!

Yes you should. He is missing an opportunity.

Attached Link: http://www.chubbybubba.com/

I researched this idea about a year ago and found a number of "rapid prototyping" companies that could turn your obj file (or similar format) into a machine-tooled "prototype". (Note that it is not a "toy".)

Their prices started at $99-$150 for a one inch "statue". If you wanted larger sizes, you'd be talking about prices approaching the $1,000 mark.

So, $434 for a 10" statue doesn't sound bad at all. Then again, when you're talking about a free V3 model with a free texture and free hair in a free pose, then anything other than "free" becomes "expensive"

P.S. TEKPRO's pricing seems to be market price: the $434.50 is probably the price AFTER the 50% discount given to Shade and Poser users.

--John

Message edited on: 01/20/2006 12:07