3D Printing the Modern Age Recasting

[Jarl Caldersson]

Let me start with the topic stating, that I am not referring to 3rd party custom bits or companies like Loot Studios that produce STLs for 3D Printing. 

 

I don't post much here, and especially not about my 3D printing Hobby. I 3D print for fun, and have earned a small amount of favor with companies lending me to Beta test STLs, sent printers for non-public review, and even a scanner. I run a small home studio of 3 SLA (resin) printers and recently started into the FDM (plastic) side with a Prusa Mk4, I have probably used/tested around 12-15 printers though. I do not claim to be an all-knowing person about these matters, but I do have experience with 3D printing and believe that they are products that can find their place in almost any application these days. 

 

Recasting is when someone takes a product, makes a mold with it, and then simply uses that mold to produce the same parts. These molds are sometimes modified to add bits and details to them. This is pretty universally accepted as theft. Now I have my own opinions on OOP items, and since they are OOP the company should not have rights to that product, however, this is even considered controversial.  How does 3D printing apply to recasting? Well we have these tools called 3D scanners, and they do what they are called, they scan an item and then create 3D files. These 3D scanners are used in a lot of places including museums to digitally secure artifacts, and medical to create casts and dental prints for testing without the patient.  3D scanners have achieved great detail recently and there is a growing trend to scan miniatures, fix them up, and then 3D print those models. This is of course illegal. So why haven't they been shut down? Well, people have modified the minis and then claim they built them from scratch. The websites that host them are hosted in countries to which companies have no legal rights. These are the same practices that recasters have done in the past (modify a mini and state it's custom-built and/or move the recasting/STL hosting site to a country). There has been a trend of people using these modern 3D printing recasts, even in this community. With the release of Legions Imperialis, I can guarantee these will be pirated right away as these are small models and easy to replicate and print en masse. 

 

These 3D printing recasts are dangerous to GW, but more importantly, they are deadly to smaller studios. I have seen a couple of studios go under because their minis or STLs were immediately sent across the internet. Smaller studios die, and larger studios like GW begin to act hostile toward customers and the 3D printing community. For now, we can use 3rd party bits, and even entire models if they are custom-made. I, myself, have had my customer chapter master made and 3D printed it myself, and I have been green-lighted to use it also. I have seen thousands of 3rd party bits to fully customize your army whether canon or homebrew. I also highly encourage people to get a 3D printer or invest in one for your hobby community. I produce tons of minis for D&D, bits for 40k, functional prints for people, and even stuff for cosplayers that they can't make by hand. We don't need to stoop to using 3D-printed recasts and destroying the good faith companies have made for us. There have been several ideas to stop this, and to be honest, none of them are healthy for the 3D printing community. Things like disposable STLs, so once printed X-times, it auto-deletes the file. So please enjoy 3D-printing, use them to customize your army, and make them shiny, but 3D-recasting should not be tolerated.

 

-Jarl Caldersson

[Jarl Caldersson]

Also plugging my Chapter Master model that is WIP to show off the detail these printers can do

[Magos Takatus]

I've seen a 40k Facebook page dedicated to 3d printing and a disappointing amount of the photographs  I have seen are straight up copied from GW models, whether it be models getting the chop like a Land Raider Redeemer/Crusader to a squadron of Eldar Falcon Chassis tanks including a Fire Prism. I try to think of all the constructive uses for a 3d printer and see them just used for piracy. I'm quite the fan of using custom aftermarket parts to customise models, (my next Imperial Knight will have a wholly custom arm, faceplate, top hatch and one of my other Knights will receive a banner) but I do find copying a model wholesale to be distasteful. I have used my printer to create sturdy bases with magnet holes in for my Eldar Tanks because I consider the 2nd edition era flying stems wholly unsuitable for such a large model.

 

I have an Ender 3 Pro that my friend bought for me and while it can't print miniatures it does an acceptable job printing terrain so that's what I am currently using it for (when it feels like working)

 

Oh, I forgot to add, that original Chapter Master looks really imposing. I do like that sculpt a lot.

Edited October 15, 2023 by Magos Takatus

[Jarl Caldersson]

7 minutes ago, Magos Takatus said:

Oh, I forgot to add, that original Chapter Master looks really imposing. I do like that sculpt a lot.

 

Thank you, I wanted a cross between Abaddon, Tyberus, and Ranulf. Something imposing and if you saw him on the battlefield, even a marine would hesitate about charging him. Fun fact, the bags on his belt are full of nut+honey brittle that he gives to mortal of the imperium. The bags are small so they handle it.

[RWJP]

I know I am going to get a lot of stick for this comment, but here goes:

This post hits on a key point that a lot of the most ardent 3D printing fans aren't willing to admit:

A lot of the people who claim they 3D print because they don't want to pay GW's prices, are actually 3D printing because they don't want to spend ANY money at all. After the cost of the 3D printer itself and the relatively minimal costs of consumables, there are a lot of people who are absolutely fine to just pirate EVERYTHING, including the work of smaller independent creators and studios who sell their STLs significantly cheaper than anything GW produces. I've seen the Telegram groups full of people reposting pirated STLs from smaller creators. The fact that people pirate STLs from these smaller creators demonstrates unequivocally that it's not about "sticking it to GW and not paying their prices", it's purely about getting stuff for as close to free as possible. 

One of the biggest things that puts me off the 3D printing community is how many people act like they're Robin Hood, but are actually just robbing from the rich (GW) and robbing from the poor (smaller creators and studios).

I'm amazed that more of the smaller creators haven't shut up shop with how rife piracy is in the 3D printing community.

Edited October 15, 2023 by RWJP

[Bung]

To be honest GW made their own bed.

As they only care for investors not the customers  you dont need to wonder about the results with new technology.

Killing their own games like Epic, BFG etc. and leaving their customers alone they looked for other sources of Miniatures.

The Heresy scene abondoned for years before the second Edition longed fircstuff to customize their miniatures and some oop stuff.

So the level to use third party stuff was already low and with the option of quality 3d prints with affordable printers was for most just the next step.

 

Thats only the few from specialised Games Player as i abandoned 40k a few Editions ago.

Then i look at the new 40k stuff and the Primaris chapter Upgrades and they are lacking compared to the old Black Templar Chapter Upgrade.

 

Then the Primaris miniature Design with the absolutely third Party unfriendly  Design for custom Bits.

 

This are all decisions made by GWs Management and i didnt even start about prices.

 

Then i look at other gaming miniature companies like Corvus Belli (Infinity) the only thing you can find for the Game to 3d print are weapons as conversion Bits, you dont even find much recasts for that Game cause people are willing to support that Company.

 

So if GW want to change peoples mind about copied Miniatures, they first need to change.

But that wont happen.

 

[Evil Eye]

Piracy of smaller studios' work is definitely a problem and I won't defend that for a second. However, I will also say that regarding the "piracy" of GW's models, the old axiom of piracy being a service problem springs to mind. If GW hadn't upset so many hobbyists to the point where they would go out of their way to play 40K without giving any money to GW, they probably wouldn't be facing this problem. The cost of official models has gone through the roof, FOMO is used increasingly as a marketing tool, and old favourites are being canned to be replaced with uglier new iterations. I can't blame anyone who says "screw GW" and avoids giving them any money at all.

[WrathOfTheLion]

5 hours ago, RWJP said:

A lot of the people who claim they 3D print because they don't want to pay GW's prices, are actually 3D printing because they don't want to spend ANY money at all. After the cost of the 3D printer itself and the relatively minimal costs of consumables, there are a lot of people who are absolutely fine to just pirate EVERYTHING, including the work of smaller independent creators and studios who sell their STLs significantly cheaper than anything GW produces. I've seen the Telegram groups full of people reposting pirated STLs from smaller creators. The fact that people pirate STLs from these smaller creators demonstrates unequivocally that it's not about "sticking it to GW and not paying their prices", it's purely about getting stuff for as close to free as possible.

From working on desktop applications, there's some people that will straight never pay for them. Those folks, generally speaking, are a nonexistent market. There is nothing you could ever do to tap into them.

 

Unfortunately, it's going to be the smaller creators that don't have a dedicated audience and stream of income that are going to be hit here with the volatility, they are the most vulnerable.

---

 

To add, note that for us, we'd account for that and just make sure they're not included in any expected calculations there and then pretty much ignore them. But a smaller creator isn't exactly doing that, and can easily have that cause trouble if they expect their STL or whatever to net <x>, but then it underperforms by mistaking that as a market. It's not a one-to-one comparison, but sculpts are digital assets these days, so its much closer a comparison than it would have been even ten or fifteen years ago.

Edited October 15, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[Jarl Caldersson]

58 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

Piracy of smaller studios' work is definitely a problem and I won't defend that for a second. However, I will also say that regarding the "piracy" of GW's models, the old axiom of piracy being a service problem springs to mind. If GW hadn't upset so many hobbyists to the point where they would go out of their way to play 40K without giving any money to GW, they probably wouldn't be facing this problem. The cost of official models has gone through the roof, FOMO is used increasingly as a marketing tool, and old favourites are being canned to be replaced with uglier new iterations. I can't blame anyone who says "screw GW" and avoids giving them any money at all.

 

Unfortunately, we must declare it all piracy or none of it. We can't choose favorites, and say it's okay to pirate them but not those. That leaves it open to interpretation and loopholes. Someone may say Loot Studio is free game because it is growing into a larger studio than others, while others will say it isn't because Loot Studio has never changed its price and that it simply managed its company and talent better (from what I hear Loot Studio is very good to their artists). Either we enforce rules and stop 3D-recasting for all, or we do not.

[phandaal]

5 hours ago, RWJP said:

A lot of the people who claim they 3D print because they don't want to pay GW's prices, are actually 3D printing because they don't want to spend ANY money at all. After the cost of the 3D printer itself and the relatively minimal costs of consumables, there are a lot of people who are absolutely fine to just pirate EVERYTHING, including the work of smaller independent creators and studios who sell their STLs significantly cheaper than anything GW produces.

 

This is true. On the other hand, those people were not going to spend the money to buy legit models anyway. So while they may be ripping off models that they themselves did not sculpt, I have a hard time attributing the death of studios to "lost" sales from people who were never part of the customer base in the first place.

 

For my own part, the only time I have known actual paying miniature wargaming customers to go and seek out recasts or 3D scans, it is when the models themselves were not in stock anywhere on the legitimate market and had no estimated stock date in sight. Things like Forge World models that had been out of stock forever.

[Noserenda]

Some absolutely ridiculous strawmen in here, sure piracy exists, it'll always exist, but is far from particularly common in most of the 3d printing groups I'm in, and most of the "pirated" designs aren't scanned either, someone goes out and does the sculpts based on nothing more than the preview images usually.

 

If someone claims 3d printing is free, they are either ignorant of the process, or trying to sell you a printer lol

[Bung]

4 hours ago, Jarl Caldersson said:

 

Unfortunately, we must declare it all piracy or none of it. We can't choose favorites, and say it's okay to pirate them but not those. That leaves it open to interpretation and loopholes. Someone may say Loot Studio is free game because it is growing into a larger studio than others, while others will say it isn't because Loot Studio has never changed its price and that it simply managed its company and talent better (from what I hear Loot Studio is very good to their artists). Either we enforce rules and stop 3D-recasting for all, or we do not.

 

In the 3d printing groups i am in those that sell scans from GW Modells are shunned and people are warned Not to buy from them.

 

But would you call it piracy if someone modelled Space Marine Armour or other stuff from scratch?

 

[Cleon]

8 minutes ago, Bung said:

 

But would you call it piracy if someone modelled Space Marine Armour or other stuff from scratch?

 

 

I guess that's depends what you consider 'piracy'.

 

Is the person designing their own take on heavily armoured futuristic super soldiers, or are they replicating GWs designs as closely as they can? It's been a long time since I've studied any law, but I don't think the effort taken matters, it's only the end result.

[Jarl Caldersson]

2 hours ago, Cleon said:

 

I guess that's depends what you consider 'piracy'.

 

Is the person designing their own take on heavily armoured futuristic super soldiers, or are they replicating GWs designs as closely as they can? It's been a long time since I've studied any law, but I don't think the effort taken matters, it's only the end result.

If I go and retype a book manually and then sell it, would that be illegal?

[StratoKhan]

Wait. Isn’t most of the hobby just about holding large quantities of kits still on sprue, in a secure location? No 3D printer is ever going to be able to do that for me.

 

Jokes aside, I think that there are people that value legitimacy and being able to hobby at official GW venues and events. Paradoxically, in those places a straight copy is less likely to be noticed or be controversial than a unique design, unless the owner openly declares them to be copies, be it 3D or recasted. A custom 3D sculpt on the other hand will stand out and draw more attention, which is interesting. If you don’t care about being in official GW spaces, this is of course a non-issue.

 

If we had to categorise the reasons that people might not opt for buying official GW models, we could say these are the main factors:

 

- Seeking better price

- Disliking design of official models

- Official models OOP

- Don’t care about breaching IP

- 3D printing is their hobby, not Warhammer

 

Most people probably fall into one of these categories, with a few motivated by more than one. Ultimately GW’s challenge will be to find solutions for each factor (btw ‘do nothing’ can be a solution) that minimises the impact to their bottom line.

 

Right now I think that in terms of quality of the kits, crispness of detail, etc. we’re in a very good place - GW have released a lot of kits that have phenomenal levels of detail that most 3D printers would struggle to match easily. Not everything the company produces is subjectively great, but there is a quality level to everything that means that their kits are still the default for me and not 3D prints.

Edited October 15, 2023 by StratoKhan
typo

[phandaal]

28 minutes ago, Jarl Caldersson said:

If I go and retype a book manually and then sell it, would that be illegal?

 

Reminds me of the old "you wouldn't download a car, would you?" commercials back in the day.

[Cpt_Reaper]

My biggest gripe with the 3D pirates out there is their attitude. They 3d print everything, especially officially available GW models, use pirated PDF rules and spend all their time online bemoaning every action GW takes. Then they attend tournaments and other events, spend the whole time harping on about GW, call you a shill if you defend GW and bully others for having official models.

 

Guess what. You're not a customer. Your opinion doesn't matter at all.

[Jarl Caldersson]

5 hours ago, phandaal said:

 

Reminds me of the old "you wouldn't download a car, would you?" commercials back in the day.

Exact sentiment I was going for

[Orion]

In terms of resculpt "piracy", if you're copying other companies designs to profit off, you forfeit your rights of protecting your product.
Don't like it? Make your own designs/IP

Or at least do your creative additions as a conversion kit. Usually those look way better anyway.

 

I used to like the idea of recasts solely as a way of preservation, but it's very much degenerated into people recasting everything just because they can.

And then talking smack about FW quality despite having never owned any models from them, or complaining about rules for models they never paid GW for.

[Marshal Reinhard]

11 hours ago, Jarl Caldersson said:

If I go and retype a book manually and then sell it, would that be illegal?

I mean, it depends I would think. What book is it? Is it copyrighted? Would be copyright infringement then, no? I doubt anyone would have the energy to go after you for a single copy, regardless.

[Bung]

12 hours ago, phandaal said:

 

Reminds me of the old "you wouldn't download a car, would you?" commercials back in the day.

 

In todays time, i would gladlydownload a car, not due to money issues but company policies, bad service etc. and for all easy acces to replacement parts.

 

6 hours ago, JayJapanB said:

I used to like the idea of recasts solely as a way of preservation, but it's very much degenerated into people recasting everything just because they can.

And then talking smack about FW quality despite having never owned any models from them, or complaining about rules for models they never paid GW for.

 

To be honest there are enough people like me that bought og FW and recasts and anything bigger than infantry a reacster is most times better in quality than FW. 

 

 

As said before, as long as GW wont change is attitude to their customers, most people wont chnage their attitude in regards to 3d printing.

Most people playing specialist games were already open to 3d printing etc. and the reason simply was GW didnt care about this games.

 

That people pirate GW books is the same customer unfriendly attitude they had for decades. Here from my own experience in 8th Edition.

I bought the DE Codex and if i wanted to play Liliths Wytch Cult with full rules i had to buy a campaign book that was released at the same day at the full price of a Codex.

For me it was the last straw to ever buy anything for 40k again.

 

There is enough people really into the lore / unverse GW created, but they are unhappy how GW treats them with only profit in mind.

[Brother Captain Arkley]

1 hour ago, Bung said:

 

1. In todays time, i would gladly download a car, not due to money issues but company policies, bad service etc. and for all easy access to replacement parts.

 

 

2. To be honest there are enough people like me that bought og FW and recasts and anything bigger than infantry a recaster is most times better in quality than FW. 

 

 

3. There is enough people really into the lore / universe GW created, but they are unhappy how GW treats them with only profit in mind.

I have a few point of yours I feel are relevant to me.

 

1. The easiest way for a company overall to lose me is exactly this. But in part for getting a 3D printer is a simple case I am not limited anymore, I don't play, the chances I ever play will be if @L82Dforces me :).

 

2. Guilty as charged I have had a few big FW kits in the past, a OG Baneblade and Warhound, parts of the Baneblade were horribly warped, the fact it even came out the factory in that state is bad.

 

3. For years I have defended GW to the point I was and could be labelled a fanboy, Over the last few years and particularly this year GW have done things that just flat out annoy me, the worse this is the catalyst for me to embrace a more neutral/negative approach is so stupid but it is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

I am simply not a GW customer like I used to be, 3D printing has just accelerated that position. I am reminded of that Painting Phase video of the Hobby Trumpet, I am no longer in the trumpet hell I have left the band. For context my spending on the new marine stuff was going to be over £600, I ended up spending £140.

[Xenith]

14 hours ago, phandaal said:

 

Reminds me of the old "you wouldn't download a car, would you?" commercials back in the day.

 

Yes, yes I would. 

 

Edited October 16, 2023 by Xenith

[Bung]

44 minutes ago, Brother Captain Arkley said:

I have a few point of yours I feel are relevant to me.

 

1. The easiest way for a company overall to lose me is exactly this. But in part for getting a 3D printer is a simple case I am not limited anymore, I don't play, the chances I ever play will be if @L82Dforces me :).

 

2. Guilty as charged I have had a few big FW kits in the past, a OG Baneblade and Warhound, parts of the Baneblade were horribly warped, the fact it even came out the factory in that state is bad.

 

3. For years I have defended GW to the point I was and could be labelled a fanboy, Over the last few years and particularly this year GW have done things that just flat out annoy me, the worse this is the catalyst for me to embrace a more neutral/negative approach is so stupid but it is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

I am simply not a GW customer like I used to be, 3D printing has just accelerated that position. I am reminded of that Painting Phase video of the Hobby Trumpet, I am no longer in the trumpet hell I have left the band. For context my spending on the new marine stuff was going to be over £600, I ended up spending £140.

 

To add to that i still buy GW plastic Kits for my Horus Heresy Army, i really like the MK VI, plastic tanks etc. the Books of course. But there is stuff i dont even carre anymore like Limited Editions. 

 

But you are as myself an example of a long time fan that got to much disappointment over the years.

 

[Orion]

2 hours ago, Bung said:

To be honest there are enough people like me that bought og FW and recasts and anything bigger than infantry a reacster is most times better in quality than FW. 

 

Well maybe FW changed for the better along with that, because I see a lot to the contrary.
The excuse is always "well, it's cheaper"
And it's a Chinese knockoff.