A plastic future?

I've been following what Reaper are doing with their bones range and it got me wondering. Shouldn't GW be investigating this route? At some point even they are going to have to have a rethink about the direction they are heading in(oblivion if you ask me).

Wouldn't it make more sense in the long term if they opted for a similar bones approach and started again? If a big company like Reaper can go back to the start almost in terms of pricing, surely other big companies can do likewise?






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Most of the GW range is already plastic and Finecast releases seem increasingly limited to characters. Not sure what the issue is.

Indeed, and economically, it still makes more sense not to have characters as injection molded but spun.

Hold on what now?

GW need to invest in plastic?

Where have you been the past 20 odd years?

if you ask me GW needs to invest in 3d printed on demand items.
with 3d printer becomming cheaper every day and better its well worth for GW to follow that path.... (imo)

nice article on printers can be found here:
[url]http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/03/technology/innovation/staples-3d-printer/index.html[/url]

There are (some) problems with 3D printing.

Firstly, they do not get the economies of scale that injection moulding can.
Secondly, they are not able to (currently) produce at a small enough scale to match the current range
Thirdly, the shapes are limited to how you can build up the prints, though with taking away techniques this is not such an issue

While I agree print on demand is a great thing for small scale things, but at the mass production they don't quite bring it. One needs to just consider how much profit Black Library make on their print on demand (I know this is books and slightly different).

isn't the bones plastic proprietary? If it is, then GW can't leverage that. If it is, then they would likely do it, but still charge an arm and a leg for their stuff.

John M>

Quote:

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Originally Posted by olberon

if you ask me GW needs to invest in 3d printed on demand items.
with 3d printer becomming cheaper every day and better its well worth for GW to follow that path.... (imo)

nice article on printers can be found here:
[url]http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/03/technology/innovation/staples-3d-printer/index.html[/url]

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And I'm sure they're already looking into this.

Right now, the set up costs for home printing remain prohibitive in the extreme. To do models like GW's justice, you need a high resolution.

They may never crack that issue, as the in home applications remain fairly limited, and certainly a significant hurdle. And without home proliferation, and technology remains restricted. What we might see are specific 3D printing outlets on the high street. This addresses many of the accessibility issues, and negates the need for in home proliferation. Go into the shop, and either have your own design printed, one from the internets (likely downloaded by the shop staff to prevent potentially problematic copyright issues) or one held by the shop already.

3D printing is great for relatively simple designs, but for models kits, not just yet. Even the local print shop bit depends on the wider public embracing the possibilities it offers.