3D Printed Civilian and Military Vehicles

[arget8]

Not sure if everyone here knows, but Tim over at Kings Hobbies and Games is pumping out all sorts of goodies for modern and Cold War gamers. He is printing both military vehicles and civilian vehicles pretty much solely based on request. This is awesome for me because I would like to actually be able to play modern 28mm games with streets that aren't completely empty. Also, they would be great for zombie stuff too if that's what you want!

Here's the link to the store.

http://www.kingshobbiesandgames.com/category-s/171.htm

I've already picked up a few and plan to get more as they get released.

Gunnar

[commissarmoody]

I will have to check his sight out then.

[arget8]

Here's an example of the cars

[Steve F]

The first two look nice and smooth, but the third seems badly striated.

[arget8]

I have a few on the way and I can give a report once I get them.

[Happy Matt]

Yeah, the 3rd one was the first I looked at and it was effectively the last. The first two might convince me to try it after some reviews.

[arget8]

So I got them yesterday. Most of them had some striations and some excess material that will need to be cleaned off, but once I give them a little sanding and filing, they should be good. I will say that the sedans are a little bit of a letdown as they just don't quite look right and the tires are crazy small-looking. However, it may just be that I've never noticed how small car tires really are. The best ones were definitely the van and the Bronco. The SUV and the Lada were not too bad. I'm going to clean them up and put a couple pictures on here. At this point, they are kinda the only game in town when it comes to civilian vehicles, so I am willing to forgive some quality issues as they relatively cheap. I would like to actually be able to have cars on the streets when I game in the city, so I will put up with slightly lower quality when it comes to the cars. I am also of the opinion that since they are scenery, they do not need to be held to quite the same standards as our actual minis.

The way I see it, if we want civilian cars on the table, we will either have to make it very clear that we will pay for the quality we demand or we show that there is a large demand and let the market create the supply. Until this point, we have not really stepped up as a community and said that we want 28mm or 15mm civilian vehicles with enough of a voice. If we show that there is a tangible demand for a product by buying it, not just saying we want it, then companies will realize that there is indeed a market for this product and capitalism will take over. When we say we want something and then when somebody makes it we decide that it's not quite to our liking and decide not to buy it, it's saying to companies that we are not serious about our demand for the product. While we like to think that companies will make the best product for the cheapest price when we demand it, that is not how it works. If other minis companies were to start seeing everyone's tables with these cars on them, I can guarantee you that a bunch of high quality resin vehicles would be getting produced within a year. Saying we want something is not the same as showing we want something. It's the same with modern miniatures. We used to buy the goofiest, poorly sculpted and casted crap, because that is what was available. Now we have Empress and Spectre and a whole host of other manufacturers because people saw that we were willing to buy the crap in order to play the games we wanted. I'm not saying that these are crap by any means, but you have to start somewhere. Now, that doesn't mean that I wont buy high quality resin vehicles if Empress or Spectre were to produce them, I definitely will, but for now this is the only game in town, so I am going to show support to a company who decided to just go for it and I am going to show them and other companies that if they want in on this market, they better get in on it soon before someone else does.

I will post some pictures once I get them cleaned up.

[grant]

For civilian vehicles, I just buy 1:43 diecast. They are plentiful, cheap, and look great. They can easily be used as is or repainted.

Why put up with poorly made, striated 3d models that aren't ready for prime time?

[arget8]

I personally don't feel that 1:43 scales well with most of the good manufacturers. Most of the time they look absurdly big. It is possible to find some that are properly scaled, but often they come at a pretty high cost. Again, I do not think that these are poorly made, I just think that they aren't quite to the level of quality that many of us have come to expect from vehicles these days. I personally would rather have something that looks the part scale-wise than something that looks pretty.

Not knocking your opinion on the 1:43 cars, just expressing my own.

[grant]

Well, there certainly is the scale argument. I find they look great, so to each their own I guess?

I am using mine with Crooked Dice, which are biggish, and certainly one of the best manufacturers, but they only have their (excellent) transit van, a Land Rover, and the Ghostbusters car. So to fill the streets I've picked up a Trabant, KAR 120C Lotus 7, a rough looking Blues Brothers police car (quite a neat find), Steve McQueen's Bullitt 68 fastback Mustang GT (love it!), a Mini Moke to become a piece for The Prisoner (I'm lucky that a good friend makes a full set of decals to convert it!), and I have a DB5 on order. Couple of checker cabs coming too, to help out with the Ghostbusters set.

There's just so much choice out there, and at $10-30 per vehicle, the price is right.

[carlos marighela]

There's always the acetone vapour solution for all you budding industrial chemists out there:

http://makezine.com/2014/09/24/smoothing-out-your-3d-prints-with-acetone-vapor/

[Mike Bravo Minis]

If we show that there is a tangible demand for a product by buying it, not just saying we want it, then companies will realize that there is indeed a market for this product and capitalism will take over.

I know I have a vested interest but the whole of Arget8's second para, and especially this quote, is bang on the money.

I've chatted with Tim ref a few vehicle ideas that I hope we'll get out into the market.  Guys (and gals), he has a ridiculously low start-up requirement.  All it'll take is a commitment for half a dozen or so models and they will get done, print-on-demand.  Even if they need some clean up or they're not quite right to your eye (they look fine to me, and does anyone make rivet-perfect wargaming models??), at least they will exist, in any scale you then need - 1/50,1/72, 1/100, 1/53.4 (j/k - but you get my point).

To be frank I'm amazed that he's bothered to spend his company's time on some of the designs he already has, and he seems keen to release niche vehicles and some that aren't otherwise ever going to be made by anyone else - a 28mm Ford Mk VI Armoured Car ??!  Who'd have ever thunk it.

Let's keep Tim's team busy.

[arget8]

I know I have a vested interest but the whole of Arget8's second para, and especially this quote, is bang on the money.

I've chatted with Tim ref a few vehicle ideas that I hope we'll get out into the market.  Guys (and gals), he has a ridiculously low start-up requirement.  All it'll take is a commitment for half a dozen or so models and they will get done, print-on-demand.  Even if they need some clean up or they're not quite right to your eye (they look fine to me, and does anyone make rivet-perfect wargaming models??), at least they will exist, in any scale you then need - 1/50,1/72, 1/100, 1/53.4 (j/k - but you get my point).

To be frank I'm amazed that he's bothered to spend his company's time on some of the designs he already has, and he seems keen to release niche vehicles and some that aren't otherwise ever going to be made by anyone else - a 28mm Ford Mk VI Armoured Car ??!  Who'd have ever thunk it.

Let's keep Tim's team busy.

Mike, my thoughts exactly. I hope that he gets a ton of business and blows the market wide open. Now I just need to learn how to paint vehicles without a spray brush...

[dieselmonkey]

There's always the acetone vapour solution for all you budding industrial chemists out there:

http://makezine.com/2014/09/24/smoothing-out-your-3d-prints-with-acetone-vapor/

Personally, I don't think I should have to build some kind of hazmat containment device in order to 'finish' a purchased model. I'm still really of the opinion that 3d printed models are a good few years away from producing an acceptable finish, at least at an affordable cost.

I also find 1:43 a bit on the large side, but as there's very little choice for 1:50(ish) civilian vehicles, so currently I'm stuck with larger (but far cheaper) ones. 

[Damas]

If you have a look online for Siku vehicles they have both 1:50 and 1:55 scale civilian vehicles of various types.