This is so cool! Success with your games!

I have a really old board game that I've played once or twice - "SpaceQuest" and your pieces reminds me of that.

-Will

...interesting business of 3D printing of game characters

http://wohlersassociates.com/blog/2007/12/3d-printing-of-game-characters/

I exported it from MOI to STL. I had the world scale set to mm and scaled the ship to 31 mm before export.

I then used a recommended service, www.printapart.com. I uploaded the stl file (it was zipped) and the service properly read the file. It asked what dimensions my 31 was. I selected mm from a drop down box and then they gave me the pricing and shipping information. The part was ~$45 US, and was shipped the next day. I was very satisfied with the quality of the finished piece and www.printapart.com in general.

I am looking forward to creating the rest of the fleet.

Phil

Hi Phil, this is very cool, thank you for showing it!

This is such an interesting way to get multiple uses out of your model - your rendering in Blender/Yafray can be used to create some nice graphics, and then use the same model to produce your physical model.

I am really glad that MoI is helping you to produce this quickly!

The physical model turned out nicely - just the right amount of detail for a small piece I think.

Love the retro feel. Reminds me a little of my '60 Dodge which has a kind of rocketship feel as well.

$45 and next day shipping - that is great and really inexpensive. At that low of a cost it is tempting to fire off several things just for fun. The last time I looked into it, things were quite a bit more expensive than that.

- Michael

added to the Special Thread Gallery :)

*sigh*

One problem with the print-a-part parts, they will not vulcanize well with low temp vulcanizing silicones. You'll need to make a resin copy. I found this out the hard way. I am currently investigating another technology that hopefully will.

You might be able to get a good mold using vulcanizing silicone if you boil the part first. They contain residual wax support inside the model in fine capillary channels. The model will get soft, but if you let it cool undisturbed, it will resume its original shape w/o shrinking.

Yup....We just found that out as well.

Is there another service that you would recommend?

www.pardev.com

They use a Objet, and after some tests on my end, they work just fine when vulcd in low temp vulc silicone.