Let's talk about this 3D printing thing...

So, Shapeways and Hasbro have partnered up and announced a service to 3D print fan created works. From what I’ve seen the reaction to this announcement has been in a vast majority positive. My initial reaction is different; I am not convinced.

As someone who takes the time and effort to make pony sculptures, the news about a service that can mass produce hundreds of copies of a digital pony, isn’t cool.

It is great to finally get some good quality official merchandise.  The offering of prints is reasonable and AJ even has her hat! I have total respect for anyone who can sculpt digitally (it may as well be witchcraft to me) but I’m not a fan of 3D printed stuff. The quality of the final product is never as good as the digital sculpt unless you are paying ridiculous amounts of money. The surface texture and fine details can be crap. The printers either leave striations in the model or they are made of a grainy material that looses detail very quickly. Admittedly, I have never gotten my hands on one of these 3D printed models. Until I do, I’m still open to the idea but hesitant.

Call me old fashioned, but you simply can’t get the “character” in a 3D printed model that you can from a handmade sculpture.

I’ll probably pick up a couple of them. They are cool looking, especially the Spike figure. But, I do hope that this doesn’t affect those who spend hours and hours hand-crafting clay ponies.

Tinfoil hat time!

We all know Hasbro’s history with cease and desist and fan created content. Lets be a little careful saying "Take that everyone who says Hasbro is an evil company that doesn't tolerate fan art!" Its great publicity but Hasbro has a long history of legal action against its own fans. This is, to my knowledge, the one and only time Hasbro has given the thumbs up to fan created project. Let us not forget about the projects and artists the they have hit with the banhammer. One case of green-lighting a potentially massively lucrative partnership does not make them "fan friendly".

Is this new partnership rewarding to the artist or is Hasbro just using it for free advertising/revinue?

There are a good few questions I’d like answered about this project.

What is the money split between the artist, Shapeways and Hasbro?

Would Hashbro’s (the 3D artist that got a C+D a while ago) models be available at some point or will he be ineligible to join the service? Also, was his C+D a preemptive strike on 3D printed merch and a calculated move and Shapeways and Hasbro's part?

How complex can the designs become before they become too fragile to be viable?

How selective is SuperFanArt going to be when selecting new artists?

Is this service going to be flooded with slightly altered models and “repaints”?


Ravings of a madman or legitimate points? I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. I'm especially interested in the opinions of those in the pony sculpting community.

Links:

www.equestriadaily.com/…