A new service to generate printable DnD figurines has a unique pricing structure.
DnD has been around for decades, and for many years gamers have used characters purchased from retail stored, mass manufactured by a few companies. Typically you’d see arrays of tiny gaming figurines on store shelves, ready for purchase. When ecommerce appeared, much of these sales shifted online and even larger design choices were available.
Then things started changing with the emergence of inexpensive desktop resin 3D printers. These devices were capable of producing high resolution figurines and were also affordable.
While the hardware & materials were ready, the content was not. Finding the right 3D models was, frankly, quite difficult.
Early participants would head to the normal 3D printable model repositories, like Thingiverse, etc., but would have a terrible time navigating through the (literally) millions of 3D models and be disappointed.
One repository, MyMiniFactory, recognized this need and shifted their strategy to this market. Since then, they’ve been quite successful in connecting figurine designers to those with 3D printers looking for content.
But even with quality content available, some gamers still wanted the ability to design their own characters, but did not have the sculpting and CAD skills to do so.
This market was also addressed by startups offering online easy-to-use tools that allow a user to pick and choose parts to “assemble” a character of their own liking. The most well known of these is Heroforge.
While Heroforge is immensely popular now, there are some beefs with its business model. The problem seems to be that if you were to tweak a model you’ve already paid for, you have to pay for it again for subsequent downloads. True, it is technically a “new” 3D model, but from the purchaser’s point of view that’s a bit annoying. In the mind of the designer, it’s the same model.
Enter TitanCraft. It’s a new startup that offers services similar to Heroforge: you can create a figurine design using pick-and-place tools. It’s very easy to do so, as you can see at top. That model was designed by me in only a couple of minutes.
Once you’re finished the design, you can purchase it and download. However, the design is saved and if you come back later you can edit the model. Basically, you purchase “asset packs”, which represent collections of related objects that you can add and subtract from the previously purchased model. These asset packs are one-time purchases, so in theory you could be swapping in and out all kinds of parts and downloading the results.
TitanCraft has some other unique features that will be of great interest to gamers:
- Advanced body (and tool!) posing tools
- Base models include “heroes” and “monsters”
- Any part can be used anywhere
As the resin 3D printing market grows, so too will the need for relevant content. It seems that this market is getting a lot more competitive.
Via TitanCraft
