Shapeways

[Gorgonzola]

Now that's an improvement

I wonder if Gorgonzola will re-do some of his older Shapeways prints, since he mentioned something about his style having grown a lot over the year or so. That would be cool.

Man that's the dream.  Really the only one that's SUPER ugly to me now is the Carnotaurus - that thing is a mess anatomically and 3D mesh-wise (at least to my eyes.)

I've been really busy though with freelance and atelier work, which one one hand, yay! But on the other hand I haven't had any real free time to sit down and work on improving the older models.  The Carnotaurus rework I had going is about 40-50% done I think, but it's last 10-20% that takes forever to do, not counting prepping it for print.

On the plus side I've heard the Nasutoceratops I did with Dan was well-received, and I've got another cool model in the works that's been loads of fun, but yeah...my time to work on Shapeways stuff is quite limited lately.

[chains16]

I was looking for some advice on shapeways models- I haven't bought any before, but i was looking at the Isisaurus and Rugops 1:36 models that Rare Breed sells. does anyone have any pictures of them in hand? i just want to know what i'm getting myself into.

[shiftdel]

I was looking for some advice on shapeways models- I haven't bought any before, but i was looking at the Isisaurus and Rugops 1:36 models that Rare Breed sells. does anyone have any pictures of them in hand? i just want to know what i'm getting myself into.

I´d never bought from Rare Breed,  but the overall quality will depend on the material chosen, if you look at previous posts on this thread, you will notice the difference between the materials.  Detail materials will give you more detail, but are more expensive.

[Gorgonzola]

Right now there's a discount code you can use for Shapeways, they've got it listed on the front page.

A heads up to anyone that's ordering Shapeways models though - they're retiring the Frosted Detail material, and introducing a new one: Frosted Detail Extreme.  When that happens Frosted Ultra Detail will be the lowest Frosted material available.

[postsaurischian]

I was looking for some advice on shapeways models- I haven't bought any before, but i was looking at the Isisaurus and Rugops 1:36 models that Rare Breed sells. does anyone have any pictures of them in hand? i just want to know what i'm getting myself into.

This is my DeLuxe Isisaurus in white, strong & flexible:



....... compared to Invicta Apatosaurus:

[tyrantqueen]

Right now there's a discount code you can use for Shapeways, they've got it listed on the front page.

A heads up to anyone that's ordering Shapeways models though - they're retiring the Frosted Detail material, and introducing a new one: Frosted Detail Extreme.  When that happens Frosted Ultra Detail will be the lowest Frosted material available.

Hmm, as a fan of the detail materials this is good news to me, but I am concerned about the increase in price.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Wow..didn't know that Isisaurus was that large..

[Gorgonzola]

Right, so, minor rant inbound from me.

I just spent 2 hours having to fix everything in my store, because apparently Shapeways changed a few things on the backend in addition to retiring the FD material that completely borked ALL my models in my store.

I noticed that some of my models were sporting ludicrous markups, in some cases 50-60% of the price of the base material itself, in a rare one or two it was almost 100% markup of the base material. And thanks to Shapeways "streamlining" everything, you have to go in and manually edit EACH AND EVERY SINGLE FREAKING PRICE to be correct.

The old way was you'd punch in your markup you'd want and it'd give you your total.  Now you have to set the total and it generates the markup from that.  Still no way to implement a single markup price on a group of models, but boy howdy did you hear they made it harder to make sweeping edits to your prices instead?!

And coming back to the Frosted Detail being retired - right, I have no idea how great the Extreme material is.  It's probably the bee's knees, the cat's meow, the creme de la creme.  Well that's all good except now there's nothing that used to fill the role of the FD material because FUD doesn't have a larger print box still.  Which means that some of my models (notably some of the Amargasaurus models) all of a sudden were not for sale because they were too big for FUD's print box.  There's no good middle material anymore between the Strong Flexible materials and the high-end but pricey detail materials.  Shapeways really needs to allow FUD materials to have the same print box as the old FD material just to accommodate that in some regard - the price point between the two was relatively slight, especially compared to the price difference between FUD and FD Extreme.

If you can't tell, I'm a bit pissed at Shapeways right now for this mess.  Understandably a portion of this is my fault because I should have checked in on this sooner and kept an eye on it, but I'm still aggravated by how much they messed around with the back end only to completely screw up everything.

[tyrantqueen]

That's terrible. I hope you can figure everything out. I'm sad to see frosted detail go too.

[Gorgonzola]

That's terrible. I hope you can figure everything out. I'm sad to see frosted detail go too.

I've fortunately got it all sorted so the prices are fixed and whatever models that were flagged not for sale are available again (it was a few amargasaurus models.)  I'm still miffed that about there not being a solid detail material that's a good price between WSF and FUD.  The Detail materials (that are now called Acrylic Detail) are often more expensive than the Frosted detail materials for whatever reason, and their printing requirements are a bit of a pain at times.  The Frosted Detail was relatively affordable for the quality you got, and it had really GOOD tolerances.  It's a shame they didn't bump FUD up to take that position, price wise and print size.

[postsaurischian]

I have almost completely stopped buying from Shapeways anyway.
In my oppinion they're moving in the wrong direction. Their products are getting more and more expensive, but throughout the last 6 years they haven't been improving their quality and service at all. Both got even worse.

After all these years of collecting I can only say: There's no better material than resin .

[Kayakasaurus]

I have been using shapeways sense before I joined this forum and I think they are going in the right direction. Last year there were big price improvements for strong and flexible as well as steel. They also introduced cheaper options for precious metals and the new extreme detail is mind blowing. 3D printing pricess should only go down. That said they are pricey, and definitely not the best way to make dinos. But from a designers perspective, Shapeways is amazing.

[dutchdinolover]

I won't buy from them any more. I spend more than €300 on shapeways but some of the dinosaurs I bought are now 200% of the price I once paid for them. Back to resin for me: same price, better detail and overall quality (of the material, I love the 3d models on shapeways ).

I pity in my opinion

[Kayakasaurus]

I won't buy from them any more. I spend more than €300 on shapeways but some of the dinosaurs I bought are now 200% of the price I once paid for them. Back to resin for me: same price, better detail and overall quality (of the material, I love the 3d models on shapeways ).

I pity in my opinion

I agree. I haven't ordered any dino models from them but Shapeways is very useful for prototyping among other things. It won't be long before additive manufacturing makes an impact on the way we purchase things. Ideally we will be able to pay for what materials actually cost. It will take out a lot of middle men and the focus can be on design. Right now the commercial printers are just to expensive, but technology is growing faster then ever before in history. Imagine if all the plastic going into innacurate dinosaurs could be used for accurate dinosaurs at the cost of the actuall materials, it would change everything.

[NikToo]

Hi, newcomer here. Been reading this thread on Shapeways and found some really nice ones. Just wondering about the material. The WSF looks very grainy, and there doesn't seem to be a "Polished" option on them. Are they *really* grainy, or is it just because the photos show them enlarged? I am quite tempted by a couple of Manuel Bejarano's 1/40 scale ones, I take it they're quite good?

[alexeratops]

Yes, they are very good pieces but WARNING ABOUT SHAPEWAYS... they are hollow, and non-colored. If you were planning on getting them for your 7-year-old, don't do it! hehe... just a warning, just in case. But if you were planning to get them for yourself, go for it! They are very great conversation pieces. 

[Halichoeres]

Yes, they are very good pieces but WARNING ABOUT SHAPEWAYS... they are hollow, and non-colored. If you were planning on getting them for your 7-year-old, don't do it! hehe... just a warning, just in case. But if you were planning to get them for yourself, go for it! They are very great conversation pieces. 

I didn't know they were hollow! Makes the perennial laments about breakage during transit make a lot more sense.

[tyrantqueen]

Yes, they are very good pieces but WARNING ABOUT SHAPEWAYS... they are hollow, and non-colored. If you were planning on getting them for your 7-year-old, don't do it! hehe... just a warning, just in case. But if you were planning to get them for yourself, go for it! They are very great conversation pieces. 

I didn't know they were hollow! Makes the perennial laments about breakage during transit make a lot more sense.

Actually they are not always, depending on the artist. An artist will usually make a large piece hollow with a small hole, to reduce costs. However they can get away with making very small pieces solid, because such a small amount of material is used that it won't make a difference.

The materials are very expensive as it is so hollowing out models is very much needed. You shouldn't really be playing with them anyway since they are not designed to be toys.

By the way, there's nothing to stop you from filling a model out with plaster when you get it, to improve strength and weight.

Makes the perennial laments about breakage during transit make a lot more sense.

I wouldn't say that breakages happen a lot. I personally have had very few problems with them. If you get a broken model you can usually contact the store and get your money refunded.

[NikToo]

Thanks, might get the T-Rex then. Can you give them a slight sandpapering to cut down on the grainyness? And it's for painting and displaying, not playing.

[Halichoeres]

Good to know, thanks!