Why I think we can finally end the era of winging it with unique models that simply havent been commercially produced or are ridiculously expensive

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
21

I was more reacting to your comment below.

“I do not think it is fair for the minority who have the time, equipment, and skills to demand premium prices for their work, unless they had to invest several months and a lot of money into the model.”

I don’t mean to sound greedy. To anyone who has the free time and space to share and help grow the community, you are to be commended for it.

But please don’t be critical of people looking to make a business out of it . Sometimes there really is another side of a business not well understood by many. Software is getting expensive and a lot of capable free products (like sketchup) are no longer free and cost money for commercial use. Plus as I mentioned before, posting items for free or at a substantial reduced cost has a risk of being reposted or sold illegally.

22

I could not disagree more. Someone who has put the sweat equity into creating complex structures has every right to charge whatever they please for their work. You have every right to decline to pay what that person is asking if you think the asking price is more than what it’s worth to you. That person has no moral obligation to give you their product for what you deem to be a fair price. For there to be a transaction, both buyer and seller must agree upon a price.

A fair price is whatever the market dictates through the law of supply and demand. If the seller asks too much, no one will buy what he is selling. If the seller asks too little, he will minimize his profits. There is an optimal price point that will produce the greatest profit for the seller and that is what any seller strives to determine.

23

No I totally understand. My gripe lies with the mindset of not willing to share anything at all and charging extremely high prices for one’s work. I don’t condemn making money off of one’s 3d models, rather wanting to charge for every single model you make (down to a tiny satellite dish for example) and wanting to charge ridiculous prices for their models. 3d prints are not the Louis Vuitton of the scale modeling market, but I feel like many designers of these specialized models are taking advantage of people who don’t know what the model is actually worth or have no skills to design these models themselves…

24

Sorry, but I still think that

https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/f9eff045-ae08-4033-a4f8-539e9606f0f3

25

Paying for people does not bother me at all, as long as they are quality sculpts, which are near to impossible to find in HO scale.

Anyway… check out this week’s Weekend Photo Fun.

-Kevin

26

The other thing was cows, I needed a lot of them. Then one day at a train show, in the boxes under the table I found a ziplock full of cows for $35.00 I was ready to throw my 35 at the guy and offered 15. He took it and I ended up with 297 cows of various brands, most good quality with half being metal.

Those KnuckleDusters look nice.

My chief people painter is all grown up now and well on her way to being a Doctor, I need a replacement.[(-D]

27

Hi Brent,

As a doctor your daughter will need to maintain her fine motor skills! Do her and yourself a favour and send her a couple hundred figures to paint, and tell her I said she needs the practise![swg][(-D][(-D][:o)]

Cheers!!

Dave

28

Figure painting daughters are the best.

At Games Workshop “Games-Day” in Atlanta, I think it was 2002, my middle daughter and I both entered figures in the Golden Daemon competition. Neither of us won, but hers went further in the selection process than mine did.

This was my Golden Daemon entry:

-Photograph by Kevin Parson

This was hers:

-Photograph by Kevin Parson

At that same convention, we both entered the speed painting contest and made it to the final round. The final round was to paint a 28mm zombie figure in 20 minutes using only a #3 (huge) brush and four different colours of paint. She came in second. I think I came in 5th.

Both of those zombies were touched-up, and “live” on in my regiment. Note the Zombie Kitty on the left in the front rank. That is everyone’s favorite figure in this fully-converted regiment.

-Photograph by Kevin Parson

This was the group that travelled up there together. I am the tall guy not wearing Terminator Armour.

[(-D]

-Photograph by Andy’s wife

Steve, on the far left, did win a Golden Daemon at that convention. I would win a Golden Griffon shortly later, but I still do not have a Golden Daemon, or a Golden Sophie. Still, all good times.

She also helped paint the old Ford truck, but that was against her will.

[(-D]

-Photograph by Kevin Parson

-Kevin

29

[quote user=“BNSF UP and others modeler”]

NorthsideChi

I was more reacting to your comment below.

“I do not think it is fair for the minority who have the time, equipment, and skills to demand premium prices for their work, unless they had to invest several months and a lot of money into the model.”

I don’t mean to sound greedy. To anyone who has the free time and space to share and help grow the community, you are to be commended for it.

But please don’t be critical of people looking to make a business out of it . Sometimes there really is another side of a business not well understood by many. Software is getting expensive and a lot of capable free products (like sketchup) are no longer free and cost money for commercial use. Plus as I mentioned before, posting items for free or at a substantial reduced cost has a risk of being reposted or sold illegally.

No I totally understand. My gripe lies with the mindset of not willing to share anything at all and charging extremely high prices for one’s work. I don’t condemn making money off of one’s 3d models, rather wanting to charge for every single model you make (down to a tiny satellite dish for example) and wanting to charge ridiculous prices for their models. 3d prints are not the Louis Vuitton of the scale modeling market, but I feel like many designers of these specialized models are taking advantage of people who don’t know what the model is actually worth or have no skills to design these models themselves…

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30

Not entitlement, but say/know how in what I’m talking about…

Again, I design these models myself, as I’ve noted. I do the same things as many of these sellers 3d design wise, and I still hold that they are ripping people off.

Taking advantage of people who want a certian model under the guise of “well if you don’t like the price, you can go elsewhere” while charging silly high prices is a very poor attitude to maintain with fellow modelers especially when your model is the only one of its kind available. With many 3d models, there simply IS no where else to get this model. The key here isn’t freebies, its economical pricing.

Have you taken a look at shapeways pricing on your own? You might be surprised to see just how much is being charged for some stuff.

31

On the other hand, the arguement that these 3D prints are going to be everywhere and anybody can design one, means if they are the only one selling one, just make your own.

32

I’ve never done any 3D programming but I was a mainframe computer programmer and I know what a tedious process any kind of programming can be. There is a lot of trial and error. Someone who does the work to create elaborate structures owns the result of that work. It’s called intellectual property. That person has every right to charge whatever he pleases for that property and you are not entitled to the fruits of another person’s labor just because you want it. If you want it, you must either pay the asking price or negotiate a lower price but the seller is under no obligation to meet your desired price.

When you creat

33

Admittedly the topic and stance of this thread isn’t for everyone. The purpose of this thread was to talk about the advantages of personal 3d printing and the ability to save money via its utilization in the scale modeling usecase. If you do not care about saving money or designing/sharing/printing your own models with other like minded modelers, this thread probably isn’t for you.

34

Yes, I guess so.

Yes, I can see there are advantages. However, for us mere mortals there is, I presume, a learning curve along with the necessity to purchase the necessary equipment, along with the learning curve associated with whatever CAD program we would need to purchase.

I’m all about saving money, but don’t have the technical savvy to do the d/s/p part.

However, I do have a suggestion. Why don’t you gather all the designs you’ve made and are willing to share at some location and post a link to them? I would be more than willing to copy any information that I might find useful and take it to someplace with the proper printing equipment (I understand that some public library now have that capability) and get what I need made.

I might even be willing to provide you with some ideas for simple things that I personally would like to see be made inexpensively.

35

Sure thing. I’ll post the links to my wellcar body + detial parts + wheels folder, the folder with models of shipping containers I’ve found online, and a folder with models of aircraft I’ve found online (I’ve been collecting for future use).

Some disclaimers: the only models I own are those in the 48’ wellcar folder. Those are completely my work, they took several months to create, they are already HO scale, and they are print ready, the wellcar OBJ files even being pre supported for immediate printing. 95% of the parts for this car have been created, the only things missing are the tiny metal brackets that stick out from the corners of the wellcar, one brake assembly piece, and a couple body frame details. Now, for those on this forum or any online viewer who happens to come across this thread: these may be printed for personal use ONLY. You may make modifications to the files for personal use as you see fit, but please share them so the rest of us can benefit. If you want the origional .skp files, you will need to PM me. I’ve only provided the OBJ and STL files. You may NOT take credit for these models as your own or sell them, files OR the prints. The coupler pockets will take standard kadee #5 coupler boxes. You will need to drill your own mounting holes for the trucks. This model comes with no promises or “warranty”. I’m not responsible fo

36

Ok managed to get all the links up. Have a looksee, maybe you can find something usable.

37

This discussion reminds me uncomfortably of my mainframe programmer days.

“Programming isn’t difficult! It’s just words.”

Furthermore, I have no desire to learn a new software system and start a new hobby. If I want something that’s 3D printed I’ll pay for it.

The creator has the right to ask whatever price they want. I have the right to decide to pay that price or not.

Isn’t that peachy?

38

Bayfield Transfer Railway…

Speaking of just peachy[(-D]

39

I think I will express something I have learned…

If somebody makes a job look easy, a painter doing a piece, an engineer calculating a solution to a problem, a musician picking up a guitar and banging out a tune, that thing they made look easy represents hundreds of hours of hard work that you don’t see in learning to master that subject.

The minority who has the time, equipment, and skills; became such through countless silent hours of banging their head against the wall, hashing out how to render files, doing test prints to see if their idea worked in the real world and what had to be tweaked, making measurements off a prototype to transfer it into model form, etc… assuming that the prices they charge for file access is overdone is unfair to the people who put in the work.

Its like the Little Red Hen says, if you want the bread you have to put in the work for it… and those guys did and unless you want to master the process of drafting and making a model then testing how it works on a printer to prove you can do it better than them; you aren’t really in a place to complain about their prices or negotiate for cheaper prices.

40

I will recieve your comment as an ignorant statement (intentional or otherwise I do not know), knowing that is is quite clear that you have not made any effort to look at the wellcar model I designed (linked in my post higher up this page).

Seriously if you are going to tell people things about them that are blatantly untrue without even looking at their months of work on a single project they are offering to forum members for FREE, than your accusation of my not being in a place to make statements about others’ prices holds absolutely no ground.

I designed that model from scratch, I actively tested it (I have a picture of my successful prints in that wellcar folder if you would even just look) and I spent a long time on actual model design and then further time on ironing out print failures.

I’ve done my work. I’m no different in design ability than these other sellers.

'Nuff said.