3D Printing is the Future
3D Printed Warhammer 40K Dreadnaught
Using only the tears of the Emporer, BonsaiBrain has modelled up a replica of a Warhammer 40K Dreadnaught.
The model is free to download from Thingiverse. Of course you would need to check with a lawyer the legal ramifications of printing a replica of a model that is probably copyrighted by Games Workshop.
Are the others?
3D Printed Warhammer 40k Imperial Guard Sentinel
I did a search in thingverse and came up with some other models that 3D Yeti has designed.
He has designed this beautiful Warhammer 40k Imperial Guard Sentinel and this Warhammer 40k Imperial Guard Leman Russ Tank.
Now these figures sell for quite a whack at the store – about $60 or so depending on where you are, and to print them required maybe a couple of dollars worth of plastic.
3D Printed Warhammer 40k Imperial Guard Leman Russ Tank
Obviously the detail is not as good as the pewter figurines, but the outcome would be more than satisfactory for Gaming.
Lawyer Up Warning
Once again, I suggest you lawyer up if you need to find out the legalities of printing these objects. Cause I am finding it very hard to get the exact legalities involved for replicas of registered designs.
Postscript 10/12/11
The Leman Russ Tank and the Sentinal are not available any more after a DCMA take down notice by Gameworkshop that they served on Thingiverse.
I expect a torrent of objections are going to hit Games Workshop offices soon.
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12 Responses to Thinks to Make: 3D Printed Warhammer 40K figures
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The original versions of the WarHammer 4K pieces were distributed in a free PDF for players to print, cut out, and play with. I think they’d be totally okay with this.
Then again, they do make the majority of money from selling miniatures at $30 a pop, so maybe this is too much.
HI Joe – do you have a link to the PDF ?
I was not aware – It’s be nigh on 10 yrs since I retired my Eldar army.
Either google fails me or I was, once again, talking out of my ear.
I have a friend who was into this stuff and I swear he showed me PDFs of them. Maybe they were plain WarHammer and not the 4k variety or maybe I just dreamed it all in a fever. Also possible.
Hi mate,
2 of the 3 item are down now after a DCMA takedown notice by Games Workshop.
http://www.goldenboltersociety.com/paperhammer40k
It’s called Paperhammer, guys. Some amazing stuff has been made with it.
What surprises me is that this ‘fan art’ has not been subject to a DMCA takedown notice.
Perhaps I a naive to expect consistency.
[...] a legal battle, Thingiverse is complying to the takedown requests. All the models featured in my article last week are now not available on [...]
Games Workshop used to be all in favor of homebrew modeling. Their first Warhammer 40k rule book even had a section on how to turn a used deodorant tube into a Hover Tank for use in their games. Time was when they would have been behind 3D printing of game pieces 100%. Of course this was 20 years ago when they were still in the business of actually selling GAMES, instead of bad fiction and movie rights and fluff.
Their new business model seems to be unleashing their rabid attack lawyers to piss off and drive away all their customers. (It’s almost as though they put Lorraine Williams in charge.) We’ll see how well this works for them. Expect Games Workshop to go the way of TSR, and the dodo, soon.
Hi George – I assume you have seen this – only a few weeks after this article: http://www.3dfuture.com.au/2011/12/games-workshop-submits-dmca-takedown-notices-to-thingiverse/
[...] model, an official version of which costs £28 from Games Workshop, has been previously listed on a 3D printing community website, but the plans were reportedly pulled after a takedown notice was [...]
Modern GW kits are plastic or plastic-resin. They no longer produce white-metal or leadless pewter models and kits. Just a heads up in reference to the last paragraph under “Are the others?”.
[...] hit the news about well known content distribution site thepiratebay throwing up torrents of digital copies of their models. While the original creator of this digital document was hit by a massive lawsuit from GW (what [...]