I just found this and ordered today. I like that you can get them in gray which makes them playable without painting which I am not good at. Prices are also great!
Will do so, I am a horrible painter... And I made a second order as well.
No worries about paint. I'd just like to see the quality. Despite the "stair-stepping" on funnels, the Akagi, for example, looks really sharp. A PIC Better than Shapeways "white, strong & flexible" which they call White Natural Versatile Plastic now.
What color did you get? Grey? White?
The price does seem much better...$17 on Shapeways and $10 on Etsy for the Akagi is a pretty big difference...
Will do so, I am a horrible painter... And I made a second order as well.
No worries about paint. I'd just like to see the quality. Despite the "stair-stepping" on funnels, the Akagi, for example, looks really sharp. A PIC Better than Shapeways "white, strong & flexible" which they call White Natural Versatile Plastic now.
What color did you get? Grey? White?
The price does seem much better...$17 on Shapeways and $10 on Etsy for the Akagi is a pretty big difference...
Everything I have purchased is Grey as in Haze grey and underway.....
Their ship their coffin The cruel dark sea their grave.
Heres my take;; These units are about saving money so;;
Material wise;; if your buying or painting Shapeways cheaper materials this is a better deal,
you'll need care to get a smooth look, that's impossible with Shapeways; just look at Weed's give aways;
He's an excellent painter, but close up you will always get a grainy look.
The Models;; It's been a while since I purchased from Shapeways; I'm just painting my last order of 4 years a go some 50 ships and 50 planes.
I've had some issues; no two models looked exactly the same, missing and deformed parts a lot of back and forth with Shapeways;
Maybe today its a bit better??
These models have some issues to; mainly lots of tags to be cut away, [if your not careful you may cut some parts off you don't want to]
along with spider webs and some deformed parts; I found it to be manly cranes, the smaller gun barrels and plane props; not horrible or anything you couldn't live with
just annoying.
The order;; Came timely a few days; ordered a sample of BB's, CA's DD's and Planes;
they compared well to the originals maybe a bit smaller; i believe i received a smaller scale CLEVELAND, if a din't they have a problem, don't think so
the other CA's were fine. As i said the Plane pops had a lot of tags and i messed a few up the material cuts but can break off a bit brittle.
I also received some extras which was nice and 10% off my next order which will be some Carriers;
The extras i received were Nagato which was a very nice model a Portland class CA which had a few missing details not to bad;
The third unit was a large scale i believe BB have no idea what ship.
As i've said been awhile since Shapeways for me; but if you want to spend on the better materials or want movable turrets and a greater selection its Shapeways;
These units just added to your decision making, but defiantly a way to save money.
I received my first two orders yesterday. I appreciate the fact they come in gray, which makes them useable without painting for war-gaming. The quality of the designs is very good for this scale of model, much superior to the WOC models. One of the bags in my order contained 4 Fletchers, 2 Gwins, & 1 Mahan (It was supposed to contain 6 Gwins'). The really neat thing about this bag was that I was able to identify the three different models, based on my knowledge of these three ship classes. These are great models for wargaming. I also received 6 extras identified as imperfect models. I was able to identify all six models from my own knowledge, and only one of them seemed poorly printed in any way (It was a darker gray that would be nice to offer as an option). These were way better than the past Shapeways model I have ordered..
Hey all, glad to see you found XPForge. I recently granted him a license and have been very pleased with what I can see so far.
I've been very displeased with my side of Shapeways, not to mention their pricing. They are very bloated. I plan to continue uploading my new models (which I will resume design on shortly as I am finally done with school) there but definitely prefer XPForge. An additional benefit to XPForge is that you're supporting US-based small businesses if that's something you care about.
Ghukek, do you have any idea if he's going to get into resin like Shapeways "Smooth Fine Detail Plastic"?
To be clear, most resin is going to be of higher quality than SFDP. If he were to get into resin printing, it would be more comparable to Shapeways' Accura Extreme as I showcased in my material comparison post.
The main resin printers we smaller hobbiests and companies use are too small to print my larger ships - the fleet carriers and fast battleships, but just about everything else is possible. I can't speak on his behalf for what equipment he has or is planning to obtain but I'll pass the interest on. I am on the lookout for a resin manufacturer regardless. I believe that a small company with low overhead can easily beat Shapeways SFDP on price while being comparable or better in quality.