Painting them yourself is easier than ever though! Contrast paints and washes alone can accomplish amazing things. Trust me, if you’ve thought about trying, do it. You can absolutely do a better job than that in no time.
Laser scanning is possible, 6-axis milling machines exist and on a subminiature scale.
Why is there no 6-axis painting machine? I understand there are 3D printers that can do this, but 3D printing costs more than just making a die (or reusing a similar die from another model) at a certain scale.
Money. 6-axis isn’t cheap to run or maintain, especially at this scale with the desired precision. Add in the inherent issues of working with a variety of paint colors (especially aerosolized), subtract the ability to mask features from over spray. Their prices would have to make Warhammer look bargain bin in order to recoup the costs of the machine, maintenance and consumables.
Archon Studios recently introduced a mayor new technology into the hobby with Prismcast. This “printer” basically paints curved 2,5 D surfaces which you glue together to make a fully 3D model. AFAIK there is no way to make this technology in 3D
Honesty they are pretty average for prepainted miniatures. Painted miniatures at this scale is just not something that’s easy to do or cheap.
The quality wouldn’t have been an issue I’d imagine if the pre release images hasn’t shown high quality minifigs. This is now typical WotC fuckery.
Painting them yourself is easier than ever though! Contrast paints and washes alone can accomplish amazing things. Trust me, if you’ve thought about trying, do it. You can absolutely do a better job than that in no time.
And everyone’s hands shake, you work around it :)
Which is surprising in this day and age.
Laser scanning is possible, 6-axis milling machines exist and on a subminiature scale.
Why is there no 6-axis painting machine? I understand there are 3D printers that can do this, but 3D printing costs more than just making a die (or reusing a similar die from another model) at a certain scale.
They don’t care, same reason they still use casting and resin and don’t move to 3D printing.
Money. 6-axis isn’t cheap to run or maintain, especially at this scale with the desired precision. Add in the inherent issues of working with a variety of paint colors (especially aerosolized), subtract the ability to mask features from over spray. Their prices would have to make Warhammer look bargain bin in order to recoup the costs of the machine, maintenance and consumables.
Archon Studios recently introduced a mayor new technology into the hobby with Prismcast. This “printer” basically paints curved 2,5 D surfaces which you glue together to make a fully 3D model. AFAIK there is no way to make this technology in 3D