I've posted about this for a while in the Fan Art forum and on Twitter, but now it's intersected with Treklit a bit, so I thought I'd bring it up here. And I know there are some like me who rarely venture off this forum into the wider board. I've been working slowly but steadily for the last year to amass a 1/5000 scale Star Trek model collection. I've now had 12 ships custom 3D printed. So far I've had two professionally painted. I just got the other ten in the last month or so and I plan on getting them painted as soon as funds allow. I also have a few pre-made models that happen to fit approximately in the right scale, like the Attack Wing Deep Space Nine. The reason I bring this up here is that a few of the models I got this week are Treklit related. There's the Columbia class USS Endeavour. And when I get this painted I'll have it be the Intrepid class USS Pioneer. There's a couple other Enterprise era ships I got made that also appear in the Rise of the Federation books, but rather than flood this post with lots more pictures I'll link to the page I made to show all this off on the Litverse Reading Guide. http://startreklitverse.yolasite.com/scale-star-trek-model-collection.php Hopefully sometime I'll be getting some more Treklit related ships. Anyway here's one more pic of my complete collection. Lots of painting to get done. Anyone else done any Treklit related modeling?
I chose 1/5000 because it ended up being the only size that made something really big like DS9 and something really small like the Delta Flyer feasible at the same scale. Most likely shuttles will be out of the realm of possibility, and Spacedock. But every other ship i know of should be doable eventually.
:: Tries to walk through the thread without acknowledging the potential infringement problems with this endeavor..... :: :: fails ::
When I posted the first time, there were links in the original post to a site selling such models, like a Vanguard station for $40-$50. Those links have been removed. Given the heightened scrutiny with respect to Trek and copyright infringement thanks to certain fan films and such, I'd prefer not to see any heat come down on folks here.
I did remove those links. They weren't intended to be soliciting or advertizing anything, just a "look at this cool thing I saw". And to be clear they weren't created by me. I suppose 3d printing, being a new industry, does have some issues to iron out with regard to these legalities, and I hope I will, one way or another, have the oppurtunity to continue adding to this collection for a long time. Honestly if a scale version of the Official Starship Collection were available, I'd much rather pay whatever price it took to have these store-bought instead of homemade. It's strange to me that high detail out of scale collectibles are much more common that to scale ones.
3D-printed? $40-50? Tiny size? Without a license? Yeah, I'd say that would constitute material infringement. Not like fan-art or fan-fic at all. When I read it (like "Tuskin38," with the links redacted), I was imagining that these were something a hobbyist was doing, and either giving away or accepting reimbursement for the cost of the materials. Sort of like the last time I visted the American Precision Museum, and a docent demonstrated a turret lathe by turning a tiny brass chalice, and then giving it to me. Or (same New England vacation) visiting the Mystic Seaport, talking shop with a docent-blacksmith, watching him forge a small iron hook, and then being handed the hook. (That generally doesn't happen at Colonial Williamsburg, because the tradesmen there are too busy making things that are actually getting used by the interpreters, or by the people doing reconstructions or maintenance, and any surplus they do make fetches premium prices in the shops.) Or the way we, at the International Printing Museum, will cast a Linotype slug, and print a souvenir card from it, then hand the paying visitor the slug (nicely bagged, with a card explaining what it is) and the souvenir card. All included in the admission price. Or how I might imagine attending a "maker fair," and being handed some doodad that was being run off to demonstrate a 3D printer, laser cutter, or other high-tech gizmo.
I have 12 printers running around the clock, this is a very profitable side business for me at the moment. I am willing to make anything for anyone, so long is it is not overtly a weapon, weapon accessory, 3D printed firearm, or copyrighted item. People bring me stuff to scan and duplicate all the time, and 90% of it I can't touch. I do not run a "xerox service for physical items" as my competition down the road claims to do. I will not slap Huskers logos on your thingy, print it in Huskers Red and make you 50 of them to pass out at the game. Nor will I duplicate 100 Warhammer figures for your army, and I certainly will not duplicate Star Trek Attack Wing ships for you. I might make one or two for my own personal use. But I am not going to sit there and make you a fleet. Go buy them yourself. People who treat this technology as a way to get stuff for free stand to ruin it for the rest of us. I can't imagine taking someone's IP and just xeroxing 1000 or more of the item without compensating the person for what they created. Now original works within a universe, that's different. I made 10 customized Warhammer figures that were not directly based on an existing model for a gamer this week. And I make plastic spaceships similar to but not direct copies of the ones in the movie about the war in the stars. If I was asked to cease and desist I would without reservation, however I don't forsee a problem as they are not direct copies of an existing model or product. And the volume is typically "order size: one." Closest I came was a Star-Destroyer shaped custom ship about 4" long for an avid role-player. Custom ship, custom design. I run a 3D printing group on Facebook (3D Printer Cult Extreme) where we discuss this sort of thing in detail. The vast majority of us draw the line at being duplication services, we prefer to create original works, or help other people create original works. That's the future for this technology and we are making it happen.
Thank you for that...original concepts--that's what I want to see. Ship concepts from the novels that no one ever thought to model. You may have seen this http://www.stratasys.com/industries/education/extreme-redesign
I think your issues with the 1/5000 scale show why, though. I don't want to collect a bunch of ships in weird, variable sizes.
I'm having no issues with the scale. The fact that they are different sizes is exactly what I want and is the entire point of the thing to me.
This doesn't exactly sound like no issues: There's only one possible scale you can work out, and it still makes some ships impossibly small and other impossibly large. (I'd guess you also can't do a Borg cube?) I know this is what you want, but it's probably not what most collectors want. A variable-scale collection means someone ends up with a matching set of ships, all of which can be sold for the same price. There's no way the Eaglemoss collection could work if each ship was 1/5000. I don't want an Intrepid the size of a quarter.
Well I know this a personal taste thing, so I'm not trying to argue about it. But I will say that not having a handful of shuttles and one impossibly large station (yes I do plan on having a Borg Cube), isn't that big a deal to me when I still have literally hundreds of other ships to choose from. I'm sure a single scale collection would appeal to a different and perhaps even smaller audience, but it's what I'm personally interested in.
I'm not criticizing your taste, nor do I disagree that there probably are other people who want what you want; I'm just disagreeing with your assertion that, "It's strange to me that high detail out of scale collectibles are much more common that to scale ones."
I agree with ryan as I would love to have a scaled collection of Star Trek ships! It's the same thing as when I was a kid and loved that the Kenner Star Wars figures were the "correct" size in relation to the other figures (at least to my 1970s eyes!).