We spotted this up on Treefrog forum and as it is a press release from Barzso Collectibles we decided to post it here.
Barzso Playsets’ “Press Release” below:
ATTENTION COLLECTORS!
The Future of Toy Soldier Collecting is here!
We all think we are generals, now make yourself into your favorite character figure!
You’ve heard about 3-D printing — Now see it in action.
Sponsored by Barzso Playsets Inc.
Bodastone Photo Sculptors will be at the Chicago Toy Soldier Show at the Hyatt Regency Schaumburg 5th floor on Friday Sept. 26 from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and will have a booth at Sunday’s show.
Get scanned so they can turn you into a 3-D miniature! (You may bring helmets, hats, uniforms, etc. to wear for the scan.)
Prices start at just $35.00 for a miniature bust and $70.00 for a miniature full figure. (other options available.)
Sign up sheets for appointments will be available starting Thursday, Sept. 25 in Barzso Playsets Room 5101.
(A non-refundable $20.00 deposit, applied to the price of the scan, will be required for reservations.)
Brought to you by Barzso Playsets Inc.
You can see some of their work at the link below
In 1:32 scale?
Christian
You would have to check with them on their scale for their figures.
I have just put up a link to Bodastone, so you can some examples of their work.
http://www.bodastone.com/
I could be wrong, but I’m thinking the introduction of a gimmick like this at OTSN sounds the deathkneel of the traditional Old Toy Soldier Show. It would mean the beginning of the end of toy soldier shows being toy soldier shows; instead, our shows will become something like comic cons, where everything is mixed in with other entertainment and old comics themselves are simply a secondary consideration. And I’m disappointed that Ron Barzsos, who I always considered a stalwart toy soldier traditionalist, is the one who would introduce a gimmick like this into OTSN, something that has only an ancillary connection to toy soldiers. But that’s just me — always old fashioned and out of step with the times. I guess that’s why I’ve always clung to collecting toy soldiers.
Don Perkins; I agree.Unfortunately technology has become the killer of true human entertainment/interaction and use of brain/imagination. Every year there are less children interact with physical toys while spend hours watching videogames and focusing on NEW mini pc tools. They have become slaves of the future programmed world. This with the internet have forced toy/collectible regular front door shops to close down in the thousands in just last 10-15 years. Toy soldier’s shows and even action figures/toy shows are less every year. The world is changing way too fast in order for us to recover and adjust with it.
I notice this 3D Phenom is scheduled to take place on 5th Floor all day on Friday, and then on Sunday at the Show itself. Normally, all attendees at OTSN would be busying themselves going from room to room, and from table to table, engaged in the business of buying and selling old toy soldiers. That’s the reason I go to some substantial expense to travel to Chicago and stay at the Hyatt for a long weekend.
But if I see a line form for 3D on 5th Floor on Friday, and traffic activity around the 3D Booth throughout the show on Sunday (all by people who otherwise would be trading with the dealers for toy soldiers) I will conclude that a foreign element has been introduced that detracts from the normal business of the show. This will represent a degeneration of OTSN. I’ve always liked Ron, and appreciate his contributions to the hobby. But does he really need to inject such a disparate event into OTSN, just to make a couple of extra bucks? What’s next — carnival rides and donkey basketball for the kids?
I looked at this 3D website. It is a vanity thing, presented as something for wedding events. It is only tanginitaly related to our hobby. I fear we’re losing one thing we’ve always had in Chicago every September — a huge weekend for and with exclusively toy soldiers. I enjoyed the atmosphere where every person I met was focused for a couple of days on toy soldiers and toy soldier friendships.
I hate to be such a hopeless Victorian prude, and I could be overreacting. But I feel the purity of OTSN has been substantially compromised.
Don
I would suggest that you talk to Ron to see why he brought this company to OTSN. I see 3d Printing allowing people to make the figures they always wanted. The cost for making figures right now is very time consuming and expensive. We said that when dot matrix printers came out and they cost between $500.00 to $800.00. Today you can get a good printer for under $50.00.
I can’t say I agree or disagree, I’m taking a wait and see attitude on the whole matter. Part of me is intrigued by the idea itself, while another part of me doesn’t care in the slightest. I don’t think it will adversly affect my experience of the show though. Just another sideshow.
Admin and Ed are probably right. I could be overreacting to what may, as Ed says, turn out to be a relatively benign, harmless sideshow at this year’s OTSN. But I like OTSN the way it is, without the sideshow. In any event, at my age (I started retirement 2 years ago), I expect I shall die clutching my vintage Marx and my traditional W. Britains’ boxed sets, in the old style. Come to think of it, when Louis Marx appeared on the scene with his realistically animated plastic figures, traditional painted metal collectors may have winced a bit, too, as the stampede started to plastic. But I consider little boys who grow up without this stuff to be the poorer for it.
Yes, the youth of today and perhaps the last 20 years will not know what it was like for us old folks when we grew up. I think we are the better for it and I think society today reflects that loss of ideals and principles.
I for one am interested in 3d. Not as a replacement, but as a supplement to the hobbyist/collector.
It is a tool, just like the jewelers saw, and glue. Make your own figures cheaply, make them multipart, and articulated, in any scale you like, make building, etc, etc.
We are there except the cheap part. I don’t want a figure of myself, but of ones no one else seems to care about making. Articulated, multicolored figures in 54-70mm scale.
I have tons of figures, but some periods are definitely lacking in this range and type of figure. Some may call it fantasy….Beowulf, King Arthur, Vikings, etc. More western Indians, More character western figures. The Cartwrights, Paladin, Cheyene, etc.
Josie Wales, Mango. In poses you like, not what someone else likes, I could go on, and on.
Good luck on anyone producing these figures for you as well. The market is not there for them apparently. Thats why everything is so expensive, then if its got a copywrite
it just becomes cost prohibitive to produce.
3d Printing can, and will change the ways small businesses think, and do business now. The more this tech is advanced the cheaper it will become also. In the not too distant future, you will see some amazing things, based on this technology.
Ed C
You can do a figure that seems to be like the character, but you do not want to fringe on possible copyrights. If your likeness is the same as a famous person you could be sued.
You are right it could get expensive for the copyrights. Conte Collectibles did generic warlord face as Charlton Heston wanted very big bucks for his likeness.
I have a friend who keeps up with “Tech” stuff. He keeps me updated on 3-D printing info. From the info I have been getting from him, it is not to far off before there will be 3-D printers that not only will be affordable to people like most of us, but will also be faster and be able to do the detail needed for us to make our own toy soldiers. (Maybe someone will make an App program that will allow us to create 3-D figures on a computer in the time period and poses we want that can be downloaded to the 3-D printer.)
I see 3-D printers as a big plus for the hobby. We will be able to produce figures in the time period and poses we have always wanted that no one is doing. I can think of many figures I would love to have to play with that I would be able to make. This might also lead to people meeting up at shows and trading figures amoung themselves that they have created on their 3-D printers. (Like many of us did as kids.) Some may start selling the figures they make.
As far as makers like TSSD, Barzso, and others, I would still buy from them, as they will create figures and acessories that I have not thought of making myself.
Bobby
Bobby
I agree that there will be great plus from 3D for the hobby. There will be negatives I am sure. It was when EBay started we thought it would another avenue to sell our products. while it is, it has hurt the normal markets. It was one of the reasons I stopped doing the list.
They even have printers that can print objects in metal !!! It is very expensive, but even that price will continue to go down. You can do way more than just make figures. You can print, anything you can imagine, that can be put in a 3d form. Think of art work, people are even using this tech now to build houses.
Imagine a space station on Mars, the moon, in orbit, you will not need some big manufacturing plant to make parts, you can do them right there, as needed, custom made and built. They are even using this in making replacing organs, someone that has lost a body part, like a hand, or foot, its incredible technology.
Ed C
The 3D printing is like what computers were 40 years ago. I remember seeing the kits and the crude programming and look what we have now. So I am sure we will have it with 3D printing.
Ed Connell and Bobby Wright are undoubtedly right about 3D being the wave of the future. And we all know what happens to those who stand in the way of progress or “stand athwart history and cry ‘stop'”.
I’m heading to OTSN early on the morning of Sept. 26, hope to arrive just as the Hyatt breakfast bar opens, and am determined to experience the same enjoyment I have on the ten (10) or so previous occasions I’ve attended.
Don
Go to OTSN and enjoy it the way you want to. The 3D printing is just a sideline. You will have so many things to do you forget about it.
You know I shouldn’t say this, because someone will steal this idea, but one of my visions, is to make knights in 54-70mm scale, make them articulated, and put electronics in them, so you can joust on horseback, and then they can dismount, and melee, with real miniature weapons. Via remote control. How cool would that be.
ED C
A great idea and with the way things are going you may set your idea come around.
Hopefully this tech will not go to the dark side.
You are right Paul on copyright infringement, they are discussing numerous laws now about it with this tech. If I wanted to make a Paladin figure, I could not make one that looked like Richard Boone for sale, and would not anyway. However, I could make my own. He might not look exactly like the character, nor identical to Richard Boone. I would not call him Paladin if I were to sale the figure, just a hired gun. I would call Cheyene Bodie a scout/gunfighter.
Most the figures I want to make there is no copyright on.
Don,
If it gets too bad, stop by my room, I’ll have beer.