Scanning heads for customs - How badly do you want it?
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Scanning heads for customs - How badly do you want it?

Posted in Custom Workstation

Hey peeps, in all honesty, would you buy high quality 3D printed heads?

I've been chatting with someone who sells 3D printed items, they can use a resin printer to print excellent heads at about $5 to $10 a pop.

However, to take it a step further, we're talking about buying a 3D scanner, to scan ANYTHING to rescale it to ANY size

The advantages of this?:

-All those small GI Joe and Star Wars heads can finally be easily upscaled. All those Hot Toys heads can be downscaled. The amount of unique heads we would have to work with goes up exponentially.

-Accessories can be created from anything! He could scan a TV or a bottle or a backpack or shoes, and make them accessories for any figure.

-If you have custom sculpts you want to duplicate, he could do it for you. Miniatures, custom heads, resin kits, etc. Send them in and we can build the library.

I'm sure there are tons of other uses, but the point is, do you think there's enough of a demand in the custom community to justify buying a 3D scanner? Would you regularly buy from him or use his scanning service?

Please ask this on all the forums and sites you visit, we need to gauge how much interest there is.

Posted by Henchmen4Hire
on Thursday, August 2, 2018 - Updated on Thursday, August 2, 2018
User Comments
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starwarsgeek -
Friday, August 10, 2018
You can upscale/downsize existing figures thru "traditional" casting and molding techniques as well. Just saying. I've done it for a bunch of items in my eBay store. Upscaling 3.75" heads to work with Marvel Legends and SW Black Series, as well as downsizing Hot Toys heads to work with the 6" scale figures. It can be an expensive and time consuming process, sure, but it's totally doable. I hope to get a bunch more stuff done.... someday.... lol
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Henchmen4Hire -
Friday, August 10, 2018
For sure, there was a guy who was enlarging/shrinking for like $30 a head, but it looks like he's either sick or scamming people because he's not fulfilling orders or answering emails.

Also, I don't think this 3D service would put normal casters out of business, because once you get past the initial expense of learning to make good casts/molds, it can be a faster/more convenient way to duplicate heads than waiting for a 3D printer and dealing with all that resin clean up every time. Plus, if the machine breaks...we're screwed.

Honestly, the biggest hurdle I've faced trying to get heads enlarged/shrunken is just trying to get in contact with the people who do it. Maybe my emails go straight to junk mail, or there are a bunch of flakes in this hobby lol.

There are trade-offs with each method so I think we should all be fine.
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starwarsgeek -
Friday, August 10, 2018
Yeah, I don't take commissions for it, but I do pieces I think will sell well enough to justify the cost and time that it takes. Because depending on the method, it can take weeks for an item to shrink. And depending on what size it starts/ends at, you need to make multiple molds as it shrinks a bit at a time.
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Spartan-023 -
Sunday, August 5, 2018
Sure would beat buying a figure for one part.
Could duplicate parts enlarge them.

Im already making a list. =)
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Henchmen4Hire -
Saturday, August 4, 2018
Thanks for the interest, please remember to ask this on all the places you visit. We're looking at maybe $1500 to $2500 for a scanner, and resin for the printer is expensive, so we need to be sure he can at least sell enough product to break even.

Photogrammetry seems nice, but all my attempts at it have yielded a crappy mesh quality.
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MercMouth Customs -
Friday, August 3, 2018
This would be a fantastic resource for our needs! It would be so much easier than making individual molds and casts. Would definitely use the service, and 5-10 bucks a head is more than reasonable. Just think, you might also be able to scan in clothes, and scale as needed!
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Henchmen4Hire -
Saturday, August 4, 2018
I think scanning real life shoes or hats wouldn't be a problem, also maybe scanning figure torsos to downscale NECA figures or something. Maybe scan armor pieces or even Sideshow statue torsos to downscale them.

More practically, I think people will want to scale down key parts, like Furiosa's head/arm/Immortan Joe symbol, large scale weapons/accessories, etc.
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Edgy 3 -
Friday, August 3, 2018
Great idea and I'm sure we all have a wish list of items and heads. as long as the pricing does't get out of control . I'm also sure we woud all use the service from time to time.
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Henchmen4Hire -
Saturday, August 4, 2018
There will have to be a charge to scan stuff because it takes time to scan and do post-process work. He would have to manually clean up the scan to get a printable model because nothing magically works right away, but I think he can charge something much more reasonable than the $125+ per item I was quoted by local 3D scanning shops.
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Redmist -
Friday, August 3, 2018
I think plenty of people will be willing 2 throw money on this service as Ivory Towers said! Duplicating has its appeal but re- sizing is even more appealing still IMO.
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antithetical -
Friday, August 3, 2018
You're right about that, I was only thinking about the items I've been waiting to have duplicated, but there are also some heads I would LOVE to have resized either up or down.
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antithetical -
Thursday, August 2, 2018
I have someone who does casts for me, BUT quite often it takes a long time to get things done and I might not hear anything for a few months. It can be frustrating when I need something cast to finish a figure and end up not being able to finish for several months. I'd definitely be interested, have some small things now I've been wanting to have duplicated. I'm not demanding on turnaround, if it takes 2, 3 weeks or a month, no big deal.
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Henchmen4Hire -
Saturday, August 4, 2018
Depending on workload and complications, I think he could scan a head in an hour or two, then some time to clean up the mesh to make it suitable for printing. In total, it might take maybe a few days between getting an item scanned and shipping out the print.
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antithetical -
Saturday, August 4, 2018
That sounds ideal, Hench. Much better than the wait times I have now.
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jumpinjeff -
Thursday, August 2, 2018
absolutely, I would pay for a service like that and would be a regular customer, for sure. I would love to see this idea take off! Best of luck,
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Ivory Towers -
Thursday, August 2, 2018
Yes I want! Will throw money at this idea!
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Red Wolf Kustoms -
Thursday, August 2, 2018
More often than not like most, we don't have the parts that is needed from our bone yard of figures for a custom build; or a site that does casting molds doesn't have the right size head or accessory we need. $5 to $10 for a print is a very reasonable price; we've bought 3D figure parts from shapeways that went anywhere from $8 to $30.

We got a small not expensive 3D Printer a couple months ago to mess around with and it does alright on some things we print from the site thingiverse. The potential could be great for someone with a quality 3D printer and Scanner. My Brother and I would definitely be customers.
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