"Miniatures of YOU, at Cold Wars!" Topic

Hey guys!

I am SUPER excited to introduce Minuteman Miniatures, a new miniatures production company I put together with a buddy, and to introduce our first service which we will be bringing to the Cold Wars 2018 miniatures convention in Lancaster, PA this weekend… personalized miniatures of YOU!

We will be at the Exhibitor's Hall at the convention where, thanks to 3d scanning and printing, we will be offering on-demand, "while you wait" miniatures of YOU in a variety of scales and from a variety of eras! As our first offering, courtesy of technology, we'll be able to make YOU to lead your French Napoleonic armies, your Roman and Greek armies (and it would work for a few other ancients armies), and your American and German World War 2 armies… and to venture into deepest dungeons as well!

And if we don't have what you want in terms of eras, we will ALSO maintain a "Of, By, For Gamers" board where people can propose DIFFERENT eras… and if enough people sign up, we'll produce it for you!

We will also have other things for sale, including a HUGE variety of tanks… literally HUNDREDS of tanks from different eras, WWI to modern day, at ANY scale you can imagine, including some of the most bizarre and rare ones, all printed ON DEMAND and on-site, and at a fraction of the cost of some of the big manufacturers… and if you've ever had a grandidea for a totally custom figure or unit or army we'll even work with you to produce it!

So please drop by booth 200 at Cold Wars, say hi, and pick up… well, YOU!

Thanks so much!

Hey guys!

As the other half of this enterprise, I just want to say I hope everyone enjoys this, and please do come by booth 200 and say hi… while I know a few folks from the toy soldier world, it would be nice to meet more!:)

What a brilliant idea. I have long wanted to do just this via Photoshop. I could just see me next to Ney charging up that hill….but that is in 2D

How much cleverer to do in 3D for modellers and wargamers

Thanks DH! I really hope people get a kick out of it, and like it… and we will be offering real discounts for every figure after the first, too, so if you collect more than one army (and lets me honest, who doesn't) you can pick up a few "yous"! I've got a "me" for my Roman army, one for my WWII Germans for Bolt Action, and I'm going to paint up a Napoleonic me for my Napoleonic army… maybe two, so I can suffer through the Russian winters along to my boys!

(I have to admit, that's a sentence I don't think anyone has ever typed before)

Anyway… been gaming for decades, and it's my first chance at doing something like this, so I really hope everyone enjoys it:)

Ah! The ego, the ego.

Actually a fun idea. A shame I cannot be there.

Artilleryman….

Yes… and yes! :) If it goes well we will try to get to Historicon, so if you can get there and are still interested…!

Ashram and Mike,

Please contact me about HMGS-Midwest-Little Wars, if not for this year, perhaps next.

Thanks, Kevin Cabai membership@hmgsmidwest.com

American Revolution?

Ok, my wife wants to know if you are doing full body scans or just the face :)

Kevin, Mike is the main man behind this; he will email you:)

Winston, as of now we don't have the AWI available… but we WILL be maintaining a "Of, By, For Gamers" board at the booth where you can stop by and request an era, and we'll keep requests displayed… and if we get a few requests at the convention (not sure of the exact the number, but roughly six or so should do it) ideally we'll get you scanned, get it made, and get it to you!

Dervel… at first we were considering it, but then we did a self scan and realized that we had developed a hitherto-unnoticed double chin, and we decided that we wargamers might look best if we use a chiseled soldierly body instead of our own:D Honestly I wanted to do a full body scan for zombie games… I cannot think of anything I'd enjoy more than watching me get eaten by a few zeds!:)

Wow… I am in….. I so neeeeeeed this, especially for my LOTR figures!

Do you have any Fantasy figures? Lord of the Rings types…

Viking, Gaul, German Colonial, WWII. I am quite ready.

I'd been saying this was a good use for 3D printing in wargaming! Hope it works out well for you, and I'll certainly be by the booth.
Sadly, I really need you to scan the me of 30 years ago. But still…

How long is your 'on demand – while you wait' build time for a custom 28mm figure?

Hey guys!

Rotundo, YES! I want a viking one myself, because I have a viking army and I want me to lead it! I may have to grow a beard first though… should we offer a beard service?:) Either way, you and me make two… we need like four or five more people who need vikings!:)

Robert, no worries… we offer the "Bridal" package where we do a bit of slimming and photoshopping.

Chick, depending on how busy we get, we are hoping to be able to get you the figures by the end of the day you get scanned. If it gets horribly busy, we might have to get it to you the next day. ABSOLUTELY worse comes to worse? We'll send it to you. But we are hoping to have it to you day of!

Lord Ashram, you can add a beard with green stuff, then after scanning, it will simply appear on your mini-me !

Dark Ages and AWI.

What printer are you using?

Dag, yeah, I might do that… I figure a fake Halloween beard would look good enough when you shrink me down too! Maybe a Lincoln-Me?:)

Pan, that's two for AWI! I would like a 40mm AWI Me for my son's army…

Schogun, I cannot actually tell you; that's a Mike question. I can just say "A super duper expensive one." Sorry, I'm not the technical guy:) It involves lasers and resin, and it is NOT one of those plastic dot ones.

I just know I can be a fat Viking Warrior. Modern armies, not so much….

Hey all!

@Schogun, Form 2, SLA liquid resin.

@Dagwood, @robert piepenbrink, we will offer 3d sculpting to modify the scans as well.

@Dervel, We can offer full-body scanning, half-scan display busts, and primarily facial scanning.

@Chicklewis, the idea is to start building from our morning's scans ASAP- it takes a few hours to build a tray of models. Hopefully we can stagger the construction throughout the day, with any remaining models sent to your door after the expo, free of charge. It really depends on the number of attendees that come to the booth.

Oh wow… this is exciting! Any chances of seeing this for Napoleonic era? I picture myself as a (not so) great British general. Kinda like a Legend in my own Mind…

Seriously – I can't make Cold Wars this year but I am planning on Historicon. Any chance you guys will be there?

BTW – @Lord Ashram – I've read your blog a few time – great reading!

Hey King!

We DO have a mounted French Napoleonic Colonel already… maybe Mike can post a photo….? And if we get enough interest, we can certainly do a British officer, or a Russian general, or whatever!

Not sure about Historicon; this is our first wargames business venture, but if this goes well I know I'd love to go to Historicon! I'm an elementary school teacher by trade, so my summers are generally pretty open:D

And thanks for the kind words… always tried to keep the blog a good read for someone looking to waste some time looking at pictures of toy soldiers! I've begged MIke to let me take a break from the booth here and there to go take photos of the convention… I love being able to go back and look at them, and a place to share some of the great games people put on!:)

Oh, and I should mention, if you DO purchase a figure and we scan you, we are looking to keep a library of sorts of all customers, so that if we DO eventually have another figure you want, or you want a different scale, we can just do it for you, easy!

Ok – I'd still like a mini of myself – even if it's a Frenchman ;-). Is there a way I can upload a picture of my mug, have you guys create the mini and ship it to me? I understand there will be an extra charge for being mounted and for shipping.

I see a great possibility for Head-Swaps !!

interested in coming down south to Bayou Wars?
plenty of (really) big egos down here will want these!!

I can foresee, in the near future, a whole army of clones!

I hope they are at Historicon because I'm definitely buying!

I'll be first in line if you come to Little Wars!

What is the cost if you are not one of the first 20?

Now THIS is a super cool idea!

Trying for Hcon this summer!

@princeman, We will be pricing on a nice sliding scale at Cold Wars. First figure for $25 USD, second for $20 USD, third for $15. USD. This is at 28mm range.

@Chuckaroobob, we will absolutely be at Historicon this summer. Cold Wars is just the first of many shows! :)

@Dervel, We can offer full-body scanning, half-scan display busts, and primarily facial scanning.

She has been to conventions in the past, so I think she was poking fun at me and my gaming friends when I showed her the ad this morning :)

But I like the idea and may have to get WWII figure made up while I am there (head only of course) ;)

Hooray ! You are using SLA, lasers and liquid resin !!

I designed, assembled, and built the prototypes for the first one of those systems, which was also the world's very first commercial 3D printer. I was lucky enough to be first employee of 3D systems.

Exciting stuff.

Chick

Female warriors? Bodacea? Generic ACW? British colonial: All 28mm?

Very cool! I wish I could be there.

My wife pointed out that my bodyscan would make a perfect Dwarf fighter.
Thanks, dear….

Hey Derv, and Cap too… aren't wives the best.

*insert serious eye rolling emoticon here*

Shag, hope we can see you at a convention and get you done up!

Cleo, okay, this is going to sound terrible… we didn't get any female models made because we didn't know if they would be popular enough. If you want to put it on the "Of, By, For Gamers" board and see if anyone else wants it, that would be great! I expect ACW will be the first one to get enough interest… just within my circle of friends, I expect three or four guys to be interested… :)

If worse comes to worst, just print a head for people to add to their own AWI body.

Is this something where you work from photographs? Like the physique thing of giving all figures a soldierly body rather than a wargamerly body, some of us might prefer being a bit younger, if only because the Social Security crowd are old enough to be retired, even from the Spartan army.

That said, when I give people the opportunity to select a Viking to represent themselves, they tend to go with buff, bare chested berserkers.

Grelber
(Who would, of course, like a buff, bare chested, and younger Viking version of himself--without glasses)

Grel, we actually use a 3D scanner to scan your face and head. We can then, with a little work, add your head to a body that we provide and print the whole thing up… and voila! So yeah, those of us with less of a soldiering body will look just fine on the battlefield, as we do not use your actual body:)

Can I just get sprues of my head in bulk?

"Hollywood: The Clone Wars Begin."

"Hollywood: The Clone Wars Begin."

Yes!

I realize it's probably too late for Cold Wars, but a "head swap" service where you just print our the heads (possible with a variety of easily digitally added headgear) would be great and allow all of to place the glorious likeness of ourselves onto any appropriate model

This appeared to be a smashing success. I had my mug scanned and ordered a few of the available figures. I can't wait to see how these turned out!

Best of luck guys.

TRU
(Tom)

I ordered too. Lord Ashram, one thought is to offer just heads as many of us do head swaps on figures. I've actually got a figure in mind to put my miniature coconut on.

Just realized BCantwell just suggested the same

Lord Ashram. I bought several at CW. Any idea when they will ship?

I'm with Milhouse. Things I ordered after Cold Wars have arrived, but not the figures from Minuteman I paid for at the convention. Lord Ashram, do we have a schedule?