Hello everyone! Fair warning I am a “super noob” when it comes to DND. Also…I mean absolutely no disrespect with this question — only looking for some information. 

I recently bought a resin 3d printer and have been wondering if market demand exists for DND players with STL that need figurines printed.

I understand sites like titancraft and heroforge have great products but would players with their own STL files that need figs, buy from a small supplier?

Or. Is there plenty of people satisfying the need for 3D printing figs?

Thank you so much for any information!!

It’s tough to say if there’s “plenty.” Etsy is full of people who have minis for sale, if that’s what you’re asking. 

HeroForge‘s Terms & Conditions expressly do not allow third-parties to print and sell HeroForge minis—and doing so would violate HeroForge’s intellectual property rights.  Without looking at Titancraft’s T&C, I can all but guarantee that they have similar language. 

Which means trying to do what you suggest - offering to print others’ STL files for profit - is going to get you slapped with a big old’ cease & desist letter, with the threat of (really easy for HeroForge and Titanfall and really expensive for you) litigation should you continue. 

Oh that sucks but makes sense that big companies want to deter people from selling their creations. Thank you for the input!

There is defiantly a lot of people printing on Etsy but a more specific question is this:

Do players have their own, custom STL figs they want printed

Pure speculation, but I would hazard a guess that those who make their own custom STL files to design minis for 3D printing probably already have 3D printers and thus do not need someone else to print for them.

That is, however, pure speculation and I’ll freely admit I could be completely off base—but I think that possibility is low.

I bet you are 100% correct. That defiantly makes sense. 

I will admit to being a novice in both D&D and 3D printing. With that point in the open I originally wondered if players had several of their own STL files that needed printed here and there. Not needing figs printed often enough to justify buying a printer for themselves. 

This could be a misconception but I also wondered this... If a person purchases an STL file from Heroforge or another similar company — isn't that file theirs to do with as they please? Couldn't they take that file and pay someone else to print that? Not really sure how that works. 

My idea was not to purchase files from those companies and sell those products. I imagine that's a big no no. 

I suspect it’s actually the reverse - folks who bought a 3d printer to play around with and have now developed their own custom designs and printed them and are more likely looking for commissions to create figures for others just as a number of artists on here that seek art commissions to create beautiful 2d images of folks characters 

Quote from Fireoa >>

This could be a misconception but I also wondered this... If a person purchases an STL file from Heroforge or another similar company — isn't that file theirs to do with as they please? Couldn't they take that file and pay someone else to print that? Not really sure how that works. 

My idea was not to purchase files from those companies and sell those products. I imagine that's a big no no. 

 It is not their file--they purchase a license to it, but HeroForge actually owns it.

I won’t even try to speak to the legal bit. But as a consumer, there’s no way I’d buy the file from heroforge and have a 3rd party print it for me (the only exception might be a friend with a printer, but that’s a different animal than what we’re talking about).

I don’t know the 3rd party’s level of quality, and if there’s a problem, I don’t know who’s to blame. Not to mention, why would I want to add extra steps to the process. 

What you can do is have your customer provide you with the STL from HeroForge which you are allowed to print for them. You must delete the file afterwards from your system (you can't in anyway keep it, so if another customer wants that exact same figure, they have to buy another STL, give it to you to print, then you delete your copy again, etc). That's within their terms and conditions. However, 3D printing is very competitive so by the time you factor in shipping...I doubt you'll get much profit, if at all. Like my local 3D printing shop did minis for £1.50(ish), but estimated that it costs about £0.80 to do it at home. It costs more than £0.70 to ship them.

Eldritch Foundry allows you to sell minis you print using files you bought from their site...but they require you to email them to set up the agreement. I haven't actually tried, so I don't know how much they'd charge and whether that would still keep it viable.

Honestly though, the money isn't in printing, it's in painting the minis. That's how you make it profitable. They give you the STL, you print it, paint it, and you get a nice payment. Won't make you rich...but it'll pay for the hobby quite easily if you do it on the regular.

Quote from Xalthu >>

I won’t even try to speak to the legal bit. But as a consumer, there’s no way I’d buy the file from heroforge and have a 3rd party print it for me (the only exception might be a friend with a printer, but that’s a different animal than what we’re talking about).

I don’t know the 3rd party’s level of quality, and if there’s a problem, I don’t know who’s to blame. Not to mention, why would I want to add extra steps to the process. 

 If it's local, you can always inspect it before giving payment. I've never had an issue from HF (in terms of the file they've sent me, I've had issues.where they messed my account up, but that's a separate thing), if there's an issue, it's pretty much always the printer's fault, not the file you provided.

So, titanforge will allow you to sell figures made using them, but you have to purchase a license form them on a yearly basis.

Custom figures are one of the things you can get through several sites, including Fivrr, so if it is something you want to do, then absolutely go for it. People do indeed pay to have models printed -- and not merely D&D folks.

My now ancient printer is filament based additive, and about a decade old, so I finally broke down to get a new one of the fancy SLP resin ones so I could make figures. I am used to modeling though it has been a while, so I expect to be creating the custom figures for the monsters in my new campaign, but I will be giving all my playes a custom heroforge/titanforge miniature and scaled figure version as a combination of thanks for playing and also just cause. Filament sucks for figs.  

for those wondering, learn to use a 3d modeler. Wings3D is free, and if you you need a pose or something you can get Daz Studio and then model around an export of that.