Am I mistaken, or...

do some of the casts in the right picture look like a certain Great Cannon kit? http://www.smooth-on.com/gallery.php?galleryid=234&cPath=1290

Wow. This gotta be so illegal..

Hang on, they are only selling the mold RUBBER. They are not selling the re-casts of the GW models (or the ready-made molds for the latter)

Nothing illegal there, right?

Yes I know. But I'm not sure if they may use the models for these photos commercially without asking. The point is that recasting miniatures, even for personal use, is illegal so I don't think that suggesting to do it (which they are by showing GW minis) is legal. They are effectively encouraging people to recast GW models which is illegal. Maybe there is nothing that GW can do about it, but nonetheless I don't like this. I'm against recasting other companies miniatures. They deserve the money - especially if they are not GW lol.

I agree with cianty - the way the ad is made up, it suggests that you can easily recast your favourite GW miniature with astonishing results. Not very nice, and I think it would not have been necessary...

I suppose it's just one of those things that people hope to get away with until the company notices abd tells them to stop. I don't think there's much GW could do to them, apart from make them stop. One the one hand I feel that the pic should be legal, but on the other hand it's almost as if someone was stealing someone's sculpt and selling it - so as an anarchist I like it; but as an artist's son I hate it. Aren't I hypocritical!

Pirating minis has a long & ignoble history, particularly gaming minis. While this practise does offer the gamer a relatively inexpensive alternative, the quailty of the pirated copies is invariably poorer due to the unavoidable shrinkage factor in making duplicates & the inferior quality of the metal & casting equipment.
Techniquely it's only illegal to sell the pirated minis; making them for yourself is frowned upon, but legal. The thing is that the cost of making a copy is high enough that it's cheaper to buy the original. A couple of mini makers, Prince August comes to mind, avoid the problem of having their pieces copied by offering their molds for sale.

Interesting. Does seem a little shaddy though. Hell, I'm too lazy to work with green stuff - I'm not about to try working with a mold. I'll just hand my cash over to GW same as always.

On this note - any of you fellows seen those 3D printers that can actually 'print' 3D sculpts? Now those are pretty cool!

Ethlorien wrote:

Interesting. Does seem a little shaddy though. Hell, I'm too lazy to work with green stuff - I'm not about to try working with a mold. I'll just hand my cash over to GW same as always.

On this note - any of you fellows seen those 3D printers that can actually 'print' 3D sculpts? Now those are pretty cool!

Yeah, I've seen those on the TV. Get one, aquire GW's computer sculpting program and set up your own company!

Hooray! It'll give me something to do when GW tosses me in jail.

But isnt that Prince August's whole gimmick, making toy soldiers the old fashion way?

oh yeah, the use of the great cannon and crew I think is more proof of their lack in green sculpting ninja skills. (on that note I think silicone is a great idea as silicone is more flexible when going from really hot to really cold, If I'd ever perfect the Shaman head and feel so satisfied that I didn't want to make models without duplicates thats probably a material I'd choose to cast it in, although the acctual specifics on the silicone would be interesting to see. components wise.)