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I wish to get custom minatures for my kids (they play such widely available characters as a Wilden Shaman/Runepriest and a Shardmind Psion).

Where can I purchase them? How onerous a process is this?

I'm thinking this sounds like a great Christmas present (price depending)

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Shapeways provides 3d printing services; there are already a few people selling miniatures through their storefront. I've never done 3D design, so I can't speak to how difficult it is, but it seems like there are two options: find someone who's done work there similar to what you want, and contract with them to do you a custom design; or play around with Blender, which is free and which produces files Shapeways can use.

Bryant
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There are two methods of getting custom minis:

  1. modification of existing miniatures
  2. having custom sculpts made

Modification is the easiest, and in skilled hands, produces exquisite minis. I'm a not an expert at minis mods, but even I can make halfway decent mods by careful use of a jeweler's vice, jeweler's saw, and superglue.

Custom sculpts are generally not going to remain custom; most of the sculptors I've encountered will take a commission at reasonable rates only with the proviso that they own the resulting sculpture and may sell it commercially. Otherwise, the prices get high quickly.

I know one custom minis maker: Forge of Ice. I don't have a direct contact for him, but the link is to his profile on a board I know he frequents.

He lists http://forum54.oli.us/index.php?topic=5205.0 as his "homepage"...

aramis
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Australia's Eureka miniatures has a program that allows people to commit to a particular sculpt - when enough are committed, the mini gets made. This seems like a practical middle ground, although I don't know if it helps you much...

http://www.eurekamin.com.au/custom.php

Jmstar
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Games Workshop's greenstuff (a modelling putty) and the modelling knife are really helpful. I made my human fighter custom mini with these.

doppelgreener
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Paul Smith
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I've seen around that people are making minis from the modeling clay that you can bake in your oven. There are a huge variety of colors available in craft stores. You could pick up the skills to do it yourself or maybe find someone on the net who's doing it and see if they want a commission.

clweeks
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