Ye Olde Inn

With 3D printer prices dropping do you think someone will start coping the HQ mini's? Has this happened already?

only a matter of time if they haven't!

the ability to make a silicone mould and make recasts has been around for years...not sure how a 3d printer would be a use to make replica figures unless you had the digital copy......

Sorry if i come across as a bit terse, but this is one of my pet hates, where people have been told 3d printers are able to create anything and are a magic solution to everyone's problems.

3D printers are not magic. Despite what the media would have you believe. I own two high res machines and produce minis using them to make a master prototype for resin casting. High res machines use SLA which involves expensive resin, they are slow to print and expensive to run. You can buy a FDM machine for cheap, but its not suitable for miniatures. (large pointless blocks of plastic "art", yes - it can print those just fine if thats what you like)

Problem 2 is; to transfer a mini into digital format involves digital scanning. Which, again, is either expensive, or cheap and inaccurate. With scanners under £500 you will scan a mini and get a blobby balloon animal in your software. Or pay £15,000 for a high res medical scanner. Or pay a scanning company to scan for you at £120 per mini (breaching copyright laws, so most scanning companies wont do it)

So in conclusion, yes you can make HQ minis on a 3D printer... if you want to pay £120 to illegally scan a mini in high res, then buy a £8,000 printer which is suitable for printing miniatures, and then create one mini per 5 hours of operating time and pay £10 in materials and consumables doing so, and then still have to clean up the support structure which leaves a mess if you dont know how to prepare parts well.

Or you could not do all that, and just cast it in silicone and resin for £2 a model

I totally follow everything you say Thantos.
One point though- Once the first guy buys the high-end scanner and turns a model into data, that data can be shared with everyone for free.
We will definitely be seeing more and more of this.

But hey... radio and books still exist and I think traditional casting will continue to exist for a loooong time too.

Thats true, although not much can be done with the data until decent printers are available to the masses at an affordable price. Although things are moving fast, could only be 2- 3 years until that day.
I do agree that when that days comes, with pirated minis like we have pirated music today, its going to be the death of miniature companies

costs will go down, quality will go up, that's without question. the only real question is how will miniature companies deal with it? id hope we see a time when companies like GW and others embrace it and exploit its potential, possibly by selling software bundles of their own that will let you produce highly customisable models. miniatures and the like are a very passionate hobby and i think most hobbyists would prefer being able to make a better variety of better quality models, for a price, than you could ever possible hope to download illegally for free. how many times have you seen a model that looks absolutely perfect for what you wanted - if only he had a sword in both hands, or that shield wasn't strapped to his back or something like that? maybe the character design is amazing but the pose isnt what you'd want to see them in.
most plastic sprues and quite a lot of metal mini's have variant parts included, there could be a huge array of options included on a downloadable bundle!
the comparison is always made to downloading music, but whilst HMV and other high street music stores have gone under, iTunes is still making a healthy profit. itunes does it by still being reasonably cheap but far easier, safer, reliable and more user friendly than a pirate site will ever be.
i don't think traditional models will ever go away (some people still buy vinyls records after all) but as with all things, the future is coming whether you want it or not, you have to embrace it or get left behind by those that do.

Precisely Tott. Pirates didn't exactly kill the music industry.

But its certain that if companies like GW won't adapt, they will definitely start loosing profit eventually.

i dunno i can see how people forecast some worry on it. but as thantos stated. its still not worth it price wise. and things still have to be cast up.
i think you will see an increase of cheap stuff. not so sure the quality will increase though.

Thantos is right, 3D printers are so way overrated! You best save up for one of these.