I just think it’s so cool that anyone can just make custom toys now and sell them.
Yes a lot of stalls just sell the same thing, but yesterday I went to a fair and the 3 big stalls were so unique.
1st stall was all about high precision toys. Like I can’t explain how smooth the toys were. Talking to him he was all about making them as dialed in as possible with these tiny super delicate gears and moving wings on toys, or puzzles that glide like they are oiled off each other. I’m too lazy to go find the thing I bought as I was walking around the house playing with it.
2nd stall was all about large cartoony ones using a printer that can do up to 5 colors! I ended up getting a little dino!
Then the last one was a guy who only printed things he personally designed! With all his pieces being toys that are giant version of lego things like his giant lego light sabers that are straight out of lego star wars
(off his website as I didn’t buy anything from him)
It’s just so cool that these people can build their own little toy factories and make a variety of toys either in special ways, or make their own unique toys. I know it’s not star treck replicators, but it’s still just exciting to me.
I actually owned 3d printers in the past, but the effort to dial them in just wasn’t super worth it to me, since it felt like an all day activity to get my cheap printer to print my little $2 toy. Would much rather spend $5 to get a much better version off of someone else who spends all day working to make the print quality ace and put their own spin on the toys.
I don’t for the dino! They mentioned it was a multi color printer, and he’s a bigger print, so probably one of the more expensive ones. And the funny thing is these aren’t even as smooth as they can be, as these are large prints so have larger layer sizes (smaller layers = smoother). I need to go back to the one that does tiny parts and buy the articulated wasp that had moving wings and every limb moves, despite being printed as one piece.
But yeah it’s crazy that you can just go buy a toy factory for a few hundred dollars and make custom toys, with high end ones being only like 2k. It’s so cool not only for custom toy makers, but the boon they are for proto typing any product is crazy. Like the guy making the light sabers can try a new design for a few dollars, whereas previously he probably would have had to order a custom piece from a factory for who knows how much.
Yes get the wasp!
Haha, wow that really is amazing.
I was looking into them brcause I always like building things and making pieces out of wood for repairs around the house, but if the printers at this level now, it might be time for me to just take the dive already.
I should hurry up and live in the future.
Thanks for sharing, those pictures are stunning.