kaipo

My Cinematic Universe Phase One display.

I am saving room in the corner for Wave 22. If anyone can help me out I'm looking for the full set of 7.

@zach pretty sweet.. need that MvC wolverine and Sentinel ahha.

A lot of Marvel Legends customizers used the Hulk Classics “Mecha Hulk” to make MvC Sentinels, which got me thinking maybe the reverse was possible for Minimates...

photo-11.JPG

kind Mecha Hulk-ish, right?

the left over Sentinel limbs can even be used to make a Cyber Spider-man (though incorrectly colored)

awesome paint job

Are the regular ASM Spidey and Lizard Mates poorly executed? I remember them being pretty well received. So how does ADDING paint apps to them suddenly make them sub-par?

I understand someone not wanting them. I would even understand someone calling them "lazy" -- although I would prefer "easy," since the hard work was already done on the regular releases. But to say the Minimates are of poor quality... Don't confuse quality with individual desirability.

If taking two quality Mates and altering them slightly to make them available to a new, different audience makes them somehow "less than", then I think you have to indict far more than 1% of the line.

Personally I love battle damaged variants and the sewer battle ones were unique that they weren't just regular-old-battle-damaged, they were covered-in-green-sewer-juice-battle-damaged.

this is epic....

From the @Iron_Man official twitter: Now on display at #ToysRUsTimesSquare: the @Marvel’s #IronMan3 Hall of Armor! http://bit.ly/11Pd7Fy

someone could print out a bunch of ghost rider bikes too. hehe

I would be happy with a simple Stan Lee/First Appearance Spider-Man re-do convention exclusive. It would have a Spidey, so Chuck would be happy, and Stan would be a great selling point for a con exclusive. It has to be better than a "sewer battle" exclusive, right?

I would love that!

That's exactly what I'm saying, we get a lot of garbage exclusives like that, why not some love for Stan?

Garbage? Wow.

Hmmm...Sewers are full of garbage? Clever pun?

Nobody puts Kitty in a corner.

haha nice!

lol how is this minimate related

This is one of my holy grails for the next few years when the output has better resolution and doesnt require a ton of sanding. We already have 3d scanners, people are hacking kinect sensors for cheap 3d scanners.

I look at 3d printers the same as the current Lego aftermarket stuff - it will never replace or be a true competitor to the original mass produced stuff, but for customs and one of a kind stuff it will be excellent. I think the cost of manufacturing a minimate body will be too expensive, but for hairpieces and wings, etc, it should be fine.

The best printer for this stuff is the type that solidifies a liquid resin from a pool of material, not the current hobby level machines that are on the home market. Hasbro has an industrial strength one to prototype their stuff and the quality is superb, no scan lines! I saw the output at their convention appearances and spoke with the team at length.

Never say never. Remember dot-matrix printers? They are a far cry from todays home printing tech, and I trust 3d printers will follow the same path, hopefully at a faster pace. As for the average housewife being unable to 3d model? Well, how many people can create stickers? Yet there are plenty of free designs here to print at home. Theres already a community for free 3d designs out there, and I expect them to grow as the tech gains further adoption.

But also remember we have the technology to print our own comic books at home, and who even does that? Home printing hasnt destroyed the comic book market.

There are a few possibilities for minimates specifically that resolve around the cost of printing an entire body. If its cheap enough to print a quality full mate, then customizers will buy extras for printed parts. If its expensive, then while you can print hair pieces, you still need a body to make your custom on. BUT customizers have rarely been a sizeable percentage of sales for any major toy line. And regardless, everyone will prefer to buy the originals from DST first due to cost and quality. The only market that might suffer is the aftermarket, but even then most will prefer the originals.

Bottom line is, I think 3d printing will be a blessing, not a curse for minimates. People will buy more to customize or accessorize. People will be more willing to buy 2 packs that have only 1 character they want if they know they can customize with the other, or will be more willing to buy entire packs or lines just to customize. I may not like Street Fighter, but for a few hucks more I can turn them into Star Wars characters! I only fear there will be more competition for clearance and sale fodder down the road.

Thanks for your thorough response. It's pretty interesting that Hasbro has one that's pretty capable of producing high quality stuff. I wonder how long that technology will be available to the average consumer. (10-20 years?)

I think the real danger lies in people 3D printing 3D printers.

The market would collapse! Of course, by then we will all be dead from 3D printed bullets.

And I think the differences between an injection-molded figure and a layer-by-layer printed figure will be instantly noticeable to anybody, so I can't imagine there will be a counterfeiting problem, especially since few Minimates are worth that much, and the ones that ARE worth anything need detailed paint applications and tampo printing, which you can already do on top of any existing 'Mate, if you have the materials.

And you can already reproduce pretty much anything by making a mold of it and casting it in a pressure pot, so it's not like 3-D printing is a game-changer except in the realm of exporting digital forms. It's not about reproducing things, it's about CREATING things. Which, again, you can already do with clay, just less precisely.

Ah, I see. I guess like monkeycrumb said, it would be more of a blessing than a curse.

What about a complete deadpool corps

just missing dogpool... and well that guy would be more of an accessory

speaking of dogpool I've seen a custom one (on the minimates awards show comic) and who made that??? I totally want one

thanks good to know. hopefully we get a minimate-sized hall of armor display. wink wink

that display is pretty sweet, how big are cosbabys? would it be to scale for minimates?

I wonder why they don't call it the Fantastiplane instead

and Unless Series 2 is Mark 8 through 42......

All right Zach, the bar is set... please raise it!

"The bar? Where?"

-Tony Stark

We will find out in less than a month!

Box Set! It's a spoiler, and the set comes out after the movie. It's a repaint, so it'll be in the box set.

I'd be quite chuffed if that were the case. Of all the armours that have been shown, The Space armour was one of the more visually distinctive ones.

If it could come in a box set with this bad-boy - i'd be happy for the remaining 3 spots to be re-releases of old armours :

It's probably fake - but damn, it looks sexy!

lol, looks pretty "suite"

What's a spoiler? The box set or the armor? Don't think the armor qualifies as a spoiler, its on the official Facebook page after all lol.

Unfortunately, I think Zach is being honest about the lack of new armors.

I think he realized that when he teased an "Iron Man 3 extended boxset", we somehow jumped to conclusions that it will be all the new armors from the film that aren't in the LCS or TRU waves.

I think what it will be is this, essentially a reissue of the Marks I - VII with a display piece and a Stark variant:

This seems like the most plausible theory at the moment for the boxset. Zach said don't expect to see even 1/10 of the 35 new armors. Simple math means that's 3.5 armors, so at most that would be 3. Which is how many were revealed today. Another possibility I'm thinking is they continue the trend of the previous 2 iron man movie boxsets, with 2 battle damaged versions of previously released/main wave armors and 2 civilians or supporting characters.

@Undeadpool, not sure if a second tru wave is in the works, it was never mentioned. And they didn't do that for cap, Thor, avengers, or amazing Spiderman. So i don't think its super likely.. but the boxset is confirmed.

This is all just speculation for fun. I am totally stoked for all the IM3 mates so far

It's up! The new armors are:

Mark 17 "Heartbreaker"

http://i.annihil.us/u/prod/marvel/i/mg/2/30/515aefddb60fe/detail.jpg

Mark 33 "Silver Centurian"

http://x.annihil.us/u/prod/marvel/i/mg/b/90/515af0b3d0bf5/detail.jpg

Mark 41 "Skeleton Suit"

http://i.annihil.us/u/prod/marvel/i/mg/9/30/515af07609dea/detail.jpg

The Heartbreaker was one of my favorites, I'm glad to see it! The other two look great as well.

Nice!!! I like the parts reuse on the skeleton suit from the Mark V.

Was reallllly hoping for Igor though. Oh well. I won't complain, I honestly wasn't expecting 3 out of 3 to be armors.

Cubify's Cube retails for $1299. The plastic "ink" cartridges are $50. This would be equivalent to laser printers back in the day when they came out.

To me, the technology has two fundamental barriers to widespread adoption:

• 3D modeling is too hard for the average consumer. Ivan (Hail Ivan) is a modeling genius, but your average housewife isn't going to be designing stuff yet. We need the equivalent of Photoshop Elements or Instragram for 3D modeling. Check back in 2023.
• The alternative to 3D computer modeling, and what everyone really wants, is 3D scanning. Right now there are Cloud based options but no consumer level 3D Scanners.

That said, I do see both barriers being overcome in the future. Imagine an iPhone app that lets you scan a copy of your house key. You walk into your local hardware store, upload the scan, and the 3D printer prints out a metal copy. Nice, but you can do that today by just bringing your key into the store. How about this scenario in 2023: You 3D scan your key that you accidentally packed with your luggage when you got on a flight to Free Pyonyang. From the airplane, you 3D scan the key and text it to your housesitter. She curses you for having old fashioned lock and keys instead of voice-recognition locks but heads off to the hardware store to print a key so she can get in and water your plants.

I think 3D printing is a boon for toy makers at the moment. Designers and artists can prototype very quickly, and can experiment with cost reducing designs. Factories still have massive advantages over household 3D printers, and this won't change for a while. These include: wider range of materials available to use, tampo printing, packaging, safety testing, distribution, logistics, etc. Certainly there are implications for collectors as bootleggers and fraudsters have been around forever. But people want originals when collecting. It's not like a piece of fashion you wear to show off - it's meaningful to collectors to have an actual original. You want the original Joe DiMaggio baseball card if your collecting, not the reprint.

Yea, although it could severely devalue loose minimates, especially the blanks since those would be easily reproduced.

Thanks for all the insight though. I also read somewhere about 3D scanners, it would be pretty scary if someone could scan your key and break into your house though.

I don't trust anthing anyone says on April 1st

Then don't go near Ivan's Database today !

Warned you

I kicked the questions asses!! Too easy

I'm a massive massive nerd

Man, I missed it!

Glad I wasn't the only one that fell victim to that trickery. One of the more subtle April Fools internet pranks.

No worries, man, I just hope you guys are happy with the armors we made. Marvel.com should post them tomorrow!

Not sure when we'll be unveiling the box set, by the way. Might be post-movie release. So don't worry about it for a little while.

Nice, will be spamming refresh on my twitter feed

hey man i love these comics. Is there any way to add a "Previous" and "Next" links so I can read one after another?

Hey everyone, this has been on my mind for a while. But I wanted to know how many of you saw this video on 3d printing and how it's becoming more affordable and realistic to have in the home. http://www.pbs.org/arts/gallery/off-book-%7C-season-two/offbook-3d-printing/

Of course after watching my thoughts drifted to minimates. This could basically allow mass production of homemade figures. (Good for customizers, but bad for DST). It could also hurt the secondary market with counterfeit figures.

What are your thoughts? Exciting? Horrifying? Neutral? I'm a little on the fence.