If you’re crafty, there’s a very nicely detailed moonkin (night elf) papercraft model.
This is the best comment ive seen all day.
Also: I want that too… but… also for… reasons.
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At least they managed to get a Lego deal with Overwatch.
I love my Lego Reinhardt and D.Va.
In 2016, I had my 10 year anniversary with the company I was working for at the time. I got to pick my anniversary gift, so I picked a FigurePrint of my worgen warlock (my then main character).
I had a great experience; I ordered it in January and received it in March. FigurePrints communicated with me frequently and even sent me pics as my statue went through the process. I have nothing bad to say about them at all.
I’d throw money at blizzard so fast I’d break my monitors.
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High quality .stl files would make a killing. I’d pay $10 apiece for them, no question. Some of my GW troop figures cost that much per-figure and we know how much money they rake in.
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I dont know why they have never jumped on this concept, we just want a legal way to use the models for out own purpose without any issues. But only for the models we pay for a lease on.
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Fully customizable figures sounds cool to me. The figure base in terms of posability could be on par with pro grade gundam figure kits. An internal skeleton with race-themed external parts in transmogs we want.
The articulation could be really deep with individual fingers and joints to move as freely as the actual gundam figures.
Blizzard could work a deal with Bandai/Namco for those quality figures.
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Unfortunately that would be prohibitively expensive as they’d have to build molds for all the parts possible. Even custom 3D printing to a high level of quality at something larger than 28mm scale, say 1:20 (approx 6") on a resin printer with high resolution would cost a lot at the commercial level. At least printed figures are easier to make than injection molded plastic models.
You haven’t seen the whole collection of action figure kits they make in Bandai/Namco’s factory do you? We’re talking at least THOUSANDS of kits to say the least! And given how uniform WoW characters are in terms of design, think about how each external piece could just be painted in-factory with just the texture of the armor, or even to just produce the 3D pieces of each of the newer armor sets.
Foot and boot parts being inter-changeable, hand/glove parts, shoulder armor, helmets, there isn’t really too much deviation, and really, Bandai/Namco could just as easily produce these parts as custom order, or be part of parts customization. I’ve taken careful study of the kits of various gunpla, and it’s not a stretch to convert these traits to more organic designs like WoW characters.
The only thing to worry about is the user having to paint the textures of their armors onto an effectively generic undressed model.
For example, a single Blood Elf model would be fairly simple, as there isn’t variation in the Blood Elf model in WoW, so a basic kit of a blood elf make or female in their underwear would be a simple project. Only variation is in skin color, which in itself would be room for variation, and each skin color listed by number.
Then you have class variations like Death Knight and Demon Hunter versions, but that’ll be a later seasonal variation.
Basically, if Blizzard did a deal with Bandai/Namco, a typical gnome would be simpler to produce than a common basic grade Zaku figure kit given their lacking digits. The only real challenge would be in actually getting gnomes and goblins printed, as they have 4 fingers, which… If I recall correctly, characters with 4 digits are considered unfavorable, or considered to have had a bad deal with the Yakuza, which is why we may see western characters “censored” in Japan to have 5 fingers.
But given how the Yakuza syndicates are shrinking or dying in Japan, it may not be as bad as we may fear.
So yeah, we know gnomes would be low grade kits with less articulation. Mechagnomes would be even lower with even lower articulation. Goblins slightly higher than gnomes, likely on par with dwarves…
It’s the taller races that may be more expensive, and fur-bearing races like Tauren and Worgen may require the highest price point since they’ll need to have artificial fur added to the model, or at the least, flocked fur.
The art of flocking adds a cloth-like powder to give a velvet-like feeling to the normally hard surface. A pre-flocked Tauren or Worgen model kit would indeed be expensive, but would meet the fur designs.
Making these figure kits available online as custom collections would be more cost-effective, though it would require Blizzard to abandon the deals with China in strong favor of deals with Japan which has a much stronger economy. So 1 Japanese user could equate to say 10-100 Chinese users in terms of support if you’re smart about it.
Blizzard will have to capitulate on a few things, like forfeit the whole method of retiring content for forced scarcity and short term gains, to favor long term consistent profits, and switch to a Japanese business model where if the company starts to suffer financially, the execs up top would be obligated to take the cuts to their pay instead of laying off workers.
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You sir have brought a great amount of good ideas and passion to this thread, and get a head pat.
Pat-pat I love it
If Blizz really were smart they would just get someone to do it in house on the blizzard store. They have enough between them and activision to buy some decent printing rigs and just hire a team to do it. that way they also have the QC to not make them look bad.
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I’m friends with a pro miniature sculptor, if I ever got a figure of vual, I’d get Sunny Jim to do it.
I’m getting an Anycubic Photon next month, gonna print out my own figures at 32mm scale so I can use them in my Fantasy Wargames.
Well we can sorta do that, but it’s only illegal cause then Blizzard won’t get the money…
Though how would blizzard would detect you using the characters for 3d printing illegally, let alone using the textures and models, i don’t know in all honestly, and i yet to see a case of this happening.
You could always go to heroforge.com and customize a figure through them.
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Heroforge does -not- have wow looking character options. The -second- that blizzard teams up with Heroforge… is the moment they both become very very successful beyond what they are now.
I love that you mentioned this, because holy fel it would be amazing for them to team up…
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Why does using that website reminds me so much of the Spore E3 2005 reveal where Will Wright creates a creature though the creature editor? 
Will Wright being the genius he is, could have inspired heroforges design.
And while Heroforge doesn’t match up exactly with wow characters (the orcs and elves can be made to look decent) some paint can fix some of it. (I would recommend going to reaper or citadel for those) I’ve ordered a few minis through them and they look great.
Yes, it would be amazing if they could partner up.
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I’m sad to tell everybody that Heroforge does not have a fish that you can hold. 
But they do have a Plunger, a Banjo and a Brain to hold. So that makes up for it. 
Edit: Oh crap! and bunny Slippers. 
(by the by, i’m just screwing around with the website, seeing what i can make here)