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News Credits: 6188 · by **Va'al** » Wed Aug 27, 2014 2:34 am

I do hope that is the case too!

As you said, venues like deviantArt, Tumblr and the such were great platforms for artists and colourists to make it to professional and freelance position with IDW - this would be a great opportunity to restock the designing team at Hasbro.

News Credits: 1 · by **SKYWARPED_128** » Wed Aug 27, 2014 2:40 am

hinomars19 wrote:
Va'al wrote:
mirageandjazz1197 wrote:
Convoy wrote:I misread that first line as, 'Hasbro and Shapeways want to profit from your fan-made artwork based on Hasbro toys.' twice!

Jesus Christ wtf is happening to the world where all companies is being accused of being greedy and selfish money makers.

Capitalism.

I think people are just worried that the designers themselves will start missing out. The comment about people needing to earn money is the truest statement of all, and that courtesy needs to be afforded to the artists on shapeways as well. Guys like Renderform need to earn a living too, and these kind of things (heads, accessories) are his way of using his skills to earn said money. Nobody wants to see a huge company like Hasbro, who already have their fare share, take from the little guy. Obviously some of these designs are crossing both a moral and legal line, and it's obvious (and right) that Hasbro get in officially on it, but it needs to be done fairly. Hopefully it will be.

That said, I doubt official Hasbro and Takara designers get much in the way of pay on what is THEIR work, not when you see just how much gets shared out to other people just for the privilege of having a company logo on it. Sadly, that's business.

I still don't see why Hasbro don't scout out the breadth of talent that is out there, both on Shapeways and 3rd party toys. Plenty of fan artists and writers have made the leap to official stuff through Dreamwave and IDW. Why not here? Maybe this Shapeways business is the start of something like that?

Took the words right out of my mouth.

I just read the article at Makezine, and at 20% royalty from the full retail price of each item sold, it's pretty fair. The only catch is that whether you make the cut to be a seller at Super Fan Art is at Hasbro's discretion instead of being a free market like Shapeways.

Va'al wrote:I do hope that is the case too!

As you said, venues like deviantArt, Tumblr and the such were great platforms for artists and colourists to make it to professional and freelance position with IDW - this would be a great opportunity to restock the designing team at Hasbro.

Yeah, Josh Nizzi is a good example.

by **noctorro** » Wed Aug 27, 2014 3:34 am

I have a 3d printer http://www.heliora.com and already printed Optimus' G1 rifle and arms/legs. One day I'll finish the whole body. For now it's just my own designs.

The 3d printer I have is a little more expensive then an XboxOne. And I skipped the new console this year. 3d printing is so much more fun (when you can 3d model anyway)

It's great stuff, but designing your own transformer is difficult as hell. People tend to look down on Hasbro designers or complain about certain figures. Try and 3d model something that actually transformers. I have the greatest respect for Transformers designers since the day I tried to model one in 3D.

Oh yess:

If there are any 3d modelers on the forum who have a cool transformer 3d model. I can print it for you and send it

http://www.youtube.com/user/Pepsimus · by **Black Bumblebee** » Wed Aug 27, 2014 4:53 am

I'm seeing a lot of people react negatively to this. Remember, folks, whether you like it or not, all these 3rd party groups and artists are profiting off of Hasbro's Intellectual Property. We are searching out and buying these things because they are representations of characters that Hasbro put time and money into developing.

Hasbro has been VERY lenient in the way that it handles 3rd party makers. You can bet that if Hasbro was owned by Disney, there would be a swarm of lawyers all over the place keeping individuals from selling such things, and law suits in place suing for damages and such.

Hasbro hasn't shut down the 3rd party vendors. It hasn't shut down those who are using 3d printers to make money. It is, however, saying "you want to make money off of our IP? Fine. Okay. We'll work with you. But you have to pay us a cut of the profits"

Is that so horribly wrong?

by **hinomars19** » Wed Aug 27, 2014 7:31 am

Va'al wrote:I do hope that is the case too!

As you said, venues like deviantArt, Tumblr and the such were great platforms for artists and colourists to make it to professional and freelance position with IDW - this would be a great opportunity to restock the designing team at Hasbro.

I'm still waiting for my time to shine

Not to get too off topic or become a hater, but some re-stocking definitely needs doing somewhere at Hasbro. I went to Toys r us on the hopes of finding a couple of Orion Pax figs, and the TF section is awash with that no frills packaging (seriously cheap! Easy to recognise my bum!) And nasty looking 'toys'. Simplicity isn't the issue, the toys just look bad. I'm exhausted with the current stock of bad toys. It's Beast Machines all over again :HEADHURTS:

I feel something has gone inherently wrong at Hasbro of late.

SKYWARPED_128 wrote:Took the words right out of my mouth.

I just read the article at Makezine, and at 20% royalty from the full retail price of each item sold, it's pretty fair. The only catch is that whether you make the cut to be a seller at Super Fan Art is at Hasbro's discretion instead of being a free market like Shapeways.

20% may sound fair in legal terms, but it's a shame the actual artistic creator of a product gets less for their work. It's not even half. It's Hasbro's I.P, and yeah maybe even their 'design' if someone works from an existing character, but the toy, engineering and final look is that of the person who makes it. But this is just me digressing. That's how all things work, like I said earlier, sadly that's business. >:oP

News Credits: 3 · by **Midnight_Fox** » Wed Aug 27, 2014 9:10 am

Flashwave wrote: This is not artwork. This is product.

Products can still be artwork. Reproductive prints exist purely to mass-produce a piece of art to sell, making them what you define as "product", but they don't make the piece itself not art.

Your post is also worded like sculpture and statues aren't artwork.

News Credits: 2 · by **Skyfire77** » Wed Aug 27, 2014 11:56 am

Bumblevivisector wrote:I haven't bought anything from Shapeways or Renderform yet, and honestly haven't been following it that closely, but the first thing I will buy when I get around to it is that cassette scorpion.

I've got that one, and a few of the others that Tom Servo has done. They're nice little toys, though instructions would have been nice.

News Credits: 1 · by **SKYWARPED_128** » Wed Aug 27, 2014 8:27 pm

hinomars19 wrote:
SKYWARPED_128 wrote:Took the words right out of my mouth.

I just read the article at Makezine, and at 20% royalty from the full retail price of each item sold, it's pretty fair. The only catch is that whether you make the cut to be a seller at Super Fan Art is at Hasbro's discretion instead of being a free market like Shapeways.

20% may sound fair in legal terms, but it's a shame the actual artistic creator of a product gets less for their work. It's not even half. It's Hasbro's I.P, and yeah maybe even their 'design' if someone works from an existing character, but the toy, engineering and final look is that of the person who makes it. But this is just me digressing. That's how all things work, like I said earlier, sadly that's business.

Well, Shapeways rightfully takes the lion's share because they're the ones doing the manufacturing, packaging and shipping. Hasbro? Well, it's their IP, and there are certain benefits for working with them--no risk of C&D's, usage of trademarked names, better exposure. No matter how you cut it, it's still better than having them toss C&D's every which way.

Frankly, I'm still a little confused about the details of this whole Super Fan Art thing. It's being run sort of like a publishing house where you have to submit your manuscript 3d designs for consideration, and then it starts to look like a contest where the "selected artists" will have their designs featured on the site.

So, it it still a free market but with some added guidelines and criteria by Hasbro, or is it now run like a publishing house where your work only gets published featured on the site if the editor Hasbro deems it worthy?

This brings me to a question that's been nagging at me for a while. What about "gray area" items? Weapons for characters that were shown on TV, but weren't included in the actual toy, and Hasbro would never make separately? This is where the possibility of them "stomping on the little man", as you put it, arises.

by **Peridot** » Tue Sep 02, 2014 1:42 pm

noctorro wrote:I have a 3d printer http://www.heliora.com and already printed Optimus' G1 rifle and arms/legs. One day I'll finish the whole body. For now it's just my own designs.

Does the Optimus transform in any way?