This weekend I went to Gen Con 2016 in Indianapolis. The largest convention for boardgames, tabletop wargaming, role playing games and all manner of cosplay and geek culture. People worldwide descended on the Indianapolis convention center for 4 days of gaming, exhibitions, films and revelry.
Shapeways was introduced to the Gen Con community years ago when several of our makers started using 3D printing to make dice, game pieces and miniatures to bring their video games to life in the physical world. Being on the exhibition floor was almost overwhelming to see the vast number of ways 3D Printing could be used to expand the gaming experience. Vendors, Game Designers and artists cover the floor showing off their newest games and prototypes. My gamer self was in creative overload! I will try to keep this short and share my top, top favorites…
Some of my favorite miniatures are from Wraith of Kings by Cool Mini’s or Not.
Miniature painters were all over the floor showing of their techniques. For example I love this lighting effect of this glowing sword by James Wappel.
Impressed by the quality of painted figures on the floor, I decided to try my own hand at it in the paint and take area, where we were generously given free figurines and a paintbrush by Gencon.
I also attended to a workshop by David Dresch who gave some expert advice on how to create terrain for wargaming tables. Here’s my work in progress of adding grass and dirt below.
Naturally Gencon is all about gaming, and I got the opportunity to play numerous great Role Playing games including Dungeons and Dragons. Here’s a scene from a short and fun campaign where we save christmas from being ruined by the minions of Cthulhu, featuring Dwarvenite Game Tiles terrain shown by Dwarven Forge.
But of course, Gen Con is all about meeting cool and colorful new people. Whether they are in awesome cosplay costumes as your favorite video game characters, acting in a 6 hour LARP quest or just goofing around with some D20 dice, Gen Con was a blast to make new friends. The best part about Gen Con is the way it brings the gaming community together to play and be creative.
What games do you play? Do you use 3D printing to make your game pieces? Are you making your own game? Let us know in the comments below!
3D printing is awesome for miniatures! I can’t wait for the High definition Black Acyrlate to be available to sell (it is great for miniatures).
Hey Andrew. I was at GenCon as well, this was my second year attending. It’s a great show. I am the owner of GameCraft Miniatures ( http://www.gcmini.com ). I have created dozens of digital masters for miniatures that Shapeways has produced for me that I then make molds of for mass production via resin casting or metal casting (spin casting). “3D Printing” is a great tool for the master model maker and has allowed me to do some amazing things that would have been very difficult or impossible using traditional model making techniques.
It is funny but we started in 3D printing because of wargaming, we were a lot into Battletech
and a friend of ours had created a technical readout with several designs of his own, so
we tried to translate his drawings into physical items and voilá the mecha section was born
http://www.shapeways.com/shops/namw?section=1%2F285+Mecha&s=0
It is so cool.