Immortalized Through FigurePrints

Eszti, General, Teca

FigurePrints is a company that came up with an interesting idea a few years back.  It provided World of Warcraft players with the opportunity to immortalize their characters by creating one of a kind statues that rely on information from the Armory to create.  According to their website:

FigurePrints are one-of-a-kind, custom statues of your World of Warcraft® characters created using high-tech 3D color printing machines. Our artists pull your character from the virtual world and bring it to life.

Status are printed, relying on equipment capable of taking three-dimensional models from the computer and then created layer by layer.  People who have worked in any of several technology industries — particularly those that deal heavily with prototypes — may be familiar with the equipment.  I’ve personally seen machines like that twice and was fascinated by the shapes the evolved as each layer was carefully and precisely added with machine efficiency.

FigurePrints are unique in that you can’t just place an order to acquire one.  Due to the popularity of the company’s service and the limited amount that its eleven employees are capable of producing each much¹, customers are chosen by lottery each month from a pool of interested individuals.  Out of the pool of potentially over 25,000, up to 1,400 win the right to have their characters immortalized through the FigurePrints process.

Original prints were met with an underwhelming success, as many customers complained about the dull appearance of their characters or even paint entirely missing from the models in splotches.²   This appears to have been somewhat rectified over the past year, though this increase in quality — or the number of statues that were sent back due to defects or damage — has resulted in a thirty dollar increase from the original price tag, resulting in a 130USD price tag.

When I learned of FigurePrints over a year ago, I quickly jumped on the bandwagon with many other World of Warcraft players and eagerly waited for the email that would announce that I was selected to create my characters on their site.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.  After reading about the many problems people had had with their company³, seeing the price increase, and then still not having received an email, my interest in having one waned.  Compounded with the fact that I rarely check the email I signed up with due to the overwhelming amount of spam that has inundated it in recent months, I was rarely reminded of the fact that I had once expressed interest in having one created.

Until I received this in my mail last month:

I find my interest piqued again.  The best part of having finally received this email is that I get to play with their website and see the possible results of my efforts  And, despite having acquired all of Tiers 4 and 5 for a handful of my characters, I find that I’m outfitting them in their normal, everyday outfits because that’s what really suits them.  In other words, there’s not an epic — and, in most cases, not even a rare — to be found on my girls.

I have a few more that I would like to test, but the Armory is being finicky and I can’t properly view the gear that the characters are wearing.  So, at the moment, I’m left trying to consider if I want to spend the money for my girls⁴ or if I’ll just spend my time playing with the creator.  The overwhelming word has been that these statues aren’t worth it, but I’m having fun imagining what it would be like to have a miniature Eszti on my desk!

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