Recently at WonderFest we were judging Special Awards for Out of the Box (OOB) Mechs and Spaceships and ran into an interesting conundrum. After we had paired it down to our final few, we realized one was a 3D print and the other was a styrene kit. Our team had a lengthy discussion about whether 3D prints should be considered OOB and we were split.
IPMS considers OOB to be “100% plastic with just a few exceptions.”
In the end we went with the styrene kit but I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this subject.
This is a great conversation to be having, considering what is available now.
My opinion only…
If it’s a one piece 3D print, I look at it as more of an exercise in painting and not a kit. Many figures fall into this area and many materials - resin, white metal, etc. if the print was done in multiple parts and therefore had to be assembled then I feel that would constitute a kit. The OOB criteria would be a multiple piece 3D print with no additions or modifications, printed exactly like the original creator designed it.
I am not by any means devaluing the amount of work and skill that it takes to paint single piece miniatures of any genre, it’s way beyond what I’ll ever be capable of, painting a single piece removes the building aspect of modelling and the challenges that poses to the appearance of a finished model.
Interesting conversation. There’s a lot of new tech/products that require these types of decisions. OOB usually says AM decals are okay. Does this include 3D decals like Quinta Studios sells?
An interesting conundrum. 3-d printing allows very large and complex objects to be made in a single part. If a 3-D printed kit is broken down like a conventional plastic kit, I see no problem with it being classified as OOTB. But when you have crazy stuff like those 1-piece battleship superstructures, the assembly aspect of the build is diminished.
Let’s say two Conan figures showed up at the contest, one being a resin or injection plastic kit, the other a single-piece 3-D printed model. The 3-D kit would require a minimum of cleanup, while the assembly kit would require sanding, filling, and such. Assuming the 3-D kit was of high quality, there would be little to no seams to fill, and thus becomes a painting exercise only. How do you judge the two kits against each other? And how will the judges know if the 3-D kit was a single piece or broken down into multiple pieces? That’s a tough call.
I would consider 3-D instrument panels as aftermarket accessories, as they physically change the model. It’s basically adding PE to the cockpit.
Due to the growing number of multi media kits, IPMS switched from OOB to Basic Kit Build. IIRC, the criteria for the BKB category is a kit being entirely injection molded plastic. In either case a kit instruction sheet was required with the entry to show what the kit did and did not come with.
For your 3-D printed kit conundrum, that requirement would be the deciding factor. If it is a multi part single media kit, had an instruction sheet submitted for verification, and assembly was required, I’d say that it should be allowed for entry. The detail differences in between the 3-D printed kit and a standard injection molded styrene kit should not be part of the judging criteria.
So “Basic Kit” didn’t last long eh? Wasn’t that just introduced in 2024? I wonder why a cut off of 1980 and say not 1990 or 1985? It’s getting harder and harder to acquire kits of that vintage unless they are a re-box/re-issue.
Yes, but then you have some kits of that vintage that get updated parts when they are revamped. Revell/Monogram did that to their classic 1/48 P-51B kit of 60’s vintage that was majorly reworked for their Pro Modeler and subsequent re issues.
The old Aurora/Atlantis re-pops have the date stamped on the underside of the bases. If not, then look at the instructions. Many times they have the original release data on them.
This is a great topic for this forum. I’ve wondered how the 3-D models were going to be addressed. I agree with stikpusher that as long as a 3-D kit had multiple parts and required assembly then they should be allowed in OOB competitions.
Unfortunately, not many people properly document their entry forms requiring our judges to become ‘experts’ on the specific piece(s). It’s hard enough just to get them to put ‘OOB’ :
And technically speaking, the stuff used for 3-D printing can be considered a plastic, just like many resins. It’s just not polystyrene plastic.
But yes, as mentioned above, modern multi media kits such as those by Eduard, that can include, photo etch metal, metal wire, resin, 3-D printed, even fabric parts, are the reason that the Out Of Box category needed to be redefined to single media.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
