My chess set is finally available

Some time ago I had a long thread here about a chess set I was designing. I ended up at a bit of a dead end, where the idea that I had about adding little heads and arms to the pieces didn't work out for me, so I had to go back and think things over, so I left the project and focused on other things while I let the thoughts simmer in the back of my head.

I finally decided to abandon the idea of little arms and heads, and chose to go for a cleaner look. The end result is not nearly as radical as my original idea, but I think I have made some beautiful and useable pieces. Maybe I will make another set in the future where the pieces will be little figurines with arms and heads and bodies and everything, but it is not going to be the next thing I do.

Anyway, you can check the set out here: http://shpws.me/sKxs

And thank you for all your feedback.

Nice King and Queen.

I think arms and legs, etc., would get in the way of playing.

Have you actually had a 'test' set printed?     I think the king's crown may raise some fabrication problems, end-quality wise.

I haven't gotten a print yet, but the model passes all minimum wall thickness tests, and the crown does have some support at the center, so it shouldn't be wobbly, if that's what you are worried about.

Nice touch with the pawn design.

66 euros for one color set only? That's 132 euro if you want both colors! ( and usually there are 2 players in chess)

that's IMHO a bit too expensive for a plastic set. For that price its you can find some nice luxury saldalwod/ebony handmade sets.

I'm also a bit puzzled that those pictures are not from built sets, just digital pictures. Would be nice to see a picture of the crafted pieces to see the crafting quality and how does they look in a real board.

I hope for you i'm wrong, but i don't think you will sell many of those at this price. Probably you will earn more selling the whole set for 30 euro because you wuill sell 100 times thje ammoun t( if not more). 

would also bee nice to know the real sizes to understand if they follow the  FIDE/USCF size rules.

Just my 2 cents, and good luck.

Overall I like the set. One thing that I would change for my own personal preference would be to change the bases of the pieces so they were more like the bases of the pawns. I like the way the bases of the pawns flatten out but that doesn't seem to carry over to the pieces.

Just my personal prefernce though. Nice set.

Unfortunately I can't lower the price. Everything at Shapeways is expensive because the manufacturing process takes a long time and there is some manual labour involved with removing the left over powder from the model. For some reason people buy things there anyway.

It would be nice to have molds made so that the pieces could be manufactured at a lower price, but there is a certain minimum sales figure you have to reach in order to break even on the cost of making the molds, and I have my doubts I can reach that figure, whatever it may be.

In the mean time I am just happy that it is out there. At least I can't earn less than zero dollars this way.

Losing the little arms and heads seems smart.  Set looked too busy before. I don't care for the knight.  The original "seahorse" design made sense, but the horse has been smoothed out so much now that you should probably lose the back fin.  The " knight with no mane" , yep, that's what we'll call it.  Too bad high end 3D is so expensive, and then it's unweighted so just for display.  My disposable income budget won't cover it but I'm sure someone will buy.  Maybe Ebay is worth a look as well?

The king is 9.5 cm tall, which I believe is the FIDE standard. It says so in the description ;-)

baddongo, I have made no modifications to the knight since the last thread. Maybe I should readjust the light and make some more renderings.

The pieces are hollowed out in order to save printing material (you pay by the cubic centimeter), that means that you can fill it with some cheap epoxy, or whatever filling material you like, and add some weights in the bottom.

i see, i hope for you to get enough success to affrod massive production and reduce the production cost. 

So much for my awareness... Maybe I was thinking of an earlier design, or maybe those brain cells have left the building... If it were my design I'd probably chat up ChessBazaar and see how much an ebony or budrosewood set would cost.  Good luck!

I was hoping you would abandon the Staunton pattern and make the rooks large.  Rooks should be larger than minor pieces.

Maybe you can manufacture "alternative rooks" to match your set's design.  That way I could have your set and my desired size of rook.

Why no photos of the actual product?  It might appear to someone that you are trying to get them to be the "one" who pays for the "prototype".  I would pay more attention if you posted PHOTOS of the various colors offerred.

Edit:  Good grief man, what's up with this?  Add your own felt pads?  Weight them yourself?  For $76 for a 1/2 set?  Actually I'd call that 1/10 set since there so much work left for the buyer to do. Good luck, but I hope you have a day job.

No photos yet because I only just ordered my own set and it takes a while before you get the product in the mail. I will take some pictures once it gets here though. And I am not afraid to sell the model without having seen a physical copy of it first, because Shapeways will not ship if there are any flaws in the product and will refund your money if the model can't be printed.

No reason to suspect any dark motives on my part. I'm not trying to rip people off, and I am not a hidden sales rep from Shapeways, and I am not under alien control. Gee! So much suspicion and pent up anger in this forum. What is up with you chess players?

Look. You have to take this for what it is. I never set out to design this set to earn a lot of money. I originally started modelling the knight as an exercise in using the 3D modelling tool. At the time I was coming off some medicine, and the withdrawal symptoms made me rather dizzy, which made it uncomfortable to move around. So sitting still in front of the computer and getting engrossed in a nice rhythm of work was a good refuge from the physical world. Since the knight turned out pretty well, I decided to make a full set.

If it hadn't been for Shapeways, the set would probably have remained just pictures on a computer screen, because having it mass produced is just more risk and more work than I am prepared for. Sure it is ridiculously expensive to have it 3D printed, but for my own part it is nice to have a physical representation of all my hard work, and if anybody else want a copy of this rare chess set and are not put off by the price, then they can have it.

And yes, what you get is a bit of a DIY project, but some people actually enjoy that kind of thing. You can see it as a chore to finish the set, but some may see it as a fun project and a chance to personalize their set with a custom paint job. There are all kinds of people in the world.

Now, many months later I am finally at a point where I think I can consider the project finished. If I wanted to, I could probably keep making adjustments and improvements for the rest of my life, but at some point I have to stop. I have a lot of little projects lying around and I haven't finished any of them. The reward for this project is not going to be in the form of a large income. It is going to simply be the satisfaction of finally having finished something.

If you were actually a chess player yourself, you would understand!

When one puts content on the web for critique, one should expect to be critiqued......some will be nice, some not so.  I think the price/quality comments are valid, your set has to compete in a tough market.....a 3d-printed set can be successful, but only if it can differentiate itself from the wider market, a 'niche look' for instance, that would be impossible to produce with more traditional fabrication techniques.  For chess players, the 'look and feel' is very important, hey we have to touch these all the time & look at them for aeons.....nothing distracts more than a grainly surface & grates more than a bumpy feel, especially when you're used to polished wood or smooth plastic.

This set is probably too 'visually pedestrian' to attract but hey that's just my opinion, man. 

Having said that, well done for completing the project....which is clearly a lot of work.  Perhaps consider it good experience for when you design set No.2  .

Exactly. 

It's too close to the Staunton pattern.

I really like the Kings crown but the bases are a bit small in relation to the rest of the pieces. The Knights look like Garaffes though with long necks & little heads. The pawns are fine.