About 4 years ago a friend went to a "rapid protyping" conference, and there was a guy there who was making resin models of people's online game characters from

About 4 years ago a friend went to a "rapid protyping" conference, and there was a guy there who was making resin models of people's online game characters from his garage. He would paint them or you could paint them. I think the game companies themselves got into that business later. In niche areas such as car restoration, antique radios, and etc you could offer a service of building replica parts. I think that being successful in this area depends more on knowing the market involved and how to get to it, not so much on pushing the limits of 3D printing. I think you could make a business of taking in Google Sketchup models of houses, sheds, and other buildings and mailing back a model, in which the roof could come off to see inside. I'm not sure that the current 3D printing technologies are the best way to make those models, however. Much of the current market for 3D printed products is decorative pieces, either novelty figures or decorative plastic bits of molding for cars and other things. My personal instinct would be to find something that was more functional to produce, such as the little breakable plastic bits of laptops and cell phones.