Printing is too expensive for production, just use into make the prototypes/masters and cast them.
It depends. The problem with 3D Printing through agencies like Shapeways for materials like Frosted Ultra Detail which I used is that it's done by cm
3. So that means that making sometime twice as long, twice as wide and twice as tall means the volume is increased eightfold, not just twice. That is what makes doing a Battlebarge daunting, the relative scale. There are some things I want to try, doing an internal framework in a cheaper material and just printing the "outer shell" of the model in the more expensive and detailer material might work to cut the cost down although it will increase the complexity of the project both for me as a designer and for anyone trying to build it.
As far as which I've already design, to be honest the costs for my prints aren't actually that bad. Compared to some of the Ebay Auctions and Recasters I've seen my cost is about the same for a Space Marine equivalent. That is of course ignoring the fact that aside from the Cruiser all of these are completely new designs and such. The only place I really "fall short" is the fact that mine don't come with bases.
It's a case of "6 in one hand, half dozen in the other". I'd argue that side is strictly better than the other, they each have their ups and downs from both the maker's and customer's perspectives.
