3D Systems Acquires Gentle Giant Studios

3D Systems Acquires Gentle Giant Studios

• Accesses decades of licensed content from industry’s greatest brands
• Expands leadership capabilities and know-how in retail merchandising

Release Date:
Friday, January 3, 2014 - 08:36

ROCK HILL, South Carolina – January 3, 2014 – 3D Systems (NYSEDD) announced today the acquisition of Gentle Giant Studios, the leading provider of 3D modeling for the entertainment and toy industry. For over two decades, Gentle Giant Studios has led the development of state-of-the-art content using 3D scanning and modeling to develop and manufacture licensed 3D printed characters, toys and collectibles from a variety of franchise properties with global brand recognition, including Marvel, Disney, AMC’s The Walking Dead, Avatar, Harry Potter and Star Wars.
3DS plans to immediately leverage Gentle Giant Studios technology and vast library of digital content into its consumer platform and extend its existing brand relationships to further the reach of 3D scanning, modeling and printing for entertainment, toys, collectibles, action figures in conjunction with numerous blockbuster films and evergreen licensed properties.
“Gentle Giant Studios catapults 3DS’s consumer platform forward with highly curated, licensed characters, content publishing know-how and first-mover experience for the benefit of leading toy companies, movie studios and their merchandising divisions,” said Avi Reichental, President and CEO, 3D Systems.
Learn more about how 3DS is manufacturing the future today at www.3dsystems.com.
About 3D Systems Corporation
3D Systems is a leading provider of 3D printing centric design-to-manufacturing solutions including 3D printers, print materials and cloud sourced on-demand custom parts for professionals and consumers alike in materials including plastics, metals, ceramics and edibles. The company also provides integrated 3D scan-based design, freeform modeling and inspection tools. Its products and services replace and complement traditional methods and reduce the time and cost of designing new products by printing real parts directly from digital input. These solutions are used to rapidly design, create, communicate, prototype or produce real parts, empowering customers to manufacture the future.

Leadership Through Innovation and Technology

• 3DS invented 3D printing with its Stereolithography (SLA) printer and was the first to commercialize it in 1989.
• 3DS invented Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) printing and was the first to commercialize it in 1992.
• 3DS invented the Color-Jet-Printing (CJP) class of 3D printers and was the first to commercialize 3D powder-based systems in 1994.
• 3DS invented Multi-Jet-Printing (MJP) printers and was the first to commercialize it in 1996.

Today its comprehensive range of 3D printers is the industry’s benchmark for production-grade manufacturing in aerospace, automotive, patient specific medical device and a variety of consumer, electronic and fashion accessories.
More information on the company is available atwww.3DSystems.com.
About Gentle Giant Studios
Gentle Giant Studios is the leading provider of 3D digital data and is the first company to utilize digital data and 3D printing technology for the consumer products and entertainment industries. Creating beloved 3D characters from a variety of franchise properties with worldwide name recognition, including Star Wars, Marvel, Avatar, Harry Potter, AMC’s The Walking Dead, and The Hobbit. Gentle Giant produces a wide range of products that are manufactured using the highest quality utilizing the most advanced 3D scan to print techniques and a team of incredibly talented artisans that digitally captures the likenesses of actors, props, and scenery to accurately model and recreate these images for fans and collectors everywhere. Gentle Giant Studios also provides prototyping and product development services for consumer products, fine art, theme parks, and provides on set digitizing services for major motion pictures.
More information on the company is available on www.gentlegiantltd.com, and www.gentlegiantstudios.com.


Source: http://www.3dsystems.com/press-releases/3d-systems-acquires-gentle-giant-studios

 

Wow, there's all kinds of Star Wars licensing changing hands today! Unlike the Darkhorse to Marvel move, this sounds like 3D will likely make a few tweaks to Gentle Giant's business model, but that GG will otherwise likely continue to operate as is. I doubt we'll see much of a change in the way the Star Wars license is handled.

 

I'm most curious about this. Currently the only action figures that Gentle Giant makes are the 12" repro Kenner figures. Could this mean a new level of action figures could be coming from them in the future?

 

Hmmm, could be. Not sure what niche they'd be looking to fill though. You've got the basic and s/a 3 3/4" lines, and the new Black Series 6" line there to compete with/compliment lines like Masters of the Universe Classics and Marvel legends. Is there another tier above the $19.99 6" Black Series for an action figure line? You know GG and high end collectibles much better than I do. I'd be interested to hear what you think this might refer to.

 

Truth is I don't know. My guess would be that action figures might refer to other franchises. Then again, GG is helping Hasbro w/ the sculpting of the 6" line, so who knows.

 

Lots of transition re: Star Wars and Star Wars related things at the moment. 2014 is going to be an interesting year.

 

This just came to my inbox:

Dear Collectors,
It’s been a busy month for us here at Gentle Giant Ltd. We’re very excited to be a part of the 3D Systems family. It represents a great opportunity for us as creators to make even more cool stuff for you to enjoy, with higher quality than ever before. It also means that there are going to be doing some things a little differently going forward. Here are some new changes to existing policies that will take effect Monday, February 3rd.
Going forward, all domestic orders for Gentle Giant Ltd. products and services (except gift cards) will be charged sales tax according to the tax rate of the order’s shipping address (except in Alaska and Puerto Rico). This includes all existing pre-orders. In order to compensate for this increase of total cost, we’re also applying a flat 10% discount to your existing pre-orders, so there shouldn’t be any significant change in price for you. This discount will not be applied to orders placed after Sunday, February 2nd.
Our return policy is also changing. Going forward, all requests for returns, exchanges or replacements must be made within 3 days of receipt of your order. Otherwise, they will be refused. Also, our customer service e-mail address is changing. We are phasing out customerservice@gentlegiantstudios.com. The new address gentlegiantltd.custserv@3dsystems.com. Please add that to your approved senders list so messages sent by that account don’t wind up in your spam folders. All other aspects of our return policy will stay the same.
Another e-mail address you’ll want to whitelist is gentlegiantltd.noreply@3dsystems.com. That’s the new address all gift card codes, shipping notices and other important notifications will be coming from.
Finally, for our international customers, the USPS has once again changed their regulations on oversized packages, and unfortunately this affects orders for our Star Wars Jumbo Vintage line. The new regulations dictate that all packages that run the size of our Jumbo Vintage boxes and larger sent via the USPS can now only be sent via Priority Mail International. This change has already taken effect, and applies to all new orders and existing pre-orders. We do realize that this is a significant increase in expense to our international collectors, and we are researching other shipping options we can offer at a lower cost.
If you have any questions, please contact us at gentlegiantltd.custserv@3dsystems.com.
Thank you!
Sincerely,
Your friends at Gentle Giant Ltd.