Billings-based custom miniature platform ANVL has stopped selling physical resin prints. The company announced an immediate shift to a digital-only model this week, citing rising shipping costs that made physical miniatures too expensive to keep affordable for roleplaying games.
Going forward, all custom characters designed on the platform will be sold exclusively as digital STL files for a flat fee of $5.99. For owner Derek Kean, who bought the company in early 2025 and is a passionate 3D printing fan, abandoning physical production was likely a hard choice. In a previous interview with Geek Native, Kean discussed his enthusiasm for the hardware side of the hobby, but economic realities have clearly forced a change in direction to keep the platform alive.
In an email sent to registered users, the company explained the sudden pivot.
Shipping costs kept climbing, and every price increase pulled us further from what ANVL is supposed to be: custom minis that don’t cost a fortune. We couldn’t keep printed minis affordable, so we stopped.”
Players who previously ordered physical prints will find their saved characters still available in their online workshops. Players can now download these as print-ready files, and ANVL is pointing them to local makerspaces, libraries, or game stores if they don’t own a printer.
However, the announcement leaves a few practical questions unanswered. It is unclear whether the $5.99 flat fee grants a commercial licence for independent merchants to sell physical copies, or whether the files are strictly for personal use. Additionally, while the company goes all-in on digital files, it doesn’t mention virtual tabletop token generation, a standard feature among digital-first competitors.
Based in Montana, the ANVL studio operates in a quiet but active tabletop scene, recently hosting the Electric City Dice n Cosplay convention. The company must now rely entirely on its users having the hardware or local community support to bring these digital designs to the physical table.
