Now that 3D printing is starting to get good enough and is on the cusp of being affordable enough, it's interesting to watch the reaction. Some people are enamored with it, others threatened, most are just confused or unaware of it.
We saw the same thing happen in the print industry 15-20 years ago with 2D printing and scanning. First, there was resistance, then there was some acceptance by early adopters using service bureaus or working in large corporations' art departments, and then once it became affordable enough that artists could have good a enough printer and scanner in their studio and schools started teaching those tools in addition to traditional media tools, it quickly became dominant, with most artists using it for at least part of their workflow (but often not for everything - for example, a lot of comic pencilling work is still done traditionally and is then scanned for cleanup and inking)
I was working in the print industry when the 2D transition happened. I also dabble in both digital and traditional sculpting and know a handful of professional sculptors, so I find it fascinating seeing the ways this is playing out the same, and the ways that it's different.
For larger scale sculpture (like 12" comic book collectibles), we're already seeing the transition happening. Many (but not all) of the DC Direct collectible statues are being done digitally now. Disney is also using digital for a lot of their collectible figurines. Currently, it's basically sculptor's choice. If the sculptor wants to work digitally, the company will pay for the printing, but if the sculptor prefers traditional media, then that's fine too. On the other hand, the US Mint has gone all-digital, to the chagrin of a few of their sculptors.
A lot of traditional media sculptors are dismissing 3D printing as "not as good". But the technology currently exists to print out with extremely fine detail, it's just not affordable enough for most people to have access to it. Having to work through a service bureau adds cost and time. If your file doesn't print properly due to minimum wall thickness problems or because a part is too thin to cast or a host of other possible issues, you have to do trial and error, sending the revised file back to the printing service for each revision. On the other hand, if you want to create 10 similar figures in different poses, you don't have to start from scratch for each one, and if you want to make a change to a completed figure, you also don't have to start over, you just make the change and re-print. Plus, undo, copy, paste, resize… Priceless tools.
Large companies with in-house sculptors are already starting to move to digital because it's cost effective for them now. I don't think traditional media is going to diminish quite as rapidly as it did with 2D because there's not as much consumer demand for 3D printing to drive the cost down, but 3D printing will continue to get better and cheaper and eventually having a 3D printer on your desk capable of doing miniatures will be feasible. Heck, if you're willing to research and get your hands dirty, you can build your own stereolithograph 3D printer capable of doing extremely fine detailed work now. The medium is extremely expensive, but the technology is not hard to build for a halfway decent maker or engineer.
As for the "I've never seen digitally sculpted miniatures that wow me" comment, think about this: Tom Meier has been honing his skills sculpting in putty for 40 years now. Digital printing at this scale has only become a practical reality very recently (at MOST 5 years, more realistically 2), meaning the digital sculptors are either less experienced overall, or at least less experienced with the medium they are working in by an order of magnitude.
But traditional sculpting will no more die from this than has traditional painting or drawing. Go to an art or hobby store and there are still aisles of traditional media tools: paint brushes, paints, palettes, etc.
Most miniatures are produced by small companies, however, and hiring a traditional putty or Fimo sculptor is likely to stay price competitive to digital sculpting in this field (except for the big players like GW) for a very long time because of the difficulties of scale and resolution, the need for re-training to sculpt digitally, and the low production runs that are typical.
tl;dr: just another tool.
