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Hi Dakka Dakians,

I've been painting miniatures for a while now, and love it. I do it as a side thing, to get away from my long hours of staring at a computer screen as a 3D Artist and instead do something creative with actual things, like brushes and paint.

I live close to Chicago and went to Adepticon earlier in the year, and naturally saw the Crystal Brush competition. Very impressive. So, I thought: I wouldn't mind being in that next year - in one form or another. That brought me to the next thing: what to paint? I thought of picking up an interesting Warhammer figure, but then again, I'm a 3D Environment Artist, and thought it would be fun to sculpt my own, and have it 3D Printed. Do any of you have experience with how much that would be (ball park), and if it is even feasible - meaning quality-wise? I've heard that it can be rather rough looking, but I have no idea of where it's at with it.

Thanks!

- H

A buddy of mine makes terrain on Blender and is printing it. Stuff like barrels, a well, boxes, cogs and stuff like that.
He is a real artisan. Sadly, I don´t have any pics.

Some of it is quite good, some look like sculpted with a rusty knife....
Oh, well, he has a rather cheap 3D-printer.

It's not going to be cheap. There's more consumer level printers but they start around $500 for a decent one, and won't do the level of detail you need for miniatures.. but they would be ok for terrain, you might need to do some sanding/filling to smooth out some rough spots. They use spools of plastic "wire" to somehow magically make stuff.

For miniatures you will need to spend like $4000 or more and get one of those printers that uses liquid resin that's cured with light. They're expensive, slow, have a learning curve and potential to be really messy. But you do get good results in the end once you learn how it all works. Lots of minis companies are using these to make masters for resin miniatures, but the prints generally aren't going to work for the molds for metal miniatures that get hot.

If you want to just sculpt and print 1 custom mini, you're probably better off going to one of the companies like Shapeways.. however their detail isn't the greatest.. well, the last time I tried it was 3-4 years ago, maybe it's good now? That can get real expensive real fast though if you want to make lots of different minis..

It seems like the consumer level printers that use spools of plastic are getting better lately, I hope in a few years they will be able to do good enough detail for minis but they're just not quite there yet.

#1 Making models for 3D printing isn't the same as making them for film, print or computer games. It's more like CAD then anything else, the model needs to be a sold object, no intersecting planes, no gaps, etc.

#2 3D printing is a PITA, especially miniature level models. A filament printer (most printers that cost less then $3k) will look like mini Lego's. You need a HQ resin printer, but those things are expensive and require a lot of skill to use.

If you really want to, you could use a 3D print service, but that can get expensive really quickly. Start with something small to test the print quality. Shapeways is easy to use, but a 28mm Mech costs ~$25 in Frosted Extreme detail and I don't know if that's smooth enough.

Generally it's just cheaper to build something by hand and buy miniatures and convert them...

#1 Making models for 3D printing isn't the same as making them for film, print or computer games. It's more like CAD then anything else, the model needs to be a sold object, no intersecting planes, no gaps, etc.

It's actually generally easier than modeling for film/games and a lot less intensive than true "CAD" style modeling. You can't have overlapping vertices, your face normals must all be pointed in the same direction, you have to careful when deciding to use Booleans vs adding edge loops, etc. It's really not that bad. A lot of the requirements are actually the same or similar. The big point is that instead of having your AD kick a model back to you because it isn't deforming properly when rigged, you'll potentially crash a build. That's a PITA. Depending on what you use, there are even plug-ins available to make sure your models are water-tight and and ready to go before exporting (typically to a .stl format).


If you want to try it, I would recommend going through one of the third party services for a few small projects to see if it's really something you want to pursue.

Just started messing with a desktop filament printer. I don't know if I'd want to try an infantry model right now, but with some post-processing I think I can get some decent vehicle parts out of it.

Companies like Hero Forge will show you what is possible with current technology, and what it'd cost you to get various kinds of characters 3D printed. It's definitely not technology that's feasible on the personal home level yet.

Any picture of a 3d printed model ?
Is there a big company (GW, Mantic etc....) printing some of its models ?

I had great fun wih Hero Forge anyways: I was inspired by the "bad guy" in Avatar, and eventually came up this this:


and this:

I do it but, I don't post to Dakka yet. I make 3d models or print stuff for terrain.

Forget it. 3d printing quality is garbage. The resolution just isn't high enough and you get awful surface texture. It might be acceptable for gaming purposes if you're the type of person who has hordes of unpainted models shoveled carelessly into a box between games, but it's going to be laughed out of a serious painting competition. The amount of repair and finishing work you'd have to do to get it up to competition standards before painting would be on the same level as sculpting your own model from scratch.


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For an example, this is a model printed with Shapeways' highest level of detail. It's not a bad gaming piece, but the rough surface texture is still very obvious and the minimum feature size makes it look really blocky compared to real FFG models.

 Peregrine wrote:
Forget it. 3d printing quality is garbage. The resolution just isn't high enough and you get awful surface texture. It might be acceptable for gaming purposes if you're the type of person who has hordes of unpainted models shoveled carelessly into a box between games, but it's going to be laughed out of a serious painting competition. The amount of repair and finishing work you'd have to do to get it up to competition standards before painting would be on the same level as sculpting your own model from scratch.


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For an example, this is a model printed with Shapeways' highest level of detail. It's not a bad gaming piece, but the rough surface texture is still very obvious and the minimum feature size makes it look really blocky compared to real FFG models.

In the industry an acetone bath is used where the piece is put down into a vat for 24 hours and it gums up the surface which smooths over to a glossy sheen. We did this for the prosthetic that we made in our college's 3D printing class.

(Not the same as acetone as we use in nail polish before you go "plastic melts with acetone completely over time".)

 Stormwall wrote:
In the industry an acetone bath is used where the piece is put down into a vat for 24 hours and it gums up the surface which smooths over to a glossy sheen. We did this for the prosthetic that we made in our college's 3D printing class.

Does this actually work with something with the subtle detail of a gaming model? I can't imagine a process of "soften the material until it smooths itself out" is going to be very good for having clear detail and sharp edges. And of course it does nothing to help with the minimum feature size problem.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Stormwall wrote:
In the industry an acetone bath is used where the piece is put down into a vat for 24 hours and it gums up the surface which smooths over to a glossy sheen. We did this for the prosthetic that we made in our college's 3D printing class.

Does this actually work with something with the subtle detail of a gaming model? I can't imagine a process of "soften the material until it smooths itself out" is going to be very good for having clear detail and sharp edges. And of course it does nothing to help with the minimum feature size problem.

Yeah it penetrates like half a mm to a full mm into the plastic. It is costly time wise, and smells horrid if not enclosed well. It "gums up," the model and if you touch it in the first 24 hours it ruins the model in that area. For the most part, it turns everything glossy smooth as I said. I do not think it would be an easy setup to maintain in your house, though I will find out for sure before making such claims.

Granted, I could print a wrecked rhino terrain piece and dunk it and it would look fine or even something a bit more detailed like a 15mm Sicarian battle tank/rhino for Epic. I could print a space marine and it would look like ass. You could even perhaps get a small ships worth quality akin to something from shapeways but, at that point you are investing as much time as sculpting the real thing. Some of these examples are smooth - some are natural straight out of the printer. Hopefully in the below pictures the difference will be easy to discern.

Quality examples:


Thunderhawk free file:

As you can see on the close up, this guy didn't bathe his so it has those distinct ridges. But, for 12 euros worth of plastic and 1.20 euros worth of electricity, he has a decent Thunderhawk for terrain purposes.

The issue with printing models, such as a giant version of the Halo Halberd class destroyer (I printed it to be about as big as a Stormraven in length,) are those lines you mentioned. I have to sand them off, and repair print fail lines. I hope to make my own acetone bath with help of my college and test print an Epic 40k army or something else model related (such as a WW1 tank,) for educational purposes in the future to show the pros and cons of 3D printing.

If anyone would even care/if I wasn't banned on Dakka for it, lol.

Now then below is my Halberd class Destroyer. I've included a scale photo alongside a small amount of photos showing all flaws very clearly - this has only had the support material removed and shows all damages, flaws, lines, and even a section of print failure. Eventually I will clean it up and see if I even have something of worth. I'm only uploading these not to argue for or against but, for knowledge reasons.


Bottom showing lines, support materials, and majority of flaws.


More residue left from the support removal. This is a PITA to remove.


Look to the right side, in the middle of those two plates. Support material that is hard to remove and damages detail lies there.


Here is where the STL file had either corruption or another reason that moved the "bed," that supports the "supports," and thus the fin completely drooped off during the print and I had to remove it.


Lines clearly shown.


Size comparison.

That took 25 hours to print. It failed the first time.

Oh, these were printed on a Makerbot replicator, which is about 2.8k USD for a new one. I would argue I get the same quality depending on the time I take prepping, cleaning, and maintaining a cheaper XYZ printer. (Roughly 530$.) However, that is entirely a different topic - as I am just trying to show quality examples and things to supply more firsthand knowledge.

As far as making models, here is a CAD/Shapeways model I've done up for my Marines. It is about as big as a Thunderhawk, I will be printing it after some modifications to the STL/Cad file. I hope to document this and other 3D exploits so that everyone can gleam information from it.


Whether it will work or not, I do not know yet. I'm in the same boat as you. I can tell you already that model has 70 hours work into it and probably needs at least 20 more to make it finished, then more to make it print ready. It's a headache.

Anyways, I won't waste or press anyone's time any further until I have more replicable results and everything set up in person. Which could be as early as one month or a few months depending on income.

Video bump on ABS smoothing. Don't know if it helps. So apparently it is not complicated or expensive as I thought, after calling my Professor he told me to google it, and that it was that easy. So I did. Essentially, the college just has a pretty setup however, all you need is a crockpot and some acetone for the vapors.



Those videos basically cover it. This one shows ridges and then "the smoothness," in better quality but, gets it's own spoiler due to the fact that the company/designer decided to use a woman's art bust instead of a normal model. Artist level of nudity but, spoiler for rules reasons.

 Stormwall wrote:

...

Those videos basically cover it. This one shows ridges and then "the smoothness," in better quality but, gets it's own spoiler due to the fact that the company/designer decided to use a woman's art bust instead of a normal model. Artist level of nudity but, spoiler for rules reasons.

Spoiler:

I don't know if you noticed, but the acetone removed the nipples from the torso sculpture, so obviously this method is still not suitable for heroic scale miniatures. Vehicles and terrain maybe, but infantry no.

 Zingraff wrote:

 Stormwall wrote:

...

Those videos basically cover it. This one shows ridges and then "the smoothness," in better quality but, gets it's own spoiler due to the fact that the company/designer decided to use a woman's art bust instead of a normal model. Artist level of nudity but, spoiler for rules reasons.

Spoiler:

I don't know if you noticed, but the acetone removed the nipples from the torso sculpture, so obviously this method is still not suitable for heroic scale miniatures. Vehicles and terrain maybe, but infantry no.

I don't know if you noticed but, it's actually still there, watch when he rotates it. I knew someone would say that.

It's the material and the lightning once it gets that glossy sheen. Also a resin printer is better for infantry. PLA/ABS? I can print Epic 40k or normal 40k stuff all day in that but, not infantry. Furthermore, Anvil Industry 3D prints sculpts these days - it's not unheard of or uncommon and you failed to address the other videos.

As the designer of one of the ships posted above, it's available on Shapeways. The example is in Frosted Ultra Detail and looks great as a tabletop quality model. However, you're not going to win any painting competitions with a 3d printed model like that. Your surface isn't going to be perfectly smooth. An acetone bath or the like will gloss over details and ruin sharp edges and I do not recommend it in most cases.

That being said, my photography (and my paint job) don't do the model justice. It looks good in person and surface roughness is pretty minor. Unless you're a pretty talented painter, it's not going to affect your outcomes much, and it looks quite nice on the gaming table.


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Here's another example from my workbench, a truescale Chaos Marine (spoiler for absolutely massive image):


The torso and legs are 3D printed. Everything else is GW. You can't see it here but print lines are visible in person if you look close enough. Makes no difference on the table, makes a huge difference at a Golden Daemon level.

I still don't think 3D printing is quite mature enough to make 25mm or smaller figures. Terrain, on the other hand, is quite doable now. Bulkheads, walls, buildings, etc. are almost tailor made for 3D printing. Modular "print then assemble" designs would seem the best way to go. In fact, I'm surprised there isn't a push toward this by the community.

 CalgarsPimpHand wrote:
As the designer of one of the ships posted above, it's available on Shapeways. The example is in *Snip*

Was wondering when you would come in the thread. Thanks for your input.

3D printing still has a ways to go but, can be a good alternative for certain things as we've all concluded above.

FDM is really a bust when it comes to 25mm miniatures. SLA looks like its a good alternative.

If you have £1500 for an entry level printer you could get decent enough detail. £4000 gets you resolution good enough for miniatures I guess.