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This is my first test print on a Makerbot Pro my boss owns. I've been avoiding 3D printing since generally it seems like it would look terrible once painted, but since he offered to print me up a few test kits, I decided to give it a shot.

Before



After



Keeping in mind that I'm a fairly amateur painter, color me impressed. I think that at this level of resolution I could actually concede that 3D printing has made it to the point that terrain is at an acceptable level.

You guys have any prints you especially like?

What settings i.e. layer height, resolution, did you use?

Quite nice print - I see some pillowing - that can be resolved by using denser infill and more top layers.

In terms of prep, liquid greenstuff works wonders to fill in the lines in top surfaces. Apply thickly then drybrush or gently sand. Repeat till smooth.

This is one I printed off months ago and painted recently.

I'm far mor forgiving of print lines in stuff like terrain - the barrels are a bit rough for me, but the defenses up top are plenty fine.

Man, I'd take either.
Whats the total cost of say the barricades? (machine + mats+ templates etc).

Yeah, My printer at the time didn't really like doing layered circles, probably should have sanded them down a bit before painting them.

They still look good on a table top though if it's just for general gaming and you really need stuff to create the battlefield!

I found the best way to find terrain is to search for "Scalesby" on Thingiverse and then find some terrain that you like from anywhere that you can 3D Print, Then load up the terrain model you want to print and also add in the Scalesby model in the size you want to do (i.e 28mm scale), then all you have to do is rescale the terrain model until it looks right compared to Scalesby.

Certainly takes out a lot of guesswork and opens up a lot of possibilities.

I feel like it would of been better to print the parts separately so you can run a needle file through the print lines then glue onto a base that has slots for the barrels.

its good enough for quick and dirty terrain at a distance.

really jelly. i wish i had a 3d printer.

They are handy pieces of kit, but they can be a pain to set up and repair when they go wrong, plus you end up forever modifying it to make it work better!

But if you want to make interesting terrain but don't have the skillset for scratch building it can be very useful.

That is if you can deal with waiting almost 2 days for a great quality print as well as the unrelenting noise, it's basically the new dot matrix printer (which I have the pleasure of using in my new job, brought back some memories haha )