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Hi all,

I have recently received my 3d printer. And since it has been my dream to design and print my own army, I want to share the process with you. This is going to be mostly a learning experience so the end product is not as important as the process to get there.

So before I got the printer I started to design my soldier (pics bellow). the first version printed without problems, but since the 28mm scale is just so tiny, all the details were all gone and the correct size look like a tiny man compared to my traitors.
v2 was much closer to what i want but still looked way to small.
I just printed v3 which I'm quite happy with and I think this is going to be the base for the the whole army.

questions and suggestions welcome!

V3 looks pretty good, shame the details have blurred so much though. He's built like Conan though,

V1 and V2 are like dancers. Maybe a V2.5 or in-between would be the perfect balance.

 Shandara wrote:
V3 looks pretty good, shame the details have blurred so much though. He's built like Conan though,

V1 and V2 are like dancers. Maybe a V2.5 or in-between would be the perfect balance.

Yeah I know what you mean. I will keep that in mind on my current stance. I do want to incorporate some body build variations to the army (not to extreme) and eventually females as well.

current screen shot bellow (WIP Mar23)

I like your design. Seems like you are no stranger to the modelling software! That is so much cooler than the thread topic led me to believe. Awesome ambitious project well worth documenting and sharing!

Would you mind sharing behind the scenes info, such as what kind of printer you are using? The detail seems too good for your run of the mill plastic FDM model, but not quite as fine as SLS samples I've seen.

This thread is going to be epic.Already you have some badass designs id throw money at.

Really fantastic design!! V3

but the 3D printout is sorely dissapointing - what is with all the diagonal banding marks, is this normal? that looks terrible to me.

But your 3D sculpt is bang on, and slaps the GW design in the face, IMHO

Wow, those designs are epic. Extraordinary. I've been looking around for some properly scaled 28mm models (to help me sculpt my own IG as it happens) and here you've come up with something incredibly close to that. Very interesting indeed. Great stuff. Thread Subscribed.

Thats just the thing - currently you don't get an affordable 3D-printer that does not leave any lines. You can remove them with the acetone vapour method, but that says in equal measure bye-bye to any small details like buttons, noses, pouches or the like. I think the tech is just not good enough for infantry models at 28mm yet.

However, you could start with your tanks and APCs. That rough surface design would even fit well with your theme, as WW2 german tanks had a similar rough surface, it was a coating of some sort to prevent sticky charges.

This is going to be veeeeery interesting! The design of your army is great! Subscribed!

Thank you all for ]the great comments.

Kosake is right. at this point the lines are going to be there no matter what printer currently in the market you get. I specifically piked mine (is a Form1 from FormLabs) because it has one of the smallest layer resolution out there. I have seen better ones but only a business could afford those.

In anyway I think as I get more experienced I think I could get better prints. I have an acceptable knowledge of 3D modeling but I there is so much more that I need learn. and as far as printing I am just beginning the fun. At
And once I start to move from the tiny soldiers to vehicles, walkers, and structures, I believe that is were the magic will really start to show (it will probably be a while before that happens).

We have a really expensive thing here in the institute. I can ask, whether I can do a test, but the whole thing is really costly, even the fotosensitive ink they use costs a boatload. If you are interested, send me the file and any specs and i'll see what can be done with SOTA tech.

 Kosake wrote:
We have a really expensive thing here in the institute. I can ask, whether I can do a test, but the whole thing is really costly, even the fotosensitive ink they use costs a boatload. If you are interested, send me the file and any specs and i'll see what can be done with SOTA tech.

I would be down for a test like that. However, It would have to be one that has no 40k stuff on it. So far, GW has been quite nasty on people who have shared any model that remotely resembles their stuff. Which I totally understand, since it is their business, but trust me it would be more time efficient and way way way less expensive to just go and buy their stuff.

The digital sculpts are quite nice, but as has been noted the actual print is sadly lacking. My best suggestion here would be to have masters of the miniatures printed (minus copyrighted iconography) in high resolution at a commercial printer. Once printed and cleaned up the most cost effective method of making your army would be casting them in resin.

commissarbob wrote:
The digital sculpts are quite nice, but as has been noted the actual print is sadly lacking. My best suggestion here would be to have masters of the miniatures printed (minus copyrighted iconography) in high resolution at a commercial printer. Once printed and cleaned up the most cost effective method of making your army would be casting them in resin.

Is the Imperial Eagle copyrighted? I didn't think it could be given that 2 headed eagles have been used throughout history.

But I agree with your method. If you can get a high quality print of the masters and then use resin casting for duplicates.

Subscribed. I absolutrly love the models you made priorto printing and looking forward to following your printing journey.

These look awesome, to only have that kind of talent. Keep up the work and when are you doing your kickstarter?

What brand of printer is used for these beautiful things? lol

The renders look fantastic! I think you'd do best to use your printer for prototyping, then have a master model professionally printed and use it to cast copies. Urethane casting isn't too hard, with your modeling skills I think you could definitely handle it

interesting.

Ive been using 3D printers quite extensively the past few years, and while coarse printing like this can be a bit disappointing it still has a lot of uses.

I now print almost all my sculpting armatures. Makes it simple to ensure that all your arms and legs are the same length and you dont have to build up torsos and other bulk areas.

The other thing which I have relatively recently started doing. While companies like Shapeways offer cheap printing, it isnt the finest resolution. It isnt horrible though for the price. What I do though is print them at double size (triple for certain things like heads and weapons). When I get those in, I clean them up and make adjustments as needed for casting.

Once that is done, make a silicone mold of the printed master and then cast in shrinking resin (Hydrospan 400 is what Ive been using). Let it shrink and now you have a crisp, clean master for resin casting. You can do similiar stuff by shrinking your mold with naptha, but the Hydrospan shrinks further faster. You effectively double or triple the resolution of your printed master.

Very good sculpture!

I'm amazed that resin can be made to shrink uniformly enough for that purpose.

Hydrospan works pretty good, some other methods are less reliable.

I had been using it for years to actually shrink masters for model train customers, and while cleaning a 3D print, it dawned on me that I might be able to make the striations less apparent by shrinking them. Did a couple tests, and it worked well enough.

The larger print is easier to clean and handle, and provided you do not have any really thick areas (talking a couple centimeters) it shrinks down fine. Thick areas can be problematic if the thin parts shrink much faster then them. For those, I hollow it out and then fill back in with putty if need be for final casting.

 Saz000 wrote:

 Kosake wrote:
We have a really expensive thing here in the institute. I can ask, whether I can do a test, but the whole thing is really costly, even the fotosensitive ink they use costs a boatload. If you are interested, send me the file and any specs and i'll see what can be done with SOTA tech.

I would be down for a test like that. However, It would have to be one that has no 40k stuff on it. So far, GW has been quite nasty on people who have shared any model that remotely resembles their stuff. Which I totally understand, since it is their business, but trust me it would be more time efficient and way way way less expensive to just go and buy their stuff.

As far as I can see your actual printouts, the only thing GW-protected could be the aquilla. Make your own variation of a two-headed eagle or make a double-wing symbol without a head or something and you are good to go.
Also, GW policy? Yeah. Sure. They totally can cease and desist anyone who does their own models that could possibly be used in some sort of wargaming context, good luck to them in this noble endeavour.... not.

HAIL HYDRA!

Haters can hate but I think there perfect

As much as I like the designs, the actual models really are not that good. As others have said, home 3-D printing just isnt there as far as small scale detail goes. Look forward to seeing some vehicles though.

For Anyone interested, this are a couple of good free resources for modelers and 3d printing. I am mostly working on Zbrush and 3ds Max but a lot of these models can be imported to any program. No need to reinvent the wheel when you can just download one.

http://tf3dm.com/3d-models/weapons
http://www.thingiverse.com/search/page:1?q=warhammer&sa=
https://grabcad.com/home
http://www.yeggi.com/popular-3d-models/
http://www.badking.com.au/site/product-category/custom-brushes/military/

 Kosake wrote:


As far as I can see your actual printouts, the only thing GW-protected could be the aquilla. Make your own variation of a two-headed eagle or make a double-wing symbol without a head or something and you are good to go.
Also, GW policy? Yeah. Sure. They totally can cease and desist anyone who does their own models that could possibly be used in some sort of wargaming context, good luck to them in this noble endeavour.... not.

I agree, I feel that the whole copyright and cease and desist saga was totally mishandled by the companies. You cannot treat the people who feed you as your enemies. Instead of fighting technology you gotta embrace it.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
Ive been using 3D printers quite extensively the past few years, and while coarse printing like this can be a bit disappointing it still has a lot of uses.

I now print almost all my sculpting armatures. Makes it simple to ensure that all your arms and legs are the same length and you dont have to build up torsos and other bulk areas.

The other thing which I have relatively recently started doing. While companies like Shapeways offer cheap printing, it isnt the finest resolution. It isnt horrible though for the price. What I do though is print them at double size (triple for certain things like heads and weapons). When I get those in, I clean them up and make adjustments as needed for casting.

Once that is done, make a silicone mold of the printed master and then cast in shrinking resin (Hydrospan 400 is what Ive been using). Let it shrink and now you have a crisp, clean master for resin casting. You can do similiar stuff by shrinking your mold with naptha, but the Hydrospan shrinks further faster. You effectively double or triple the resolution of your printed master.

I am going to have to look in to that for sure. I did try mold making a while ago and I failed miserably. I am going to have to find an experienced person to show me the tricks. I do feel that eventually, the 3d printing technology will catch up on quality and price. the Demand is definitely there, and the amount of different things that you could possibly do is unimaginable.

Just curious what the cost is for the gear you used and the printed unit itself.

Those are the most metal guard designs I've ever seen.