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I jumped into the 3D printing world almost a year ago. I was waiting like many to get a quality FDM printer down into the affordable range. I started out with an A8 clone kit that I built myself and I wholeheartedly recommend it to learn all about the details of the mechanics of 3D printers. After a lot of forum searches, videos, tweaks, I was able to get my A8 printing pretty good. I have a designed game (Cavern Quest Warriors) that I decided to print all of the minis (28mm-32mm for standard sizes) and terrain for 4 box sets for personal and family use. So, I decided to upgrade my printer and went with the Creality Ender 3 Pro, which is right around the $200 range.

There are certainly other printers out there that do as good of a job or better, but I was simply amazed at the level of quality I was getting out of the box with standard .4 nozzle and .1 layer settings. At some point I will go with a .2 nozzle and .06 layer, but these have proven more than adequate for now without taking days to print. Resin printers are certainly better in details, just a bit more expensive to buy and run along with other messy issues.

There is still some clean up to do on the prints below and you have to be a little creative on planning and placing your supports, but these have really come out well IMHO. I have printed over 100 minis and 120 pieces of terrain and am only about 1/3 the way through my project. Every single .stl file I have found has been from Thingiverse.com and it has never failed to provide almost anything I need.

Anyone else have some good minis they printed they would like to share?

Those look really good! I've been going back and forth on buying a 3D printer (since most of my gaming is online these days :( ), but I love going on Hero Forge or whatnot and building my characters.

Do you have a link to the printer you've been using?

I am using the Ender 3 Pro, which is available from a variety of places (Amazon has various sources) and I got it through Amazon direct from Creality. There are other distributors selling it, but wanted Amazon with their easy return policy and direct from Creality to make sure I was getting the latest version. Here is the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07K3SZBHJ/

You can also go directly to the Creality site to buy it and i think they would be the cheapest - it was on sale not too long ago.

And here are some Orcs I found on Thingiverse that I shrunk down for goblins. These are about 22mm tall.

That's much better than I'd have expected for an FDM printer. I recently picked up an entry level resin printer myself during a recent sale and am very impressed with the results. With a little bit of tinkered (or cut and pasting parts of 3d models), you really can create custom minis at home nowadays thanks to sites like thingiverse.

@warboss - post some pics!!

 MDSW wrote:
@warboss - post some pics!!

I'm apprenticing under fellow dakkite Albertorius to get the hang of properly (minimally) supporting models so that they have just enough to print correctly but not enough to require a ton of cleanup. My first attempt at multiple minis simultaneously after my initial test print(s).





After getting an unfortunate hybrid cactus effect and some supports that fused with the model underneath, I've done a few successive iterations and improved my technique (newest on the left). There is definitely a trial and error learning curve to getting the hang of it.



All three of the minis are custom remixes of existing models that I cut and pasted together. I'm not a modeller myself so that's the extent of what I can do but I'm happy with the results. I added a chainsword to a SOB model, made a custom Star Trek ship, and a Mass Effect Krogan as my RPG character model for a Starfinder campaign I just joined. Making those miniatures at home that never existed anywhere else is probably the most exciting thing for me about the hobby.

I'd really like to see some painted versions of these 'good enough' minis. The pictures show a lot of debris at the edges and printing lines across the bodies of the models, with rough areas visible even when not zoomed in.

Both seem like they're really going to show with paint and look fairly woeful.

I will have to snap some pics of them all based and cleaned up along with some paint in the next week or so.

Warboss - those resin minis are just excellent - I see now that resin printers are getting less expensive, so that will be the next investment!

Voss wrote:
I'd really like to see some painted versions of these 'good enough' minis. The pictures show a lot of debris at the edges and printing lines across the bodies of the models, with rough areas visible even when not zoomed in.

Both seem like they're really going to show with paint and look fairly woeful.

Here are some painted samples. While I am certainly not the best painter and you can obviously see some of the fuzzy details, they will do nicely for my games. It has a lot to do with the level of detail in the stl file, as the one orc warboss seemed to have little detail in the chainmail on his back - maybe that is why he was free on Thingiverse!

@Warboss, you convinced me... I will have to say that after much research and reviews, I will use my Ender 3 for big prints and will look to move to an Elegoo Mars resin printer as soon as I might be able to. I just can't get over the great prints you can get from the resin printers and the price point has gotten right down into the sub $300 range, so I will save my money and look to move to an Elegoo soon.

I would love to see more samples of minis people have printed!

Glad I could be of help. FDM is still great for larger prints that don't require tiny details (like terrain/scenery) unless you've got $10,000 sitting around burning a hole in your pocket for that giant industrial version of the Form3. I got really excited when the Photon came out at the $500 mark for the detail that it has (roughly equivalent to the Mars) but I couldn't justify it at that price point. I set for myself an upper limit of $300 and both the Mars and the Photon dipped below that this summer and I decided to jump into the 3d printing pool.

I should be finishing up a painted 3d print (the best of my krogan test prints posted earlier) tomorrow as I'm applying deals on him tonight. I should hopefully get an article up on my blog with some update pics tomorrow evening.

The second from the right (my smaller krogan) is my most recent attempt at 50 microns and full custom supports. I'd put the crispness and level of detail somewhere between modern plastics and older prepaints like the Star Wars fig I used as a comparison. It's not perfect as there is a little bowing of the gunclub barrel where the hand meets it but not to shabby for probably less than a dollar of resin and electricity (3d printer initial cost sold separately!).

My Ladies - Imperial Guardswomen. Scionesses and Ogrettes. Designed in Cinema 4D and printed on a B9 Creator.

The photon is a truly amazing printer. I have both the photon and the S and they have been incredible for the hobby stuff.

I still like my FDM for stuff too, though, like terrain.

@brumbaer - Those are stellar and awesome!!!

@warboss - Those are nice and your printed one looks right in line with them all, and with a great paint job.