Join us for a guest article submitted by Joel Confino, discussing 3D printing miniatures and terrain! A big shout out of thanks to Joel for taking the time to do this write up, and provide a lot of cool pictures!
What if you could have a factory in your basement cranking out miniatures and terrain non-stop all day every day? And do it in an affordable way? Seems too good to be true? I was surprised to find how real this dream is if you own a 3D printer and wanted to share my experience using one for the past 8 months.
This past winter I purchased a 3D printer called a Lulzbot Mini 2 with the goal of experimenting with this newer technology. I’m a techie and like new gadgets. From my first test print I was blown away with the level of detail a consumer-grade 3D printer can achieve, and knew this was a hobby for me.
My printer is an FDM printer and it prints objects by melting plastic filament and squeezing it through a nozzle similar to squeezing a tube of toothpaste. It builds up an object in very thin layers of plastic only a fraction of a millimeter in diameter. FDM printers range in price from $300-1500+ and commonly use an inexpensive filament called PLA. You don’t need a high-end printer to get great results. If you spend time calibrating your machine and experimenting with the various settings, a $300 printer can produce amazing prints.
My first question was, “OK I have this 3D printer, now how do I find things to print?” The answer is, of course, the Internet. You can download both free and paid 3D models from many different websites. As an example, a large website with free models is Thingiverse.com. An example of a popular commercial site where you can purchase gorgeous fantasy terrain is PrintableScenery.com.
Printing Terrain
Before I got into 3D printing, I had made a few hills out of foam but didn’t have any buildings. After drooling over pictures of fantasy scenery on the PrintableScenery website, I bought some models of buildings and printed them.
One thing I found out was that 3D printers are slow. My printer can print things roughly 6” square — they don’t call it the Mini for nothing — so printing a building required printing it in several smaller pieces and then gluing them together. Each piece took roughly 12 hours, so I was able to print a building in a couple of days. On the flip side, the level of detail of the buildings is incredible. I printed a small village worth of terrain. This is a case where a picture is worth a thousand words.
Above you can see the unpainted, and then painted results of several days worth of 3D printing.
Printing Miniatures
Printing terrain was going fantastic but then I inevitably asked, “Could I actually print a high quality miniature with my 3D printer?” Terrain is boxy and simplistic compared to a detailed figure with small delicate parts.
There are many talented artists who either give away or sell their 3D models online, and I found some cool earth elementals to add to my Dwarf army on DuncanShadow.com. My first attempts at printing the earth elementals went poorly and they ended up as large blobs of plastic instead of detailed miniatures.
I watched a bunch of Youtube videos on various settings you can use with your printer to optimally print miniatures, and those settings made a huge difference. Soon I was able to crank out earth elemental minis! One of the neat things about 3D printing is that you can make simple adjustments to a model to get more variety if you are making an entire unit of them. For example, I made some of the earth elementals slightly larger or smaller, and made mirror images of some of them so they weren’t mono-posed.
Earth elementals are large infantry and chunky so therefore an easy miniature to print. I wanted to try a smaller standard 28mm mini with lots of detail and chose a model from Artisan Guild called Slathos. My first couple of attempts didn’t go well and resulted in failed prints.
3D printing isn’t just a matter of downloading a file, sending it to your printer and pushing a button. You need to tweak the settings for each type of print, and typically smaller and more detailed things are more difficult to print successfully.
Slathos was my ultimate test — if I could print him, I could print anything. After some trial and error, I got the right setting dialed in, and printed and painted the model in about 3 hours total. I think the model looks great. If you look closely from 6” away you can see the layer lines and whether or not you care about that is a matter of preference.
I completely understand why that is not good enough for some gamers, but for me, the speed at which I can print a model and get it on the battlefield is worth the small visual defects that are only seen if you look up close. I’m planning on using this model as a Thuul mystician in a Vanguard warband.
I should note that there are several types of 3D printers. FDM printers are currently the best option for terrain and larger objects. They can also do a pretty good job with small minis are you can see, but there are visible layer lines if you look really closely.
Resin printers are perfect for printing minis and their resolution is so high that you don’t see layer lines at all which is amazing. Resin printers are too small to print terrain and also involve a little more maintenance than FDM printers. The sensible option is clearly to have both! My next printer will be a resin one.
Digital Kitbashing
I am very interested in digital kitbashing. Imagine combining parts from thousands of different digital models and creating new things. This is the future of 3D printing for tabletop wargaming in my opinion.
Forget the days of mono pose; you could end up with an army in which every single model is uniquely posed! There are already websites like HeroForge.com that use this concept, and I tried it out myself. I had an idea for a Dwarven air force unit where an airship was flanked by two gyrocopters. I love playing Dwarves but wanted to try out a flying unit.
In my terrain collection, I had a giant 18” long airship created by PrintableScenery to be used as terrain. I decided to shrink it down and try to use it in an actual unit. My first attempt at shrinking it down didn’t go well because while the balloon printed fine the railings on the ship ended up too small to print.
I tried combining the balloon with a 3D printed row boat but it was predictably underwhelming.
Finally after a long time messing around with a free 3D modeling program called MeshMixer I was able to fix the railings so the entire airship could be printed small enough to fit inside a calvary horde base. I also converted a cannon into a cannon + steering wheel and added a Dwarven standard to the front.
It was more of a shrinking than a kitbashed conversion but I was happy with the result and took the Dwarven air force to the Keystone GT. Through the experience of creating this unit, I discovered that using 3D modeling software to do kitbashing involves a big learning curve. While I’m interested, I still have a ways to go to get proficient at it but I’ll keep trying because I think the idea has so much potential.
Final Thoughts
3D printing is its own hobby, and it still is in the “early adopter” phase. The printers all require some level of maintenance. I don’t spend a lot of time fixing mine, but I have had a couple of minor issues that I’ve had to fix. On the other hand, my printer has cranked out dozens of prints in the last 8 months so I’m happy with the overall reliability. In addition to printer maintenance, experimentation is needed to figure out the best way to print a particular 3D model. Should you print it standing up? Laying flat? At a 45 degree angle? Different orientations will work better for different models. I find it fun to fiddle with the settings and try to get the perfect print. I am constantly amazed at what my little Mini can do.
If you are looking for something where you just push one button and it always works with little to no maintenance, I’d say 3D printing just isn’t there yet and you’ll be frustrated with the experience. However for those of you who are tinkerers, getting a 3D printer and setting up a mini factory in your basement can be a fun new way to enhance your tabletop wargaming.
A big shout out of thanks to Joel for writing this guest article. If you have an idea for an article to be on the website, don’t hesitate to contact us here at Dash28 with your idea. We usually will ask for you to email us a draft of the article, after pinning down the idea, and then go from there.
