3D printing

[ColonelFazackerley]

I am experimenting with 3D printing to personalise my army. I have made just enough progress to start a tutorial. I am far from expert, but this seems to be a rare endeavour, so I though I would share.

I learnt to use 3D modelling software, http://www.blender.org/.
I got several quotes and discussed materials with several companies, and ended up paying £36 for resin models from http://www.3dprint-uk.co.uk/, who are handily just down the road from where I work, so I did not have to pay for postage.

You need some software that can produce stereolithography (.stl) files. Blender is mostly aimed at making 3D models and animations for computer games, and it is extremely capable. Though it has a steep learning curve: you have to like keyboard shortcuts. My Windows GUI instincts were not much help.

I made
-an Iron Knights shield/badge thingy,
-pauldron addons with symbols for tac, dev and assault squads, and,
-a tiny iron knights symbol that I thought might go on a bolter or something.

In blender

Note the curved surface to sit neatly on pauldrons.


The printed result.


They came on a gel support structure. The gel is crumbly. So far, my best removal method is to slice most of it away with a sharp knife and remove the rest with a paintbrush (half-inch-ish flat thing). These models are tiny (mostly 4x4mm), so the biggest risk is one of the cream coloured symbols ending up on the cream carpet.

Here are some assault pauldron addons, iron knight pauldron addons and a mini shield, with the gel cleaned off.


I put them on some clingfilm to prime, as I thought it was likely that the primer would glue them to the surface. It would have been better to glue them on the marine before priming, but I had already started painting when I got the prints back. I gave the shield a wash so the detail shows up in the pics. I have only just started painting the models. Here is my assault squad.







All the companies I corresponded with were very helpful.

http://www.designentity.co.uk/
a bit cheaper, using a material called PLA, which I believe would not have taken the detail as well.

http://www.digits2widgets.com/
£100 but they would have cleaned up the bits for me. Also the material they would have used was nylon selective laser sintering (SLS) which I think would have got better detail.

In general the number of bits and the total volume of material both affect the price. It is worth offering to do the post-print cleanup yourself to save some money.

I wish I had made them all a bit bigger. I will aim to do better next time. It is quite expensive, but also quite exciting to see your 3D imaginings made flesh.

[Ossai]

That looks really good, might have to check this out myself sometime, as an animator I am constantly creating stuff in Maya. Do you use proper measurements in Blender as they translate to the real world? And is that how they measured the size when printing?

[ColonelFazackerley]

I tried to use proper scaling, but when I did the objects were clipped out of existence in the 3D view. It should be possible, but I couldn't get it to work. So I just kept it dimensionless in blender, and then told the printers that 1 unit was 1 mm, and that most of the parts were 4x4mm. They all seemed fine with this.

If several people want parts made, it might make it cheaper to get them combined into one job. Let me know if you want to try this.

[Col.Gravis]

Very informative and interesting.

I need to get to grips with Blender myself as I've quite a few things I'd like to do which I think would benefit from 3D design and printing.

It does look like its worth investing in higher quality prints, perhaps the best route especially given the quantities might be to get smaller print runs and then look at resin casting your printed masters? But then again what proportion of the printing cost is setup, and how much is the actual material by volume?

[ColonelFazackerley]

It does look like its worth investing in higher quality prints, perhaps the best route especially given the quantities might be to get smaller print runs and then look at resin casting your printed masters? But then again what proportion of the printing cost is setup, and how much is the actual material by volume?

Varies between firms, and firms will probably have changed their tariffs by the time I do some more. I think the chap at 3dprint-uk.co.uk made up the discount on the spot when he saw it was a simple job with a very low volume of material required.

There are some setup costs. They will look at the quality of the stl file you give them. Mine did need some clean up before it was usable by the printer. It was very quick and automatic in the software he used, though. I guess a more ambitious model, say a full 3D creature may require more work by the printer and be more expensive.

The prices of these printers is decreasing all the time, and quality is improving. It's already at the level where a keen amateur could get their own. Perhaps make some money back producing custom bits for friends.

[grimdisco]

This company as good for 3D printing. They even let you sell your creations from their website and they ship it from the printers.
http://www.shapeways.com/gallery#mg

[ColonelFazackerley]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012...n_1231061.html

Natfka did a post about this huffpo article, but then Natfka's article disappeared.

The lost article was here http://natfka.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01...icle-from.html

Not sure if the cheaper home printers are anywhere near as good as a cast, yet.

Bit of threadomancy here.

[Printablescenery]

Have you thought about designing stuff and selling it on www.printablescenery.com

[Shirlzknight]

Looks great but beyond my capabilities, I am just guessing here but I think a 3D printer would be invaluable for terrain -especially similar to the GW range- gothic style etc. I haven't seen anyone attempt to do things on the tiny scale you seem to have pulled off here, looks good on the mini. I think these printers will eventually become an essential part of our hobby down the line.