3D Printing Minis

For a while now I've been considering getting a 3D printer and designing and printing my own minis. However, while I have done some research on 3D printers, I really don't know much of anything about how suitable they are for making fantasy miniatures of the size regularly used for things like D&D. If anyone (ideally, with actual, first-hand experience) can educate me on the DPI needed to give the minis suitable detail, the kinds of software that would be used in making a 3D model and converting it into a blueprint for the 3D printer, or any other relevant topics, I'd be quite appreciative.

I have never 3D printed a mini myself, but I have a few of the Hero Forge minis. I believe they are 3D printed? They are pretty darn nice in detail. I have the gray plastic versions which were supposed to be higher quality. The plastic is a bit brittle, so it can't just be thrown into a bag like old DDM minis. They are probably about the same as Pathfinder minis.

However, every single picture I see of a miniature that someone custom printed themselves from home looks horrible. No fault of their own. It's just that I'm assuming the currently affordable printers are still not very good for printing something like a miniature. The texture is always very rough and nowhere near to being smooth like an official miniature. The texture makes them look worse once they get painted. The roughness appears to stand out even more.

If you don't care about the quality and you just want some hunks of plastic to set up on the table, then you would be fine using a 3D printer. Although, take in to account the cost of the materials needed to make them. I figure it's not cheap, but I really don't know. So the time spent designing minis, paying for the printer and the materials, and then painting them might be more expensive than just buying a miniature or even paying $30 for a Hero Forge custom design.

My opinion is that we're still several years away from having an affordable 3D printer that will pump out a good quality miniature for gaming. Still, it's amazing that we can even get what people are doing now. Even if they look rough, it's still neat to make a custom design mini at home.

Oryan77 said:

My opinion is that we're still several years away from having an affordable 3D printer that will pump out a good quality miniature for gaming. Still, it's amazing that we can even get what people are doing now. Even if they look rough, it's still neat to make a custom design mini at home.

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I agree. The terrain stuff coming from home 3d printers is very solid. A friend of mine printed a Viking lodge for me recently and it is awesome. I cannot wait to paint it up.

However, aside from mechs or futuristic space marines in heavy armor I have not seen a home-printed character miniature that I would consider painting or using.

Fat Dragon Games' forums have some good threads with tips on this.

I backed FDG's first 3D terrain Kickstarter but ended up not getting a printer. Printing takes a lot of time and you still have to paint the minis or terrain.

Instead, I bought a Silhouette paper cutter. I can quickly print an army of paper 2D minis in full color, front and back. I can also print out minis the night before a game if needed. Also, the paper cutter doesn't take up much space, is easily stored, and I don't have to worry about hazardous fumes. Flat minis also store better. You can have many hundreds in a small box organized in envelopes, or get a hardware or craft cabinet.

A friend of mine has had his share of bad luck with 3d printing mini's. Turns out that the 3d printer everyone was raving about, also shakes a lot, thus ruining the prints. Plus getting the settings right seems to be a pain.

I'd rather order them from Hero Forge than waste money on a 3d printer myself. Plus those things take up so much space.

Imaculata said:

A friend of mine has had his share of bad luck with 3d printing mini's. Turns out that the 3d printer everyone was raving about, also shakes a lot, thus ruining the prints. Plus getting the settings right seems to be a pain.

I'd rather order them from Hero Forge than waste money on a 3d printer myself. Plus those things take up so much space.

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I have a friend who is getting it down to a science and I plan on abusing our relationship to get as much terrain stuff as possible!

One of the guys in our wargaming group is 3d printing houses and they are amazing. Also old US Army jeeps and M2 heavy machine guns and stuff. Look excellent, he hasn't tried a character yet but I don't think he has models for that.

I think this is a great idea!

I am not at all into RPG minis myself, since I always use Lego minifigs instead when playing D&D, but if I had a 3D printer I would probably use it to print unique weapons, magic items and maybe monsters heads and bodies to augment those Lego minfigs

It seems like there's some conflict of opinion about the quality of 3d printed minis. I know the filament printers typically create lower quality minis, but the liquid resin ones can create finer details than the filament printers. I know they're more expensive, but they've reached a point where I wouldn't consider them prohibitively expensive. I just want to make sure they do a good-enough job before putting out that kind of money.

Speaking as someone with two 3D printers (A Robo 3D R1+ and a Printrbot Simple Metal), I think I can speak a little to this. I have printed some D&D minis and some terrain, to varying effect. I'll try not to go overboard.

There are several advantages and disadvantages to 3D printing minis. First, lets break 3D printing down into constituent technologies, specifically FDM, SLA/DLP and Sintering. Without going into too much detail, most 3D printers are FDM, which deposit heated plastic onto a bed, one layer at a time; SLA/DLP uses a liquid resin that is solidified by a laser, again one layer at a time; Sintering takes a fine powered material and applies a glue-like substance to it or uses a laser to fuse it, again, one layer at a time. So 3D printing creates very thin slices of an object, stacking them until you have the object. That's important because it is a limitation of the technology; there are work-arounds, but certain designs are more difficult compared with mold-casted miniatures.

Here's a few things to understand.

• 3D Printing is expensive
• 3D priting is not a turnkey solution
• There are many, MANY free designs out there
• Different technologies provide different advantages/disadvantages
• 3D printing is SLOW
• Quality requires time and/or money
• Physics can be your enemy when printing

This may sound like I'm telling you this can't be done. I'm not. It totally can. HOWEVER. If you are thinking, 'Wow, I'll just drop $150 on Monoprice and get a printer and I'll be printing orc armies is no time!' that you may need to reset your expectations some. While it has much improved since I started using printers 3 years ago, it is still very much a hobbyist pursuit, like a HAM radio or car tuning. My first printer took me 6 hours to get a print out of (including printer assembly and fine-tuning). My second printer I had going in 45 minutes...but that was a more expensive unit. Regardless, simply be aware that even when you get it running, there will be a lot of tinkering to get your unique settings right for your environment (based on your material, humidity, printer and lots of factors).

Now let's talk the real issues: quality. FDM printers, out of the box, usually only support a print 'resolution' of 100 micrometers (.1MM). That sounds super small, and it is, BUT...when printing a 28MM scale miniature, it is not as small as it sounds. This means your mini may have visible lines for each layer as it prints, possibly preventing the high-level of detail you may be expecting from a molded mini. SLA/DLP printers can go down to 25 micrometers, which as you might expect leads to very high detail...but SLA/DLP printers are much more expensive (I have a friend who has a FORM 2...it retails currently for $3500) and require things like cleanup and curing. In terms of time, for me to print a miniature from HeroForge can take from 3 to 4 hours, depending on the design and resolution. Also, depending on the design, it may not be a simple issue to print it. Characters with out-stretched limbs, for example, require you to print support structures for those limbs to be printed properly (as you can start printing a layer in mid-air).

Now, having said all of that, I can assure that you can do it, it's fun and it's quite possible to get very nice results. I will gladly go on more detail about the topic, share pics of what I've printed and so forth. I've printed some very cool dungeon tiles, for example. But I wanted to let you know you're essentially adopting a hobby to do it and that you're not going to push a button and get a beholder (which is a nightmare to print, btw). There are limitations to what it can do and what it can do EASILY, but the results can be great.