(I’ve been informed that I had been told complete BS by the person trying to tell me that resin printing 1:72 wargame minis would be stupidly expensive. As such, my question here is no longer relevant.)
I am considering the option to get back into miniature painting by starting with 3D printing my own custom figures.
Given the price difference, it would have to be plastic (I read PLA is a good option), and for my purposes it would mostly be 1:72 scale figures.
The deciding factor is whether at such a small scale PLA can achieve a level of detail that doesn’t look completely terrible. I’m used to 1:72 injection mold figures, and my previous paint work in the past was always so thick that much of the detail present on those would disappear anyway. So I’m really not looking for much.
But looking for existing images of such prints is very much not search engine friendly and I mostly just come up with Chinese soldier figures made out of some mystery material or figures of unknown scale.
Can anyone help me to find some reference pictures of 1:72 PLA figures so I can take a look if this level of detail is acceptable for me?
Not answering your question exactly, but consider this:
Creality Ender 3 Pro (common entry level PLA printer) - $236
Elegoo Mars 3 Pro (common entry level resin printer) - $194.99
I own both for different reasons. As many will tell you, resin for minis, PLA for terrain.
Here is the best PLA mini I ever printed:
You simply cannot get the level of detail you would desire for mini painting from PLA. I know others out there have done better than I have in the above photo, but it still pales in comparison to an entry level resin printer.
Edit: I have a photo of the same model printed with resin, but having a hard time uploading it for some reason.
What nozzle and layer height were you printing with? I’ve printed a few minis with a 0.2mm nozzle and 0.08mm layer height and the results look much smoother than what you had…
Exactly this. I still use a 0.4 nozzle and the results are more than satisfactory.
These figures were all support-free designs by EC3D, and are a joy to print.
At 0.08mm layers, you can feel the lines with a fingernail, but can’t see the from more than a few cm away.
Dude, that looks rough as hell compared to any resin print. I don’t get why some people just have to cope so hard over this, resin is just better for detail, it’s not a comment on your print skills or whatever.
Oh, I agree, resin prints are much more detailed. I just wanted to provide another point of reference for FDM mini prints, since the parent commenter’s FDM prints looked… rough.
This was probably 2 or 3 years ago, but I had a .2mm nozzle and .08 layer height as well most likely.
My pla prints have always looked rough, no matter what tutorials or tweaking I do.
Did you print him on his back with a 0.4 layer or what?
On his back, but 0.2mm
Yeah print from bottom to top. That gives you the best resolution
That’s what I typically do. This was an odd case where I had failed half a dozen prints already, and ended up getting a successful print with a different orientation.
Yeah fdm is not always the best or the easiest to get successful prints with. It takes a lot of supports and patience. Also try dropping layer height to .12
Microcenter usually has a new customer deal that has an ender 3 pro or v2 for $100 btw