"Thoughts on 3D Printing and Gaming Miniature Production." Topic

I just posted a blog about 3D printing and some things to consider when designing miniatures for production. This comes from a conversation I've been having with Jeff Rodman of Fortress Figures about the problems that he often runs into when dealing with 3D printed miniatures.

The article contains some good advice from Jeff and some rambling thoughts from me.

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"Try to leave no ambiguity as to where one object ends and another begins. Remember that miniatures are by their very nature distorted caricatures of what they are depicting. If you do them true to scale, heads, hands and weapons are very tiny and much of your detail is just too fine to see let alone cast."

So true! This is THE problem for many new ranges that are coming out now.

Very interesting.
I'm not sure you are talking about 'rivets' though…

Good post sir

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i think this says it all …

I find that many digitally sculpted miniatures don't have enough exaggeration of detail and are difficult for normal mortals to paint. As the article illustrated, raised surfaces need to be raised quite a bit and indentations need to be deep.

When we started the test models for "War Rocket" we created test tiles showing various styles of raised surfaces, rivets and panel lines. After the tile was printed, we made castings to analyze the details in metal. We developed our specifications for the project based on this information. I think our rocket miniatures still look great even though they were produced 3 to 5 years ago.

There are new printing methods that leave virtually no printer strata and are completely smooth. However, they are nearly 3x the amount of standard prints so it might be cost prohibitive to make a miniature from a 3D print. A traditional sculptor charges $300 USD to $500 USD for a standard 30mm figure, but for a digital sculpt, you have to pay your sculptor and then you still have to pay $250 USD-300 for a print. Then if the print is the wrong size or has to be tweaked, you have to pay for it to be printed again. This can get to be expensive. Digital sculpting works best for mechanical models but I still prefer a traditional sculpt by a master like Tom Meier, John Dennett, or Mark Copplestone.

Matt Beauchamp
Hydra Miniatures
hydraminiatures.com

Facebook link:
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"Very interesting.
I'm not sure you are talking about 'rivets' though…"

"Very interesting.
I'm not sure you are talking about 'rivets' though…"
Hummm… maybe I'm not seeing what you're seeing. :)
Sometimes a rivet is just a rivet.

Contos needs some training in Zbrush then. I've sculpted a 28mm japanese officer with multiple parts. Using Subtool Master and Decimation Master in Zbrush, you can get the filesize down to a reasonable level very quickly w/o losing detail.

As others have said, exagerration is very important, its too easy to sculpt 'accurate' figures that don't paint well, because a 28mm figure looks cartoony when zoomed in on your screen. But Zbrush does offering measuring tools, so you can go "Well this ankle needs to be thicker".

As for 3D printers, the Pattern Master system by SolidScape is incredibly high res, and is 'only' $65,000. USD The prints are hard wax though, so resin or investment casts need to be done for mold making. IIRC, MaxMini offers printing and resin masters for a very nice price.

maxmini3d.eu

maxmini3d.eu/?attachment_id=64

I should add, setting up a electric furnace for investment casting of the wax masters isn't terribly expensive. Or you can do resin pressure casting using a pressurized paint pot from Harbor Freight.

I agree that I always need more training, but if you would point out what seems inaccurate or vague, I would would be happy to clarify or correct it.

grenel,

I should qualify by saying that until 2008/2009, what you said about working in Zbrush to make figures was very much true. It was near impossible to create a unified low-resolution mesh that still contained all the details. A lot of manual work with unified skin was involved.

Within the past two years, it has gotten incredibly easier. Decimation master does a phenomenal job. The unified skin workflow or dynamesh can save a lot of grief. Zbrush now comes with basic tools to fix mesh issues, such as "Close holes" and "Remove non-manifold edges", and supports a 'measuring' tape so you can check scale.

As for kickstarter and renders, everyone is correct. Renders don't count. And as for sculpting, well, with 3D, there are two types of modeling as well. "Realistic" for such things as accurate immersive FPS games, and then the more cartoony look often used for fantasy stuff, or massed battle games, where figures need to read well when poly budgets are tight or you need to be able to 'read' a unit on a screen that is drawn at small size. The later works better for miniatures because the same limits apply. So big thick straps, bulky or exagerrated rivets, etc. The larger the scale, the more realistic you can go, but 28mm is the cutoff.

I am not quite sure what you think I said as far as working in ZBrush to make figures, as that is what I do. I had many years prior experience manually sculpting, so I have a good deal of familarity with what is required for successful moldmaking for gaming figures. I am quite familiar with processing files for print, mesh repair, the plug ins you mentioned, and dynamesh, as I use them on a daily basis.

Are you referring to the little cautionary tale I wrote:
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I think there may be a bit of confusion here. Somebody posted that link to my article in this thread, which was started by a blogpost by Brian Roe. I wrote that tale of woe a few months back as several people I know of with crowdfunded projects had lost a good deal of money, as they were unfamiliar with 3D "sculpting", moldmaking, and miniature manufacturing in general. If you read the article to the bottom of the page, which is admittedly painful, I included pictures showing some of the issues, as well as some suggestions and links to some handy programs that may make life a little easier for those attempting this sort of work.

A few folks have admonished me for what they perceive as a nasty sarcastic tone in the article, but those who know me personally know that I am far worse in real life.

Sorry then. :)

I didn't know how old that post was.

But I also think you will agree things have come a long way.

You would probably want to talk to Mr. Roe about that, as I believe he is the fellow with whom you disagreed. The dynamesh updates starting in 4R2 really changed the remeshing workflow, and the recent panel and edge loop features and polish settings have come pretty close to making hard suface sculpting almost freehand. There are still people trying to find uses for z spheres, but I haven't bothered with them for quite awhile. The insert mesh and tube brushes can be a lot of fun, but I have an unusual workflow and really doin't use them much. I guess what seems tedious to animators seems relaxing to me after decades of using epoxy putty. I hope the next big update for ZBrush would be a conversion to 64 bit. That and a solid state hard drive would make things fly.

I use Zspheres for armatures, but not much else. I like 'punch outs' too though. Select the plane2D, draw a outline use mask, hit extract. Great for banging out basic hand/leg/torso/arm volumes very quickly.

A few folks have admonished me for what they perceive as a nasty sarcastic tone in the article

Just read the article, rather than sarcastic I read it as a written from a threatened position. Something like a propaganda film, you know the old ones with a fat capitalist sitting behind a desk smoking a cigar and lighting it with a $20 USD when you want folks to fear big business, or the 1930's German one's with minorities with big exaggerated features.

Basically, you've taken all the worst case scenarios and added them together to show how most crowdfunding will fail because no one can possibly learn how to run a business? Or no one can possibly learn how the miniatures manufacturing process works? Also that those trying to find out are wasting the time of those 'in the know'?

It's obvious you know your business, but it's unlikely that others aren't able to be as adept and skillful with some hard work.

I don't see how I am threatened, as I am merely trying to help people who are unfamiliar with this type of business avoid losing money by pointing out common pitfalls and troubles, and encouraging people to learn more and develop a good plan. I have seen a lot of nice people over the years get hurt financially and have a tough time personally because of going into a business unprepared. Friends and family try to be supportive and quite often enthusiasm blinds us to a lot of the harsh realities involved. Most of the succesful companies in this or any other business have a lot of failures before finally making it.

I found it rather amusing when I was told that someone had mentioned me by name and thought I needed training after reading the original unrelated post and somebody else had posted a link to my little rant months ago in the same thread. Now I find out that I may be in league with communist, anarchist, racist, Nazi propagandists, and have a fiendishly clever plan to discourage people from entering this business by advising them on various ways to do so. (It is true that I am a fat capitalist, but I gave up cigars when hipsters drove up the price in the 90's) It seems I may have outwitted my obnoxious, smarmy, smart alecky self yet again!

Oh well, I must get back to work- if you feel compelled to send slings and arrows toward some goofy guy you don't know on the interwebs or have a burning desire to straighten out my warped personality, feel free to email me. I rarely post here or anywhere else, so that is the best way to actually reach me if you so desire.

(By the way, I really do not know my business, and am pretty much making it up as I go along. It's best to learn from other people's mistakes, and I'm a tenured professor at that college)

More fun at the amazing Mini Sculpting Link Page:
fortressfigures.com/kcontos

Grendel, honestly, my post wasn't meant to critique you or your skills. It is hard though to tell from that post what experience was, and I apologize for misreading your rant. :)

As for kickstarter, I agree, too much hype in many areas. I've seen several 'virtual only' miniature or wargame related kickstarters fail, with no images of prototype figures, rulebooks, or gameboards.

And you are right, too many 3D artists do not know how to sculpt for miniatures. I suspect many of the Warzone figures will suffer from this, especially Bauhaus judging from the renders.

Do not concern yourself at all about my tender feelings, Crusoe. This is not even tempest in a teapot level, more like flat Mr. Pibb in a 2 liter bottle. I do recommend, if you haven't already done so, to check out a nice Australian chap who goes by BadKing at
badking.com.au/site
He is an extraordinarily skilled graphic artist and designer who is extremely generous with free cool tools and very well planned tutorials that are always enlightening and a lot of fun. Zbrush is a wonderful program, but I learn new things everytime I open it up, and I am not even close to "expert" status.

As far as my little rant page, free advice is worth what you pay for it. Some folks think I am trying to discourage people from going into this business, but I am actually trying to get them to plan well and be successful so they might be able to pay me to do things for them. I've seen a lot of people many years before the internet really screw themselves into a hole trying to convert their hobby or favorite pastime into a paying business, but now it is a lot easier to get into trouble a lot faster.

At any rate, I must get back to work, subject closed, carry on, nothing to see here

I am trying to prototype my first 3D print figures and I thought your advice was extremely valuable. I didn't perceive an overly negative tone; It actually pointed out several spots where I will have to go back to the drawing board.

For example, I just spent a few hours doing a face and trying to get it exactly identical to the photo reference. Now I see that it probably a lost cause; my details are so subtle that I will have to significantly exaggerate them.

Thank you for writing this, you've saved me a lot of time and money.

That piece on sculpting and Kickstarter was very interesting. It probably would have been handy reading for about a dozen projects that I can think of, and for ten times that many disgruntled Kickstarter funders.

B.

What 3 d printer and online ex. Shape ways do you prefer?

MU