"Shapeways printed figures" Topic

I'm surprised we don't see more people using 3D printing services to make bespoke figures.

I bought a platoon from The Lazy One on Shapeways ages ago and I'm just getting around to painting some of them.

The really nice thing about this (apart from the cool designs) is that you get a load of unique models. My platoon had 5 different grav bikes and about 30 unique infantry.

Of course, that depends on the designer, but it shows what's possible. Some of the detail is incredibly thin and just wouldn't work if you were trying to cast it. Certainly not as a one piece cast!

Here's one of the grav bikes:

There are a load more photos of the bikes and the command pod on my blog:

link

The problem is the minimum detail size. Even GW minis have a minimum detail size of about 0.3mm, which means Frosted Ultra Detail material from Shapeways. And that's expensive.

Shops like Minairons, QRF, and Infinity/Corvus Belli use super-high-detail 3d printers to make master models and then cast in metal. But a single 15mm vehicle master print will cost you $500. USD

Is that $500 USD including the cost of the 3D modeller or is that separate?

These were frosted ultra detail.
They're still a lot cheaper than GW pricing, and I hear that their prices don't deter purchases.

Under £30.00 GBP for 30 infantry, 5 bikes and a command pod.
More expensive than most 15mm, but it's not going to break the bank.
GW, however…

link

Great paint job Ralph. I've a few of these myself and found them tricky to paint compared to metal. And fragile. But great design.

Thanks Jimboba.
That first layer of undercoat was tricky but I think they're worth sticking with.
The detail is pretty incredible!

Is that $500 USD USD including the cost of the 3D modeller or is that separate?

Just for the print, modeller separate.

I'm surprised we don't see more people using 3D printing services to make bespoke figures.

It's a combination of cost and quality. Lion has pretty much hit it.

'Anyone' (with the requisite skill) can create a 3D model for nothing (other than time). There are good quality 3D designers out there, so you could buy a 3D file from one of them, for about £100.00 GBP or so… and you still have to get it printed…

…or I can get a traditional master made for about £150.00 GBP…

There are a lot of low quality printers available on the market, even personal desktop ones, but the print quality is really relatively poor. The horizontal print lines are generally very visible and the only way to deal with that is to either fill or sand them… which results in you filling or sanding the detail, so you then need to manually replace the detail… and if you are doing that are you really any better off?

If you look at the Shapeways stuff, even their top quality prints, they have a fine rough surface to them…. a bit like… they have been built from fine sandpaper rather than something smooth. I don't know what scale those grav bikes are, but you can see the slightly rough surface picked out in the painting.

So you end up going to a high quality print bureau, where it could set you back $500 USD or so for a really good quality print. With these the lines are 'almost' not visible and the detail is certainly much better, but generally you can still look at the master and say 'printed' – the detail is just that much thicker (because it has to be for the printer to notice it). To my (desginer's) eye, the 3D printed models still look more like toys than models, if that makes sense.

The technology has come on considerably in the last few years, although it has kind of plateaued at the moment. I doubt you are going to see print-on-demand in the home for a long long time – even if you could get the bespoke print price down to a few £/$, you need to print an awful lot of stuff before you get your investment back on the machine; who is going to buy a £500.00 GBPk printer so they can save themselves £2.00 GBP on printing a model instead of buying it for £10.00 GBP each? You gotta print an awful lot of stuff just to recoup your investment (bearing in mind as well maintenance and materials).

We have printed two vehicles in the last year or so – the Cunningham and the S Tank. Both required post-print work to get them to (in our minds) an acceptable standard that matched hand made vehicles, and by the time you add in designer costs for the original file, print costs and print clean up time, which has to be done on top of any traditional moulding costs to actually get them into production, it is a LOT more expensive and takes a lot more time.

At this stage, I would say the most cost effective and accurate solution is to 3D print the master block (as that helps improve accuracy and squareness, especially when you want left and right sides as mirror accurate) then hand apply all surface detail, then mould and cast as normal… but you are not really saving anything in either time or cost.

Sorry, I may not have been as clear as I could have been.

I don't mean buying a printer and mass producing your own range of figures, that will get very expensive as you point out. I was referring to the websites such as Shapeways (there are others whose names escape me at the moment). I don't see many people talking or writing about the figures they've bought from these sites. I assume people think they're too brittle or maybe that the quality is similar to a home
3D printer.

They are slightly more expensive than regular cast figures, but with the right designer, you can achieve things that wouldn't be possible with the casting process.

These figures are 15mm and the quality is absolutely superb. There is some slight roughness in places, but you get that with resin and metal too. For an indication of the size, the figure on the grav bike is mounted on a UK penny. The detail on the command pod is as crisp as anything I've seen. The sharp edges in the photo below show this off quite well.

As the resin printers become more used the detail will increase.

The B9 Creator Resin Printer is about 4.5k and is used to make jewelry, one of the Resins is able to be used in lost wax casting method as well, which saves a mold.

b9c.com