"15mm-28mm scaled 3d print Stonegiants" Topic

3d prints of Stone giants for use in multiple scales, some for my 28mm D&d Game and some for my 15mm Battlesystem wargaming. One of the beauties of having a 3d printer is that you can scale prints to what ever size you want within reason. There is so much out there to print, the issue becomes having time to paint them all, note the giants are not finished painting, hehe. With a 3d printer, I can use the same miniature in multiple scales!

‌DAC_3404 by Albus Malum, on Flickr

and another

‌DAC_3410 by Albus Malum, on Flickr

and its cheap, to make multiple copies ( probably like5 cents a piece for the 15mm version, and maybe 20 cents for those 28mm version slightly more for things like the giants, but still cheap)

I think the 3d printer is worth it to the naysayers!

Starting to work on D&D encounter groups for 1st edition. where it says and encounter size, Im going to print up enought for a full encounter on a max dice roll, for as many of the monsters as I can. some things like the 30-300 orcs may not get so many, only so much time to paint, but having 300 printed orcs really isn't expensive at all, but buying 300 orcs, and 400 goblins, and … well you get the picture!

All of the 15mm cultists have seen battle, and a few of the 28mm have also. Painted for multiple factions!

and the stone tiles are 3d printed also, for use in D&d, all magnetized tile off of thingiverse.

"I think the 3d printer is worth it to the naysayers!"

Speak of the devil.

I was looking at the stones on the board.

I made similar just gridding then cutting out stones from old cereal packets. Not quite as thick, but you could easily glue in stacks. I trimmed the square to more stone shapes, so layering them could produce thicker stones with a more slate edge appearance. Cost, $0 USD, except pva glue. Time, little, do it while watching telly. Tap them with something to produce an uneven surface. Then just glue down and paint. Very easy to do those in different scales.

I guess the challenge is to find 300 orcs for 10-20 cents.

Army men are already Green! That would save time painting and they can be found at that price.

I've been pricing KOW and Empire of dust is $1.50 USDau a figure, $3 USD cavalry. That's pretty good. Plus you get weapn options. I'd think orcs are about the same.

If your talking 20c us, then that's about 15c? Au, so its roughly 10 printed v 1 hips including weapon options.

Though that is from an army box, so just individual units would be more.

I guess it's personal preference. Some people want the cheapest, some want the best quality, and others settle for affordable quality.

I prefer Metal, over anything, but then it can cost more.

I guess printing can be cheaper, but it's not cheapest, see my stone example above.

If needed 300 orcs, hmm…

That's still $30 USD-60.

Honestly I'd just use proxies. If your wanting a bazillion figures to cover every possible out come, and it's $60 USD for just orcs, with just one weapon type.

Its a tremendous out of money, either way.

Just get a bunch of decent looking fighters, say Vikings for example, paint 300 blue, 300 red, so on, probably 5 lots? Them just use them for whatever and they look cool anyway.

How many d&d monsters are there anyway? 100+? X 1-300, that's possibly 10,000+ figures!

Yeah, I'd just use some generic proxies that still look cool, printed or not.

So you really think there are no weapons options for 3d printed miniatures?????

THe whole idea of TMO is Miniatures, when I was a kid playing D@D in the late 70's I used cast lead bullets for monsters. Ya it worked but it looked like cast lead bullets.

Some people play theater of the mind, some people use paper miniatures. I started wargaming even earlier then the Dungeon and dragon, and I played wargames like PanzerBlitz, it used little Cardboard chits to indicate units.

The whole idea of Miniatures is the Miniatures. H-man you should go play your warhammer using theater of the mind! Do you even have any miniatures?

No.

I mean they come as standard with many plastic kits, as part of the price.

You'd have to either print them separately, modify print files somehow, or and or use extra files, in comparison.

Of course this depends on the particular company/engineer, and for the plastics also.

With RPGs particularly, you could just blutac on the arms, so you can swap whatever weapons are needed at the time. If needed. So either way, this may cut down how many are needed, depending how they are being counted.

Also, eg plastic moria goblins, have fixed bows, spears and swords. Where as Warhammer goblins will (yay) have seperate arms.

If it's good and cheap d&d, I'd suggest my generic proxy idea, to make sure stuff is available for games, then start buying those white d&d figures, a few as and when your able.

This will make painting them more of a joy than a chore also. They are modern "realistic" scale, but are pretty cheap and look ok. Painting can be a pain with the soft tiny details though. On the plus side they are legit d&d and, thus easily recognisable for players. They also have many clear components which can be stained colours for magic and Fire. I've painted loads. Ignore the ready to paint slogan though, for best results the mould lines need trimming and the areas retouched.

PS Yes I have miniatures. Mostly painting other people's these days though.

Hi Albums malum
I envy you alas I don't have a 3D printer
I have been looking on etsy and have been blown away by the standard of 3D sculpture out their.
I've finally bit the bullet and ordered some cyberpunk figure's by a sculptor called unit 9,they are probably the best cyberpunk figure's I've come across, I await the delivery with baited breath.

Yeah, I see the appeal!

Not seeing many prints though.

That's one thing that bugs me about 3d printing, buying off the plan.

I hope they work out for you.

Also hope you bought the ones I would.

PS Make sure we get some pics of the painted articles. Cheers. Great, now that songs stuck in my head, not the worst thing.

auction

These are only 60c au each. That's with postage, so I guess if you got 6 packs for 300 figures, postage would be far less.

I would estimate that I have between 1300 to 1500 painted miniatures. probably have a backlog of at least 4 to 6 times that. Likely 1000+ painted 15mm miniatures and the balance 28mm. while I have a few boxes of 1/72 a scale I like alot, its not the scale I went with for wargaming, I went 15mm, really not interested in starting another scale.

Here is a link with ~650 miniatures on the table
TMP link

That looks cool.

I mostly just paint other people's.

I see a lot up close, but avoid the storage issues.

I can see the appeal of smaller scales.

I hope to get into buying more at some point soon. Maybe ACW, maybe TOW, or others, decisions…

I have around a half-dozen of these 3D printed Stone Giants. They're awesome figures! Here is a link to two of the poses I received from a friendly gamer on another forum. The middle figure is a Paizo Stone Giant, pre-painted figure.

I am an army painter, so if you don't like the paint, you will have to ignore that, and look at the sculpting, instead. I view my miniatures at arm's length plus, 98% of the time, so I paint for the 98%.

I have 1,000+ painted miniatures I use for 2e BattleSystem games, in 25mm-28mm sizing. It is a blast!

I am nearing the end of my painting queue, finally, after 30+ years. I am down to <300 figures to paint. Looking forward to clearing my painting queue, emptying it out of the very last miniature. Then I can focus on gaming with them.

My Goblin army is over 150 miniatures; my Undead army is even bigger. It is so much fun to see a 5-1/2' x 9-1/2' table covered in miniatures, with a group of friends gathered around it, pushing figures, rolling dice, laughing, groaning, all having a grand old time with it.

There are sooo many figure designs only available in 3D printing… I've bought several unique designs, unavailable anywhere else, from people who sell their printed figures. Only issue I have had is that they're brittle, and that is crushing my spirit for using them -- they typically break off at the ankles, and it is hard to find a glue that will hold them well enough, on such a small surface area. Still, they're quite detailed, fantastic designs that I enjoy. Just wish they were more durable. Cheers!

I havent printed with it yet, but there is a company named Sunlu that has come out with a resin called Toughness that will likely end the brittleness problems, I have a couple liters, just havent had time to try it yet, and it rather inexpensive also. It's likely to be similar to tenasious, but much cheaper. Anyway, I like the Sunlu ABS resin which seems quite good. Anyways, I have switched to using Sunlu resin.

Hope you havent broken the ankles of those Giants I sent! I find If I dont drop them on the hard floor, most of my ABS miniatures survive!

My giants are fine, thank you. The resin minis that have broken, are all Humans. I found someone selling repeating Ballistas with nice Human crews. I based them, primed, them, and began painting them. Unfortunately, I knocked most of them off my painting countertop, falling 2-3 feet, onto a concrete floor, snapping the Humans off at their ankles.

I might be able to drill holes within their tiny ankles, attached to their bases, then do the same for the legs on the figures, and use glue and a piece of wire, to restore them.

They are really nice minis. The brittle resin really sucks, though. If someone can make a cheaper, more durable resin, they will be poised to take a huge market share. Cheers!

There is cheaper and better resin available now, It made by sunlu, the ABS resin is great, and they have another newer resin that should be even better, called Toughness. I had been printing with the mix of Siraya Tech ABS like mixed with a little Tenacious, but the Sunlu ABS like prints better and is about half the cost. THe cost of the Sunlu Toughness is is still cheaper the the Siraya mix, and it is supposed to be real good for not breaking, at least people say is does quite good in the twist test!! I have a couple liters, but I haven't had time to test it yet, been busy the last couple months. Sunlu also has a new Nylon Resin, that I need to test also. Sunlu Is going to become the GO_TO company in the near future for most people printing miniatures, as more and more people discover them!

Standard resin sucks for miniatures. I never had any luck superglueing Standard resin when it breaks, but sometimes the ABS like resin will glue ok, but can easily break again.

I find the easiest way to repair miniatures (if not painted) is to put a drop of resin on the place to repair then expose it to some UV light, if you know anyone close with a Resin printer, maybe they would fix them for you.

A scrap piece of carpet underneath your painting station will save a lot of broken miniatures, even metal ones!

All my SunLu ABS printings failed.

My gaming table sits atop a concrete floor, with vinyl floor covering. Even if I carpet my painting area, they would still be in grave danger at the gaming table…

My gaming table was custom designed and built, with an electronic lift system, allowing me to raise it up from 28", to around 5' 6", with storage underneath. I love the vinyl floor covering for ease of cleaning, and the table can mark it due to its weight (500 lbs.?) without issue. If I put carpet, or an area rug, underneath the gaming table, it would be costly, and it may not help much, either.

I will consider it, though. I think a decent, indoor/outdoor carpet could be quite nice, underneath the gaming table. I use a nice, green indoor/outdoor carpet, on top of the gaming table, as my grassy plain, base covering. That stuff is incredibly easy to clean and maintain, and it looks acceptable, to me, and my gaming buddies. Just realized I could cut the carpet to fit around the table's base, leaving the center without carpet. It might really improve the comfort around the table! I would put the rubber grippie, shelf liner beneath it, so the carpet would not shift as people move around on it. Cheers!

Fake grass may be better?

It can have longer and thicker/stronger "hairs".

I assume this would be better for breaking figures falls.

Carpet may either be too hard, or compress too easily.

Good point: longer fibers/strands/whatever, will likely lessen the impact.

After giving it more thought, I am going to keep my linoleum floors. If I put down carpet, it would introduce tripping hazards to my players walking around my gaming table. Better to break a miniature figure, than for a person to break a bone.

To be safe, I would need to carpet the entire room, wall to wall, and that would get quite expensive. My wife has been talking about it, as a means to warm the basement gaming room up a bit, in the Winter. It might happen, but I have no idea when… If we do carpet the room, I will keep your fiber length comments in mind! Cheers!