Diorama with Brok and Sindre. 3dprinted and painted miniatures

in #making6 years ago

Some of you may have noticed that I have been working on a small diorama with the two dwarves from norse mythology Brok and Sindre.

Well I finally have found the time to paint them , and getting some photos of them. I mounted my macrolens so that you can get all the little details and maybe a better impression of the pros and cons of printing miniatures.


I am neither the greatest miniature painter not the best macro photographer, but I have done my best to give you all an impression of the detail level. I think with pros doing the painting and the photos this would look a lot better. Still it gives an impression of what can be achieved with a cheap resin 3D-printer and free opensource software(blender)

I am quite content with how they turned out. the paint obscures some of the artefacts of printing, but not all of them. I guess if you are a perfectionist, you should probably be prepared to do some sanding on your printed miniatures.

I did not do any prepping on these, both to test how much would be hidden by paint and because I wanted you guys to be able to see how viable printing is. It should be noted that I used the medium setting for these, so the slight banding could be further diminished if I had used the best setting.

This setting uses layers of 50 microns thickness. the fine setting use 35 micron layers so it is app. 1.5 times better. the X-Y resolution however is always 47 microns so even with the finer setting I would still have the same artifacts on the other axis.

Remember, these prints are essentially minecraft figures. made out of (very very) tiny cubes. All that said, it is virtually impossible to see the banding artifacts with the naked eye, and if you are prepared to do a little sanding , you can get rid of all of it. It happens mostly on surfaces that line up with one of the primary axis so by carefully orienting your prints in the printer, it is also possible to eliminate the bands.

I used my ancient warhammer paints and they seemed to bind nicely to the surface. I have had some issues with prints where the paint didnt stick properly, but I think it comes down to properly washing the print in soapy water, and using a good foundation paint. Much the same as with injection molded plastic really.

While I was at it, i painted my initial print too. The figures for the diorama are tiny. This one is more comparable to a 28 mm heroic scale miniature, although tall for a dwarf. It is a lot easier (at least for someone with my limited painting skills) to get a good result with a miniature this size.

The model itself is not as interesting as the posed one at the anvil but I could work more on the details of the face

In conclusion I think it is absolutely viable to print miniatures. I have played warhammer and the likes for many years against different opponents , and the quality of these printed miniatures are absolutely comparable to bought injection molded plastics or metal miniatures.


Im EvilHippie, a compulsive creative and jack o' trades. If you want to know more about me, check out my introduction post here

If you like what you see, feel free to upvote, follow and resteem
or you can check out these recent posts

Anemones
springrun
Birth of a blade 9
Armed and dangerous

Sort:  
Congratulations This post has been upvoted by SteemMakers. We are a community-based project that aims to support makers and DIYers on the blockchain in every way possible.

Join our Discord Channel to connect with us and nominate your own or somebody else's posts in our review channel.

Help us to reward you for making it ! Join our voting trail or delegate steem power to the community account.

Your post is also presented on the community website www.steemmakers.com where you can find other selected content.

If you like our work, please consider upvoting this comment to support the growth of our community. Thank you.

As already said, beautiful beautiful beauty. Even the photos are OK 😉😀
Un saluto, nicola

Thanks. this time i used my "real camera" that helps with the focus i guess.

that´s awsome crafting! we like fantasy miniatures a lot! cheers from @calabozocriollo Venezuela

Thanks. yes, I checked out your blog and I can see you are quite an accomplished model-painter.

Looks good! Do you take unusual medication or is your hand steady by nature?

Next diorama: Bibracte 8-).

thanks :-) not unusual i think. I make sure to get frequent shots of endorphin from my pituitary gland, but otherwize no. I do have a steady hand, but my eyesight is not what it once was. Bibracte - hm i will need to research that first.

Big walls and gate, beautiful well, cute houses, many Celts, a lot of work 8-).

Nice !
The quality is good, printed at 0.1mm layer height ?

thanks. Actually 0.05 mm.

Ah yes, it is another level: Difficult to paint I suppose, and a bit of fun to cut the supports accurately.
Very clean at this layer height.
You upgraded the Z Axis on this printer if I remember.

What orientation did you use ? The large base is a kind of suction hell.
Do you stack all together the models when you print ?

These where actually just printed directly on the plate. so the base was level with the plate.
On the big one with the forge on it, I used a trick i saw on a forum. Underneath the base there is a honeycomb mesh, so it is not solid. it gives enough adhesion to not fall off during printing and makes it much easier to remove from the build plate. It worked ok but further tweaking would be nice. Sindres legs became a little short due to a slight bending of the base. The supports was made by hand and if you get the thickness just right , they are really easy to remove.

This is just impressive.... is going to change the game!

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.17
TRX 0.15
JST 0.028
BTC 62264.03
ETH 2431.11
USDT 1.00
SBD 2.50