I procrastinate best under pressure.

I have been very busy lately with all the exam work , my dayjob and several semiprivate researh projects, which I might post about later when we have something published.

In these periods, when I am very busy, I find myself becoming even more prolific in my creative projects. It is as if I enter a positive feedback loop, where I become very productive for a period. Then usually It is followed by a very unproductive period where I cant even find the energy to go out into my workshop.
Often I become very introvert in these "downtimes" I read a lot, and take it chill. Then after a while I feel ready to start the loop all over. I have made my peace with the fact that I work this way. I actually quite like the change, and I enjoy both productive and chill periods.
A lot of my projects are purely experimental, just attempts to learn new stuff or get smarter, and this is one of those projects

A while ago I had the pleasure to follow a number of posts where @xhi experimented with getting his fdm printer to print serviceable miniatures.
if you want to see how it went, look :
here
here
and here
Go find some of his newer posts and upvote them if you enjoyed his posts.

I have done some succesfull miniature prints based on models made by @katharsisdrill. you can see one of my old my posts about printing a horse in 30mm scale here and @katharsisdrill s post about modelling and (letting me) print a miniature for tabletop roleplay here and another one here
The models made by katharsisdrill were made specifically for my fdm printer. We took several iterations, and talked about how to minimize overhang. The models was also slightly bigger than the 30mm scale I usually aim for. But they came out quite nice. go give @katharsisdrill an upvote too if you liked his posts, and be sure to check out his great webcomics phill from gchq here on steemit or on his own site
These days I mostly use my resin printer for miniatures, since the quality is much better, but I was still curious as to what could be achieved with an fdm printer (fused deposition modelling), and so I decided to try printing the elf spear maiden with the ultimaker.

The model is fairly thin limbed and not very well suited for fdm print. The wall thicknes of the arms and legs are very close to the minimum tolerance of the printer , and the figure as such is "tall" and thin. But i decided to give it a shot anyway.
I used settings as described in a video on this youtube channel The video is fairly long but the boiled down info is:

print slow: use 20-25% slower print speed than the default
minimum layer height that fits the printer. Use the absolute smallest layer height your printer will allow, but make sure it fits the stepper motor (this is geeky but basically look up what someone have listed as the minimum for your specific printer)
print solid. infill should be set to 100%
Print with supports. use supports all over. this will mean you will have to sand the model afterwards, but will help to not get failed prints from breaking, and you will likely have to sand anyways

I did this with my ultimaker, and skipped the sanding to get a better idea of the pros and cons.

When seen with the naked eye, the model looks ok, if a little fuzzy compared to the resin print.
It is much harder to paint because the surface is much more rough. sanding would help here.
it is slightly slimmer, because the slicer make a conservative estimate, so the surface is always on the inside of the 3d models surface. This actually make it look more elegant but is not a good thing, since it is not an exact representation of the model I had made.
it takes longer to print than the resin , both because of the decreased speed, the supports and the solid infill.
smaller details like fingers and some facial details are lost.
On the plus side small horisontal overhangs are handled better. Resin printers may be prone to small amounts of resing solidifying on the underside(overside when printing)

In conclusion: This was not a good model to print in this way. it is far to slim and skimpy. something more solid , like a dwarf or an ork might be better, but for someone like me who own a resin printer, it will always fall out in favour of the resin print.
This does not mean that the fdm printer is a bad printer at all. it is much better for larger things, and if I wanted to print e.g. vehicles I would most definitely use the Ultimaker. it is also much better and faster for my swordfittings -casting -masters

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Thanks for reading this. 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.
If this post is more than 7 days old , consider upvoting one of my newer posts instead.
or you can check out these recent posts
If you are interested in my miniatures, you might also consider visiting my shapeways shop

Killing chickens
Spear maiden