I did a thing! (That's fairly rare.)

[mcguire]

For a significantly belated birthday present for myself, I got an AnyCubic Photon Mono 4K resin 3d printer! And then I pretty much destroyed the resin vat that came with it and poured resin pretty much all through it and had to order some new bits and screen protectors and stuff. Printers hate me.  I hate them, too. It's a thing.

Anyway, after a certain amount of agony, I printed some minis! The 28mm skeletons and octopus are from Steve Jackson Games' Fantasy Trip bundle that they had on kickstarter recently; the 1/2400 trireme and penteconters are from David Manly on Wargame Vault.

This is them unpainted, with a cat toy for scale.

[mcguire]

Yes, the hex bases they come with are messed up. Printers suck.

Here are the semi-finished minis as I painted them. (I still need to color the edges of the bases, Jim.) I like my skeletons fresh-out-of-the-dirt, but I keep forgetting how much darker they get after the wash. The darkish splotches on the octopus are supposed to be a deep blue.    

The boaties are somewhat likewise. Yes, I have no artistic talent.

[mcguire]

Overall, I was really impressed with the SJG models and the printing, the fact that printers hate me aside. Very detailed and very attractive. If I had artistic talent, I might want to scale them up to 56mm or something.

On the other hand, the resin is stupidly brittle. I've glued the skeleton with the spear back together twice, and the one-armed one had two arms and a second sword but I, uh, dropped him while I was putting him in the UV cure and couldn't find the pieces.

[bayonetbrant]

very cool!

[W8taminute]

I was just about to post the same thing.  Very cool.

[mcguire]

The boats are much simpler, and I would probably have put another model on each base because they look a little bare to me. And the bases aren't rectangular because printer. No, I didn't manage to capture it in the picture, but there is a gap between the trireme's mast and the sail itself. Try that with metal minis.

The ships are intended for Manly's He Hemetera Thalassa, Mare Nostrum fleet rules.

[mcguire]

very cool!

I was just about to post the same thing.  Very cool.

Thanks! I am pretty happy with how everything came out. I need to do some more experimentation with the printer like different resin. And probably get some more replacement stuff for it. 

[GROGnadsUSA]

The boats are much simpler, and I would probably have put another model on each base because they look a little bare to me. And the bases aren't rectangular because printer. No, I didn't manage to capture it in the picture, but there is a gap between the trireme's mast and the sail itself. Try that with metal minis.







The ships are intended for Manly's He Hemetera Thalassa, Mare Nostrum fleet rules.

Hoi as Y-O-U might consider "producing" A-L-L them 'Vessels' within "Trireme"? SELL those to 'RE:coup' your "expenses" and garner 'experience' JUST as any "Jimi H." would?

[thecommandtent]

Printer problems aside, those came out great and it must be a cool feeling to be able to "make" your own minis as you need/want them. 

[Staggerwing]

Very nice! I've dabbled with some FMD printing over the years. My current RL situation has squeezed my free time to nearly nil  but I do miss it.

[Bison]

Your triremes look great! This will be an interesting thread to follow as you learn the process.

[Tolstoi]

Howdy Mcguire, I'm catching up on all the topics and theads I couldn't get too for the last two or thee months. You're figures look brilliant!  I wish I had as little artist talent as you. 

So, have you had time to refine the printing prosses? Any new cool fig to share? Do printers still hate you?

I've been considering purchasing an FDM printer. Did you select resin because you were interested in printing mainly figs? Looking forward to learning what you've been up to printing wise since August.

[mcguire]

I haven't really done anything much with it lately. I got a bit stuck finding figure files for things I'm interested in. But I'm going to be doing some ACW ships as soon as we get back from NC after Thanksgiving.

I did get some 1:6000 WW2 ships painted, that I ordered in metal a while back. The Battle of Denmark Strait. They're really horrible looking.  I should probably have found some colored pics before I dug into them. One thing I wanted to do was put them on clear plastic bases, but cutting the plastic and doing decent labels seem to be beyond my kindergarten-level craft skills.

Anyway, so then there was the time that I somehow spilled a bunch of resin into the printer. That was a mess. I've also learned how to replace the screen protector for the UV LCD projector thingy and I need to replace the transparent bottom of the vat because things keep sticking to it (several of my test prints broke off their supports and stuck when the stage lifted up between layers and I had to scrape them off, damaging the bottom of the vat). So far, I haven't broken anything that wasn't a replaceable item, but...

One thing I really need to do is experiment with different resins. The one I started with was highly recommended, and seems to work well, but I've had those sticking issues, plus it's really brittle. I have a friend with a FDM printer, and he prints useful things while the results I've had are much more attractive, but much more fragile.

I am still really impressed with the printer, though. It was less than a month's worth of groceries and it works really well. Once again, I'm the weak link. 

[Tolstoi]

It took me longer than I thought and I now have an Ender 3 v2 up and running. I'm attaching my benchy print from a couple weeks ago. It may not look as nice as McGuire's resin figures and I'm still very happy with my first print. Ardwulf was extremely helpful with advice on his Mastodon account. I need to learn more about how to use the slicer software as well as how to manipulate stl files, and that will happen with time. As Ardwulf has stated many times, 3D printing is a hobby and I'm looking forward to seeing how 3D printing can complement my wargaming hobby.

McGuire, were you able to print those American Civil War ships? Have you printed anything else lately?

[bob48]