How cost efficient would it be to 3d print a whole army?

Which process - stereo litho, or one of the powder beds?

You could print them in coloured plastic, but I don't think you can get a 3D printer with multiple print heads yet.

There are tonns of different printers. materials and technologies, so basically you have three options:
1) You buy yourself cheap home printer and start making your own dudes. Judging by my experience, one tactical squad of 5 models will cost around 5-10$. But as a result you will get literal shit. I've met people who bragged about how cool and progressive they are since they used 3D-printing to make their own models and terrain, and their stuff looked so ugly I wouldn't even put my guys on the same table with their abominations. They were pretty happy with the results, though, but the cult of 3d-printing is a whole different topic.
2) You find a 3d-printing shop and go for the cheapest version. You get basically the same ugly miniatures at higher cost, but as a result it might be cheaper since you don't need to buy a printer.
3) You go for expensive version. Since buying prosessional/industrial 3d printer is closed to unaffordable, you'll have to look for it in dedicated companies. There is a lot very cool new tech used in this field that allows you to make high-quality models (stereolitography is a good example). But the prices would be enormous since the company will have to cover all the expenses for running a 100k$ machine for printing you a bunch of soldiers. That's why 3d-printing now is used only for making master-models.
tl;dr: you either pay a shitton of money (a lot more than for buying traditional plastic minis) for a decent-looking army, or you get some cheap monsters so guys at your LGS could laugh at you
3D-printing is not an option now. If you want cheap models -- go for the recasts.

Form of deposition, prints out wax channels then deposits polymer in between them so that you get very defined borders. Typically used at depths of no greater than 55 microns but we've been using it to see if we can make tthings up to 1.5mm. I printed an imperial eagle piece, you know the one from the sm tank sprue? It looked like ass.

I think the tech is there tto either do very small structures or fairly large ones, and everything in between doesnt work out too well.

If you don't care that the minis look like shit, it's pretty cost effective.

On the other hand that would make you a retard for playing a 28mm game without caring about how the miniatures look.

The only realistic option at the moment if you want things to look good, is to have them printed by a company who does that sort of stuff and has access to a higher grade printer than is realistic to purchase on your own, and then make silicone molds to cast up replicas in resin.

Honestly, you'd be better off focusing on making molds of stuff, that's way easier for the average person.

Printing with light sensitive resin is getting more and more affordable, and generally looks way better than nozzle printing since you're basically only relying on how thin layers the device can handle and how good the resolution of the light emitter is.

Something like the OLO is cheap as fuck and as long as you have a high-end phone, you'll get really good results. It can handle 0.035 thickness layers (so "stacking" is almost nonexistent) and print at screen resolution.

The only downside is that it's slow as fuck. Printing an inch tall object at low layer thickness takes hours, but it's a really good way to make master models to cast molds off.

I own an Ultimaker 2, printing at 60 microns for 6mm scale. It's a high quality household printer. The results are not GW quality, but their not shit either. Not considering the initial cost for the printer the cost per model is next to nothing. It just takes some time.
I think it might be of interest that there is a 6mm wargame which provides the 3D design for most units for free.
www.maker-war.com
(Rule and everything else is free as well.)

It's still going to look like shit. To cover up the grooves, you'd need to slather the miniatures in a layer of paint so thick, any details would be completely lost.
3D printing miniatures with filament is simply not feasible.

You not able to rub them down in acetone and smooth out the groves?

When I saw the thumbnail I thought they were legos.

I bet you could use legos to build an army.

see I am already wondering that

Printing miniatures with contemporary 3d printers *now* is akin to printing photographs with a dot matrix. It works fine enough, but the details aren't perfect.

You've been beaten to the punch. for several armies.

Sure, how are you going to do that without also smoothing out eyesockets, fine detail and basically the entire miniature?

Acetone works if you print something organic, like a skull, and want to smooth it out, it's useless for anything with lots of sharp detail.

Use SLA for minis
FDM for tanks and terrains, then smooth with acetone

It will be significantly cheaper than what GW charges. You can print out several tanks on a single $30 spool of plastic.

You can build your own printer pretty cheaply. There are lots of kits available if you don't want to source the parts yourself. That includes higher end stereolithographic printers which can be made with a DLP projector.

The technology at the moment isn't up to scratch to have both low cost and half-way decent detail.

If cost if your worry, then you have two options.

1) is chinaman, for 40k and sigmarines- probably ok.

2)self-casting- good for either casting your own sculpts or less popular models. Im sure a fa/tg/uy here has the pdf guide for home recasting, I dont have it on my phone , unfortunately

You can but it's actually even more expensive than buying from GW.

Depends on the army size.

If the cost of the 3D-printer + materials + hours dedicated to print + cost of your soul dying a little inside due to putting up with the horrible quality of printed models is greater than the cost of buying real models, then it's not worth it.

SLA printers can make high detail figures, it is just that the entry cost is high

Show me one.

just buy recasts then, 3d printers aren't good enough for that yet, if ever

It's not uncommon. SLA printing is used for the Forgeworld master copies, and is largely used for jewelry design.

Something other than a fuckhuge titan please.

You can find a decent amount on the in development posts that a lot of miniatures companies make. Here is one of their 3D printed fire giants from one of their updates. I don't believe that Forgeworld posts theirs, but CB and Mantic for example usually show theirs as previews. Manufacturers like Wyrd and Perry who sculpt stuff the real way or make everything out of plastic don't typically show that off.

Is there any infantry sized 28mm example?

Oh dang; now I wish I had kicked up another 20$ on that order. I didnt realize they'd improve the giant scupt so much

Like the knight standing next to the prototype giant? And every single CAD model that reaper has made for that matter, as revealed in their wonderful conception of a mini video.

Can you do that? i have a crap ton of mechs and shit like that and would like to start playing WH40k.

The key words here are "master copies", you have to be nuts to print a whole 40k army with this thing.

But the price of raw resin is still lower than the price of GWs models going by volume

SLA printing is actually quick unlike FDM printing

> the price of raw resin is still lower than the price of GWs models going by volume

What about technical service? Price of the printer? Spare parts expenses?

It's only useful when you make a master-model, because income from selling casts will fully cover expenses on 3D-printing.

>One of them being lego figurines
thats about the only way to make it MORE expensive.

If you count in price of the printer, then of course it will be more expensive due to initial cost. I don't see how spare parts or technical service would matter as that is fairly easy to do on your own. It can pay for itself over time, but assuming that you only want to print a handful of things, then it won't be worth.

>I don't see how spare parts or technical service would matter as that is fairly easy to do on your own.

Because all machines have their resources, and once you face something that you can't fix yourself, you'll have to call for experts.

And even if you are a printing-pro who can easily find spare parts for 3-5k $ machine (basically the cheapest) and fix everything on your own, it will still take a tonn of your personal time and money.

It is a production management 101 and the reason why the price for printing a model in 3d-shop is so much higher than the price of material.

I meant using lego blocks in general, not prebuilt ones.

I built my own 3D printer from scratch by paying for $350 worth of parts. I am sure that 3-5k is a massive exaggeration. And like any machine, there is very little you can't fix yourself. Most things are documentated to the point where you can fix it yourself, and nothing will break assuming that it is built properly. If you are reffering to a Makerbot/Stratasys printer, then you are entirely correct in that they cost an obscene amount of money and break down every other week. That company is facing a class action lawsuit for a reason. It's a fun hobby with lots of different entry points.

>I built my own 3D printer from scratch by paying for $350 worth of parts. I am sure that 3-5k is a massive exaggeration.
I don't want to offend you since it's actually pretty cool, but I doubt that your printer can provide enough quality to make 28mm miniatures.

I never claimed that it could. It costs more to build one that can, but even then it certainly doesn't take $3-5k to do so. It is actually an easier process as you only need to account for 1-axis as opposed to 3.

I haven't seen any decent-looking miniature printed on home-made 3D-printer yet, so I doubt that. Examples above are master-copies printed with high-cost devices.

On a technical level there isn't a huge difference. With the process of baking resin itself, resolution and stepping will be the only limiting factor. The resolution on a stratasys SLA printer is not beyond what is commonly available in projectors you can get on ebay, just put in a more compact package. With stepping you are of course limited to NEMA motors which are an industrial standard, so there won't be a huge difference unelss you drop yours a ton. Past that, there is the electronics which are the other limited factor. That said they don't provide any specifications in that regard, but I don't see how anything Stratasys makes can go beyond 1/128th steps that come with electronics like a smoothieboard provided with the proper current.

>wyrd
>sculpting stuff the real way
they haven't for like 5 years now

They are the kind who make everything out of plastic as I mentioned. That's probably the main reason I like them, as absolutely everything they sell is made out of well engineered plastic, which despite people shitting on anything made in China, works really well.

So why has nobody ever made a decent tutorial for building a 3D printer that puts out decent quality at 28mm for less than 1000 bucks? I've been waiting for the 3D Printer Revolution they promised me for years now.

Do people even duel you if you don't use real figures? At my LGS a guy bought in some wooden ones he made himself but almost no one would fight him because he wasn't using 'official' figures.

Pledge manager doesn't close until June 1. you can *add* $20.
>Signed: guy who added $50.

Some people are assholes.

Such a thing may not yet exist user.

There are quite a few guides if you know where to look. See
imgur.com/a/fgDPR

buildyourownsla.com is a fantastic resource for designing and building your own printer. Really helpful community with tons of guides and ideas. I am currently hoping that baking with LCD becomes a thing in the near future, as that would make the entire process even easier.

Sorry meant buildyourownsla.com/forum/

Good luck user!

I live in a pirate heaven so nobody cares if you use official models or recasts. You can even buy a wooder rhino or a drop-pod and some guys use paper rounds instead of actual models. 3D-printed models just seem to be lesser evil.

Most of these really don't look like they'd reach miniature quality, though.

It'll look like shit and cost more than just buying second hand minis would and just stripping the paint.

Seriously, if this was a viable alternative to making an army already everyone and their mom would be doing it right now.

The technology just isn't there yet. Give it another 5 years or so and maybe it will be, but for now it's not really worth it. In that pic the only models that don't look like absolute shit are the predator and the drop pod anyways. People will notice the stepping and awkward poses on the infantry and dred immediately

Do tell me about your Ultimaker. I've been looking into a 3D printer since I think the technology is cool but I haven't been able to convince myself quite yet. Also, I now want to play makerwar.

Do Terrain.
Forget armies for another 5 years.

The technology is already 'there' for in-home casting, but pirates don't do it because they are degenerate futurists.

Yes, it's called proxying.
Just make sure your friends know what's what and try to keep things the right size.

>in-home casting

Then where are the threads on this?

We have more discussion on Veeky Forums about "Are 3d printers ready yet" than we do on "how do I recast"
And when it does come up, all that's posted is an ancient incomplete introductory PDF

You'd probably have to make multiple armies in order to recoup the cost of the printer, and it'd have to mostly be vehicles, since even those marines look terrible at that size. The predator looks alright, but the dreadnought is only passable.

Terrain might be a decent option. You could make a lot of buildings pretty easily that way.

Actually, terrain is probably the best application for now. You can easily print boxes, cars, walls etc, and because they lack details, they can be post-processed to look pretty decent.

Because recasting is really simple. You don't NEED a giant tutorial, the one that comes with the silicone you buy usually tells you everything you need to know.

Any idiot can go on ebay and buy 2 part silicone and any number of different 2 component poly resins. It's an evenings work to make a mold, and once you have that you can make several resin casts per day depending on what kind you use (there are those that hardens in half an hour.)

People vastly overestimate how difficult it is.

I will say though, that if you don't have a vacuum chamber you WILL get shitty casts now and then with bubbles in the resin, but honestly, even bad cases of bubbles take way less work to fix than you'd need to make the stacking in a 3d printed model look anywhere near decent.
The bubbling when making the mold is much simpler to avoid, since using a very low viscosity silicone mix and covering the miniature by hand with a brush before pouring the body of the mold lets you easily avoid any big air traps.

Why people don't do this when a bottle of resin that will give you a hundred 28mm miniatures, easily costs less than 10 of those miniatures usually costs you to buy?
1: Lazy (people buy premade terrain for crissakes)
2: people rat on them and then they can't play with them in their GW store or whatever anyway.

3: lazy. Seriously.

>Those low quality prints
Why not just write what the model is supposed to be on the bases? Would look about as aesthetically pleasing.

I have a saved picture about this. Not exactly a detailed pdf I guess, but it's something.

Tokens in the theme of Angry Marines
>:C

If you're willing to brave leddit, a guy on yoyhammer was talking about how to cast without a vacuum machine.