After so much longing, then envying, then sitting-on-the-fencing, I finally decided to join the world of 3D printing. I’ve chosen an FDM printer over resin, because I see myself printing lots more terrain bits than just straight minis. That said, I do think an Elegoo Mars is in my future!
Simply because of the massive user base, and therefore huge numbers of people to help me pick up the mess, I went for an Ender 3. Ender 3 Pro to be precise. Tom Tullis (of Fat Dragon Games) has some awesome videos starting from assembly through to calibration and how to get pretty damned decent quality minis off an fdm printer. I really recommend him (and his awesome support facebook group) thoroughly. And to reinforce that I bought most of his STLs :).
Here it is, just starting printing the test dog (which failed half way through, hah, though in the previous few months I’ve learned how to level the bed properly).
This is my current secondary hobby station I built which contains a crap load of GW games. Sat on top are the printer and my cheap eBay special foam cutter. Do wish it still looked this tidy.
Here’s a selection of my first prints.
The above are all printed using the Fat Dragon terrain profile for Cura, which means thicker layers, less infill and therefore much faster prints. However the downside is the lines between layers are more noticeable.
The Skeleton was printed using the Fat Dragon miniatures profile, so took a lot longer but it smoother. The Ender 3 can do better quality minis, I am working on getting my calibration dialled in. But when printing terrain it doesn’t matter so much.
There’s no denying 3D printing is a hobby in itself, it takes a lot of fecking around to get it working and working reliably. I still get failed prints. But there’s no denying the magic of watching a model literally being created right before your eyes!
I’ll be making more posts about this new hobby, I want to talk about the mods I’ve bought and the new Blender skills I’m acquiring. In the meantime here’s a teaser of my Star Wars Legion terrain
