3D Printer for Very Detailed Work ?

Dicehunter

Dicehunter

Dicehunter

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So I just moved and want to start putting up some game memorabilia i.e 3D prints of guns from games like Gears of War, Destiny, Busts of game characters etc... but have been thinking of getting a 3D printer to print them out, Clean them up and then put my years of Warhammer 40K painting to extra use.

Anyone got any suggestions that doesn't wander into the realms of needing to sell a kidney ? :p
 
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Dicehunter said:
So I just moved and want to start putting up some game memorabilia i.e 3D prints of guns from games like Gears of War, Destiny, Busts of game characters etc... but have been thinking of getting a 3D printer to print them out, Clean them up and then put my years of Warhammer 40K painting to extra use.

Anyone got any suggestions that doesn't wander into the realms of needing to sell a kidney ? :p
Click to expand...

To answer your question OP and so I don't get told off, lol. Here's some printers to look at.

With a few mods these are great printers:

CREALITY CR10/S, CREALITY ENDER 3, ANYCUBIC i3 MEGA

Without any mods, great from the start:

Prusa MK3S

But quality prints come from quality filament & slicer profiles and tweaking. Also where do plan getting your models from?

Anyway hope that helps.

James
 
I agree that resin would be the way to go if you require fine detail (such as a miniature).

However a decent FDM printer will do you for props, bust etc. I would suggest staying away from the cheapest prusa clones.

An Ender 3 is probably enough to wet the appetite and get used to printing.

The official prusa, though more expensive will be a great workhorse.

I personally have a Creality CR-10s Pro (around the 500 mark) and it's printing like a champ. I'm currently printing a 1:1 scale Mjölnir
 
As you say detailed, that immediately discounts any fdm printer (cr10, ender, tornado etc) and puts you looking at resin printers. If you want to do only small figures and keep the price down, you couldn't go wrong with an Elegoo Mars (original or pro). The Elegoo store on amazon has the original version for £220. You can even get water washable resin now if you don't want to deal with the fumes of normal resin or the fumes from washing in ipa.
 
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CR-10 I have is pretty good at detail on larger models. But found its a little lacking for small things.
Excellent facebook groups though, essential for dialing in the settings.
You need to be keen on experimenting and spending time to get things right. Probably not just going to pop out perfect.
Posssibly consider paying someone to print your models for you. It might work out a lot cheaper if you dont want to experiment. And you can get very high quality prints from much more expensive machines.
Not sure if anyone can recommend good websites for finding printing services.
 
For small miniature it would be resin printer, it is messy and sometimes smelly too but details is fantastic. 4k res will not show any lines on model if slicer is working perfect. Filament printer is less complex and easier to handle but it will need a lot of sanding and may have to process the model with chemical to smooth out the surface.

I personally have used Halot one and anycubic 4 k mono, when they work and dial in they are fantastic and cheap but you will have the knowledge to trouble shoot and adjust as you go as you are bound to run into some trouble in the future. Noise, room temperature and smell are to consider for both type of printers.
 
Mini figures immediately screams a resin printer. You simply can't beat the detail they bring.

Downsides are really only cleanup, and dealing with chemicals. Aside from that it really is the way to go. I cannot recommend a particular model though.
 
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100% recommend a resin printer for that sort of use case, unless you are wanting to make larger models. For miniature type stuff they simply cannot be beaten for detail.

Resin is a bit of a pain, but if you get set up with it and develop a workflow then it's not too bad - a good integrated wash and cure station goes a long way to reducing the problem, but you do need to account for consumables such as gloves, IPA, and disposal faff because the waste products absolutely should not be flushed down the drain.

Also be careful regarding where you use it - you don't want to be breathing in resin fumes.

Resin printers can vary significantly in price, but at the very least you want to be getting one with a mono screen where there should be options around the £200 mark (but again, wash and cure is almost a must have imo so add that to your budget). If you can push up to the 600 or so quid mark then you can get a very nice one indeed such as the Phrozen mini 8k or Anycubic D2 Ultra DLP.
 
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I only have a very limited experience with 3D printing, for a short while I had a resin printer and the detail in the small models was fantastic, but I occasionally had models that near completion failed,and I do think it was purely down to supports or maybe not enough, I found it quite difficult and time consuming to get it right.
I eventually send it back.

I then got an fdm printer which was DOA /faulty so that went back and after that I just didn't bother again with 3D printing, had bad luck lol.

Have u thought about just finding the models you'd like then having them printed professionally? That way you wouldn't have to deal with any of the faff, then just paint them yourself, that's the route I was going to go down. :)
 
resin, I use the halot box x2 which are so so for budget but the better like my mars 3 pro is a lot better at detail. If going resin though I would go bigger the better. I started with the halots but now using the anycubic m3 max. Like you gaming is why I started to print for models that are hard to buy like resident evil quality models. I would post pictures of my prints but not looked into how on this site.
 
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