Playing With Scale & 3D Printing

Like most people that have a 3D printer, I can't help but casually mention from time to time that I have a 3D printer. It's like jogging. Once you start, you're an evangelist. I like to think I'm not too irritating about it, but that's one of the downsides to being me: You're never entirely sure what anyone else is thinking!

That being said, there's a great many reasons to own a 3D printer. At first, I'd contented myself with having bought a relatively inexpensive toy - I started with an Ender 3 while it was on sale - that would pump out scenery, bases, and the occasional useful tool like range rulers or gaming templates. After a bit of reading and some tweaking, however, I was getting pretty decent gaming miniatures off of an FDM machine that looked alright under a coat of paint. When I took the plunge and picked up an Elegoo Mars, a resin printer, the ability to print miniatures of a quality that rivaled what I could go and buy in store made a convert of me. Yes, there's all manner of tweaking and fiddling and frustration and victorious cheering in between those stages, but 3D printing is a hobby in and of itself, and those victories really do feel sweet. After about a year of experience with resin printing I can reliably print off miniatures and conversion parts of really good quality, and depending on what files I find, there's all manner of use for them.

For comparison's sake, the Japanese officer in the center is a 15mm miniature from 3Dbreed.es and their March to Hell packs. The Russian on the left is a 10mm print which was from the same set of files, simply reduced in size to 66% of the original in my slicing program. The shotgun-toting wastelander is a 30mm or so 'heroic' figure from Anvil Industry. In fact, with the exception of the base he's on, everything in this image is 3D printed!

A closer look at the Russian and Japanese figures. As you can see, with the right files you can get some pretty choice results by simply rescaling the STLs right in your slicer. As you make miniatures smaller, however, some fine details like bayonets will become dangerously thin - not everything will work perfectly just by making it smaller!

I'd planned originally to build a couple of armies for 'O Group' by TooFatLardies and Reisswitz Press by using Flames of War miniatures, but the ability to scale the March to Hell STLs down to 10mm has given me a new set of options. I can fill a build plate with an entire company's worth of figures and have them printed, cleaned and cured in an afternoon. No shipping costs, no postal delays, and with each figure costing mere cents worth of resin! 

I've seen 3D printing miniatures described as "a solution in search of a problem," but I don't think that's quite accurate at all. If you're willing to put in a little thought and have the patience to problem solve what is essentially a mixture of engineering, chemistry and fluid physics - for fun! - you can print some truly astonishing creations at home. If you've ever played Kerbal Space Program, you might have an idea of the mindset required going into home 3D printing at the moment...

Even vehicles aren't out of the question on a resin machine, though do remember to hollow them out and add plenty of drainage holes so that you aren't printing solid blocks of resin!

I never thought I'd see the day that I'd be pushing around small-scale miniatures on square bases, but as time has gone on and the accessibility of so many cool STL files - a lot of which the community makes available for free - has brought me around to the idea. With the right set of infantry and support weapons, the ability to tweak the size of an army to fit a game idea like 'O Group' or 'Hammer of Democracy' and print at cents per figure? Well... maybe it's not such a bad idea to do some reading on the subject and give 3D printing a second look. A lot of established wisdom that remains in the public consciousness for years is already outdated, and water-washable resins deal with the issue of needing isopropyl alcohol for cleaning.

Plus, if you're like me, it means you need never get through the grey pile at all. You can just flick on the machine, load up a miniature in your slicer, and a few hours later lament the lack of space in your cases again!

You can even take miniatures designed for 28mm and scale them up to 54mm. Remember 'Inquisitor'?