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so this guy buys terrible printed minis for 300 bucks and rants about resin printing in general do i understand this right?

I’m in Australia if you are keen to parm them off

I used to get better results on my basic Photon a few years ago. That is incompetence at work. Don't take this as representative of 3D printing, it's garbage and honestly, deserved a refund.

As much as I love the idea of being to print minies, I know the thing won't be really usable outside of characters as long as its made of such brittle material. It's not realistic to expect people to use minies that will break down when dropped from a mild height. That said the problem you got related to the gates and the lines are 100% due the poor quality of the printing. As for the printing, the thing thos youtube painters don't tell you is how you can't paint these printed minies the same way you paint plastic minies simply due to the texture of the minies. Even without any print lines, these minies will have a gritty/rough texture to the touch which makes them almost impossible to wash, and many people just don't know how to paint without wash.

WHAT WERE THE SELLERS REVEIWS??? Or did u pick a bad one on purpose so u can promote gw products!? #Shill 😂😂

Just find someone using a formslab form 4 like me, I could print hair and the detail would be preserved, not going to waste $200 resin on miniatures though.

He charged you aaaa looooot, for rly rly bad quality prints on some old printer. Some prints look amazing if person doing them know what they are doing

I spend around 300 dollars a year. And yes, i do get high on my own resin supply. This means I'm getting several armies out of my expenditure. Sure, printing is a hobby all unto itself so I spend time and effort on it. But I think people asking that you count that into your costs are a bit off. This is my hobby. This is my free time. I do this because I like it. Digital kitbashing has become a great part of what I do and it allows me to make truly unique minis. I also print for a small number of friends occasionally for the cost of resin only with the implicit understanding that I'll skim a bit off for myself. My friend was really happy to get a Great Unclean one and 30 Plaguebringers for 50 dollars.

I think that 3D printed parts are great for things like heads or shoulder pads or the like, I find some details are softer, and that thin pieces are very brittle. I like 3d Prints for bits, but not for entire armies, personally. I think its an addition to the hobby, but unlikely to replace actual plastic minis. A lot of 3D prints look great as renders and not so great once printed. I bought a lot of stuff that comes out looking very soft, or like you said, looks rough once the supports are removed. I have a few places I will never buy from again, and mostly a few places that are really the only ones I do buy from, mostly just custom bits for my 30k legions.

I am always skeptical when a manufacturer is only showing the CAD images instead of the actual, physical product.This stuff is a scam.

We have many great 3d printed armies You bought shit You have a printer and didnt learn it Lol

This have been said here before i guess, but my two cents on the topic. My friend printed some minis for me last year on roughly 7 years old 2k printer with some resin he scraped from the bottom of the drawer. It was pretty similar to what you are showing here. My guess is that you were ripped off.

theres a lot in here. Did I hear right,, you're a GW shareholder ? wouldn't that be incentive to trash talk 3d Printers. Also trying on a 4k is like using crayons these days, especially since there is 22um 2 printers and even 24um x 18um aka 12k printers. also the resin example is probably showcasing the wrong resin for the job.

Owns 3D printer. Buys low quality prints for the same price of the printer he already owns. Makes sense.

90% of the problems you talk about in the video are a seller/user problems not a 3d printing problem but the video fail to acknowledge that: - Brittleness is an easy problem to solve, simply print stuff is ABS or toughness resin which is what everybody uses for wargaming purpose. - 3d printing offers thousand of different options, each with a particular purpose if you chose the wrong miniature for what you wanted to do, that's a YOU problem, there are tons of options with smaller miniatures that fit perfectly for regiment battle.(also in 3d printing any model can also be downsized to your liking) - I personally think those miniature look far better than the GW counterpart, but if you don't like them then it's once again a YOU problem, there are hundreds of options you just chose wrong. - Yes small supports can be annoying but still far easier to remove than mold lines, the support in the mouth can easily be removed with a small tweezer. - When people say 3d printing is cheaper, they mean 3d printing stuff yourself, not buying print from 3d party.... Yes 3d printing stuff yourself is FAR cheaper than buying miniatures even if you take into account the IPA, paper towel, gloves... stuff like that. And it's not cheaper by a little bit, it's cheaper by a factor of 10. - We can all agree there is a learning curve in 3d printing, but once you have it figured out, 3d printing is not that time consuming, especially when you take into account that you don't have unsprew anymore, most models are pre assembled and cleaning is much faster too. Once again you are talking about something you never done. - It's has been proven time and time again that 3d printers are more than capable of matching and even exceeding the sharpness in details of plastic miniatures. And you don't even need to break the bank to do so, 300€ printers can achieve that no problem. It seems that a lot of the issues you encounter was wrong choice of resin and miniatures. But In my opinion if you're objective is simply to buy ready made miniatures and you don't care about the price then you should stick to GW. Buying 3d model is only worth it if you are looking to get a specific minis that you can't find anywhere else. But if you are looking to get massive armies for an affordable price, it is VERY worthwhile to learn how to 3d print yourself, I just don't like how you criticize the entire 3d printing hobby while you never 3d printed yourself and just had a bad experience with BUYING 3d model.

These are definitely poor prints from a poor seller. That said I always prefer to work with GW plastic than resin. There's some amazing STLs out there though and it's hard to resist printing loads of miniatures I'll never get round to painting

3D printing has saved me a ton of money but I still buy plastic models because not everything can be found to 3D print. And plastic is better quality than resin. Still, paint, brushes, spray cans add up. But what costs mosts is the time it takes to paint. Or buying pre painted models. I’d say I spent about $900 per year before 3D printer and maybe half that now that I have one. One tip I recommend for those thinking about 3D printing is to split the cost of the printer with someone.

Thanks for your honest opinions - it backs up my experiences too, 3d printing just isn't there yet. Maybe in 5 to 10 years but the cons outweigh the pros at the moment imo.

I'm thinking about getting back in. I retired my 3000+ point Ork army right when 4th edition came out, so I should need to buy much, if anything.

I suppose it's expensive for a bit of grey plastic but compared to my spending on cars it's just nothing.

For the last 3 years I was spending 1200-1500 euro each year but the pile of shame grew out of control. For the last 12 months I am a bit shy of 1000 euro and can manage painting my purchase. At least 10 to 15% of that cost is not the mini but paint, brush and other hobby material.

You getting ripped off on one purchase doesn't mean that the whole idea that a 3d printed army is cheaper is "a complete fallacy".

At this point my annual expenses are almost entirely paint and brushes since I have a massive pile of kitbash and printed stuff I keep saying I'll finish. Yet the backlog never seems to shrink...

Etsy and myminifactory is better for buying the stl files

I spend quite a bit on 40K (printing & 2nd hand only) but it doesn't compare to what l've spent on guitars. It's all relative.

I really enjoy seeing pile of shame posts from people who also complain that the hobby is too extensive 😂 Its definitely increased in price. My budget has hovered around €2,000 per year for the last 3 years. I bought 3 Solar auxilia battle groups in March for €435. Quite expensive buts its all i have to work on and after 3 months im not even halfway through so getting my moneys worth.

Keep in mind that people that go to the Warhammer subreddit, will probably be a little more into the hobby than others (and perhaps be a bit more deranged than others).

Yes this can take autistic levels of detailing to know, but it's still the only way many people master this craft. It's just like anything else worthwhile. It doesn't have to take a lifetime but any art can. When you see a brand name, that's what you are trying to buy into. Just know that you have options and opportunities here. GW are too big for their britches and need to get knocked down a few more levels. Get humbled. And centered on what's important... The crafting. Not just profits. But long-term relationships with your supporters. Survive with a soul intact.

I spend about $700 to $2000 a year on hobbies but obviously to no surprise the more GW jacks prices the less money is spent on GW products that total amount doesn't just magically increase to another $500 every year.

“I love Warhammer, but I’m not particularly keen on prepping the models or ranking them up (i.e. “doing the more laborious portions of the hobby”). I just want to clip the miniatures off the sprue, paint them and play. Even though if I saved on GW stuff I could probably leave my apartment and buy a house by now”. This right there, gentlemen, is a core GW consumer, and this is why GW will stay in business (for a while at least).

I have been buying GW products since 1991. Started painting them in 1987, but I was a kid and wasn't spending my own money. On a low year I spend around $1500 yearly on GW products. On a high year I spend around $9000 yearly on GW products (including FW). *Every year since 1991* - even while I was deployed to Iraq for 15 months I called into GW and bought everything to build and paint a Wulfen Army. I bought a printer for $300 a few years back and my GW purchases declined. I recently bought an $1100 printer set up. I have around $60 in monthly subscriptions to various Patreon artists and around $50 monthly in printing supplies. I would be willing to adjust to the price increases if the hobby community was worth it. Where I am located there just isn't enough reason to invest so heavily.

I spend about $200 on Warhammer once every 5 years. I want a 3-D printer _anyway_ and if I had one then I could just print minis to paint (I don't actually play tabletop).

I think $0 for 3D printing is a little misleading. They do have costs, just real low. You still need the printer, replacement parts, resin, sometimes you’re reprinting the same pieces over and over. The cost isn’t high, but it’s more than $0 a year

Very interesting video, thank you for taking the time to compile the information. The price increases are definitely hurting, especially with the mark up some regions are feeling. More than ever before I am now looking to get a 3D printer. I already have several STL files lined up so I’m looking forward to that.

Disappointing lack of hate and rage in the comment section!

I personally will never do 3D printing. (I know this was about buying 3D prints not diy, but still) I’m not a gamer, but I enjoy building and taking my time painting them. I do not have a space for a printer, but mostly I do not want to have to go through all the pissing around with the calibrating and printing and cleaning and dealing with resins. For me, that is all work I have to do before I can actually start and enjoy my hobby, and my free time is not limitless. I think a lot of 3D printing advocates forget that some people just want to be able to buy a mini they think looks cool (and say what you will, GW makes cool minis) and paint it. People have different priorities and what they want from their hobby.

Why so many dislikes? No controversial content included, just an opinion and author's own thoughts.

Really great vid, balanced and informative

Scratch it off to bad buy. There is much better companies doing 3d prints. Always buy a sample first is rule no1 when doing this

Will 3D printing kill Games Workshop? No. Will it affect their bottom line? Yes. As someone who has been printing for little over a year, it's a hobby in itself. I own an Anycubic Photon D2, and it churns out models with WAY more detail than anything GW has ever produced. But it's not a plug-and-play business. You need to learn a couple of things to make it work. Once you do, though, it's really satisfying. I recently printed a Warhound titan for Legions Imperialis. It cost me around $2 worth of resin, including a scenic base for it to stand on. And, once painted, it's indistinguishable from a GW produced Warhound. Except for the scenic base, of course.

They are some nasty prints, not very representative of what a home printer can expect to get. Layer lines at around 6 mins are shocking, must have been printed super fast with a large layer height or on a very old printer. I just printed a 1500 point undead OPR army from 2kg of resin (£35 UK) probably around 50 minis and a couple of large 'boss' models. Time wise, I just slice and press go then come back tomorrow. I am lucky enough to have a dedicated workshop/studio space in my loft (attic) with fume extraction so the whole smell/ chemicals thing is not a thing for me, but I do appreciate how this is a problem for a lot of people. Cost wise, typically I can print a unit of 10 minis for less than £2 of resin, £10 a month gets me 20-30 very well supported top quality minis from Patreon sculptors, 5l of IPA lasts me around 6 months of pretty much daily printing. Its hard to put an exact figure on it, but this year I have paid £50 to patreon, and bought 2kg of resin, £35. I have printed around 60 undead/vampire units and around the same number of orcs many of these are far bigger than your standard 28/32mm minis, and a couple of large dragon / dinosaur monsters. WAY, WAY cheaper than Games Workshop and I honestly believe the quality is on par if not better for the majority of the models. For me the printing side of the hobby is just another layer of the fun, its not a chore

Supports are an art, and knowing how to take them and clean up all play a role in how the minis are going to look. Also you should have scaled your army down a bit. I dont trust anyones scale until I scale them in the slicer.

Another thing I forgot to mention. Some sellers wants to print fast as they have many orders and they set the slicer instead of .05mm to .1mm thickness each layer so detail would be lost in some areas. For big models this is acceptable for minis that is not acceptable. I suspect your seller used this option to speed up things especially if he was tight in time for dispatching the order.

I have a 3D printer and quality differs from printer to printer. I have 4K small plate. I have the Creality Halot one. Having a 4K with big plate is not the same as a small plate as the pixels are more condensed in the small screen and hence the quality is much better. I have printed many figures and it never dissapoint. Now as regards breakages I suspect that the seller you bought them from used Ultraviolet light treatment longer than it should have been. Seeing the size of that mini it should be around 2 minutes. If you leave it longer then they become more brittle and break easier. Finally as for the supports I do my own support and its always important to have no supports in the front of the model. I would have complained with your seller to have received supports in the mouth like that. But still I disagree with you that 3D printing is not good. It all depends on your euipement as like everything else. BTW your painting is very good and nice colour scheme. Well done.

Lol. Obviously you are paid by GW.

3D printing IS cheaper than GW overpriced plastic BUT as with any TOOL, it requires effort to properly use it but once you find good settings, resin (go for any tough, ABS like or flexible resin, don't be cheap...) you are good to go. I own a humble Elegoo Mars 2 Pro (so 2K resolution) and some of my prints can totally pass for GW SM or even look better (One Page Rules Saurians). Your mistake was in trusting the wannabe entrepreneur (AKA scammers) that stalk Etsy and sell bad quality prints from good to terrible scultps (and sometimes without even having a merchant option from the creators...). Since you already own a printer, just find good settings, good resin, good models (not hard, lots of amazing stuff on MMF for fantasy), good procedures when printing and when you'll be in the habit of doing it, it'll become easier than building GW models and removing those curse mold lines...

Terrible experience of 3d printing, though better research will reap better rewards and it isnt difficult to insist on photos before you buy anything online. If they wont provide dont buy from them or take a risk... simple

You not doing your own due diligence about who you're buying from, the scaling of the models and the resin they use, doesn't mean buying 3D prints is a bad idea in general. I have a whole 3D printed beastman force and they're better quality that what you've got there. I printed on my own Mars2Pro (Not a great printer and really old at this point) almost a year ahead of Old World releasing and no breaks since then.

i don't print whole armies, mostly just bits for conversion but i use a "tough" resin and u can drop it with no fear of it breaking. i imagine many are selling normal resin, and that stuff is far to brittle for anything other than a display model

It would be disheartening to have that as you first 3D print experience. I agree that you lost money compared to buying GW boxes, but I felt the same way about Finecast :)