I think 3d printing shines more with smaller models. Troops are much better use. A box of GW will usually give you 5 to 10 models. With a lot of armies you might need up 40 or 80. Also you won't have to clean all the mold lines. There are a lot more on small models. It is really another hobby so it is a time sync.
@@andrewsullivan2369Not really the same thing, but I printed almost 800 tiny chess pieces for a guy at work and he's been scattering them all over the building since he got them.
Best idea for posing isn't to drill etc, sub assemble the legs/arms files in something like Meshmixer. It's takes about 10 minutes and your print will be solid
I buy Sunlu ABS like resin which is more fall resistant for about the same orice as your Anycubic water washable. Printing hollow will save you a ton of resin and money and make your prints less prone to shattering when dropped. Properly calibrating your exposure times can cut your print time significantly (and will improvr your prints' appearance, too). I got the larger Halot model, and the longest print i can even run on it is only 12 hours. Failed prints will drop off as you gain experience. I remember when i first started with my old sheet metal Anycubic Photon, i probably had a failure about evwry other print. In the last month since my Halot arrived, though, not counting calibration and test prints I've had maybe 3 or 4 failures total.
This was some great insight, thank you. 3D printing is really challenging, so it's nice to see the other side of the coin besides "It's cheaper therefore better." It offers so much freedom as a hobbyist, though. Awesome video!
Really appreciate you putting the whole price into perspective for the 3D printed models - so often people say, “the file was only 2 dollars,” and leave it there - a printer may be a one time cost, but what about filament or resin? What about waste from failed prints? Excellent perspective 👍🏿
On average I spend about 30- for 1k ml bottle but after searching n looking found a good resin company wer I get 2k ml for 40 depending on size of printer one or 2 prints pays for the bottle I always try to make sure you have a project to help pay for supplies exct
I agree, it’s easy to get taken in by the cost of the file and forget about the time it takes to print. Even taking into account clean up plastic is far faster
i bought a small sla printer for about 100€ for printing troops. can fit about 10minis in one print. resin is 17€/1l when on sale. Failed prints may occur, but once the printer is properly calibrated and the minis are sliced/supported well it's 1 fail for every 15 succesful prints
Hey it's Fahad here. Thanks for the video. One thing our hobby seems to bring are little extra costs here and there. Sometimes it's paints we don't need or tools that weren't an upgrade on what we usually use. £4 here, £6 there. Eventually it all adds up. This is the first video that takes into account all those extra costs that I've wondered about with 3D printing. Now all those questions are answered and I know exactly what I'm getting myself into if I do go down that road.
I think it would be better for printing a massive amount of smaller models. Maybe it would be less likely to break if it fell over because there isn't as much mass.
@@RisingApe Great video, otherwise. Your price pointing highlighted that if you're gonna build knights/titans - or buy anything from Forge World -, buying a 3d printer really begins to make sense!
Great video as always! I will say, while resin is definitely brittle af, Anycubic is just glass. Phrozen resin proved way, WAY more resistant than Anycubic to me, and whenever it breaks it doesn't shatter into oblivion and the mini is normally salvageable. Plus -at least here- it's normally the same price or even cheaper! Also, and this is just something I heard but haven't tested myself; I was told water washable resins are way more brittle than regular resin.
I’m using sunlu waterashable and add about 60 ml of tenacious to a bottle.. they bounce back like a pingpong without breaking 😅 Sunlu is pretty cheap and has great flex by itself already. Way stronger than anycubic.. anycubic truly is glasslike but I also found elegoo to be quite brittle.. no experience with Phrozen..
I have printed a reaver and a warhound titan and the savings on those over the forge world models is massive. Also if you put a base on it and secure it it will be way less likely to fall over. But yes do have to be careful with resin models.
Location plays a big role in cost of resin. You can purchase good resin for around $20 US a bottle. Printing in a cold environment is going to give you way more print failures. I've been printing for years and just started painting at the end of last year. One huge advantage I've noticed is if i want to do minis to practices on, I can print a plate full for a few dollars and practice tons of different painting techniques. If i just want to practice working on wings, i just print those and practice. Even factoring in a lot of failures, you can get 80-100 miniatures out of a bottle of resin. Thats a lot of painting practice.
Absolutely, I haven’t printed anything as big as this before BUT I do print practice busts a and smaller scale stuff a lot. The big cost for me is time, I have very little hobby time as a parent working FT and making videos so I would rather spend time painting but there is room for both in my life
@RisingApe Yeah, printing large scale and getting the supports correct in resin takes a bit of practice. Hollowing out your model will lighten it up and save a lot of resin. I print in large scale a lot. Some models 450-500mm in height when put together. The newer mono printers are much much faster. I completely understand having to manage your time in the appropriate places. Good content. Appreciate you taking the time to make the videos!
As someone who's powerfully dyspraxic and clumsy, the brittleness and fragility of 3D resin is honestly by biggest fear. I just know ill break it because every single game I play, I already break or accidentally knock over something of mine, and I just can't trust myself to keep something like that as a game piece for long.
Mix 'Tenacious' with another transparent resin - about 20% Tenacious is enough to make a model less brittle. Highly recommend getting a UniTak3D enclosure. Keeps the heat in which makes the resin more fluid. Also, a Reptile Heat Mat with thermostatic control under the whole printer (thermometer prob, drilled hole through lid, taped to side of vat) at 25-30c will allow you to run the Motor Speed at 3mm/s or faster. Also run Lift Height high to keep the resin mixing in the Vat as you print.
p.s. You'll need to run test prints of the new resin mix, it's going to behave differently than the two pure constituents. In fact, you can smash the print time down loads on the Halot One with Motor Speed at 3mm/s, Lift Height about 6mm/s and Light Off Delay to 1s (a longer light off delay will make your printer live longer, but seriously, if it lasts 3 years it's don't it job and you'll have saved hours on print time).
Great video! Just saw the bit where you said a 2k screen takes longer to print - that's not actually true. I think you've gotten confused between RGB and mono screens, where the mono screens let 3x the light through - although the Halot One is a mono printer, which is faster. Otherwise, the difference between screens is just resolution/pixel size. The things that affect exposure times are resin, light intensity and temperature. Given your printer is in a garage in the UK at this time of year, I would imagine that temperature is the big issue you're facing and why your settings need to be so slow. Although if I'm being 100% honest, I wouldn't recommend water washable resin in future - it's much harder to work with, extremely brittle and often leads to worse results regardless, especially when hollowed. IPA is cheap now after covid, and much quicker when it comes to washing and disposal.
Thanks for the feedback I am no expert on this (obviously) but I have found the water washable easier to use. I absolutely run the printer in a cold environment though. But I have not invested in any sort of heating at all, I want absolute minimum effort (partly laziness but also I have very little spare time) as I want to spend my hobby time painting or making videos not fiddling with printers. But I fully get I could do things to improve the printing.
@@RisingApe Didn't mean for it to come across as criticism, sorry - totally understand the lack of time/effort thing! I've been printing for a long time, and have been involved in research/done it professionally so just try to help out when I can:) Temperature is such an important factor with resin printing - it directly impacts reaction speed (i.e., exposure time), and viscosity, which is really important for the forces involved and why you need the slow lift speeds/long light off delay. I am interested in how you've found working with the water washable easier than normal resin. In my experience it's just a bit of a nightmare to work with - thoroughly washing takes more time/effort (weak solvent), prints take a long time to dry before curing, and disposing of contaminated resin water responsibly/safely is quite difficult. IPA is easy to work with in a well ventilated space, and you can use much better resins for the same price - I'd give it another try if you're able to:)
Absolutely no reason to apologise, i don’t take any feedback personally, thanks for commenting I appreciate it and I am by no means an expert. My experience with water washable is a quick rinse and it’s done. Ipa was the opposite for me ?
@@RisingApe Strange that IPA wasn't easier to wash for you! With the water washables I've tried, they've always come out a bit unclean/tacky even when physically scrubbing them, and I ended up just using IPA for them in the end. For IPA it's best to have 2 tupperware containers, one for an initial 'dirty' wash to get rid of the bulk of the resin and one for a secondary 'clean wash' to thoroughly clean the rest. Dunk it in, close the lid swish it around for 20 seconds, out, and into the next one for the same. Makes it last much longer and you get a really clean result at the end of it. Are you rinsing them under a tap/down the drain? Resin in the water supply is really really bad for aquatic life, it cause a lot of damage even at low parts per million. It's another reason I really don't like water washable, as it encourages that for a less-informed consumer.
Printers are way faster now. With lower curing times, lower lift heights and faster lift speeds. It is worth the money to save and buy a little bit more capable machine. It would repay itself by printing faster and more reliable thus saving you large amounts of money due to less failures and saving lots of resin. For instance an Anycubic in the M series with a little larger build platform that whole model, in parts, can be printed within 12 hrs maybe even less because it would print it in one go because it would fit on the larger build plate. Fair = fair. My experience was that the learning curve when first starting to 3D print does cost you a bottle of resin, but after learning and digging into it i was sweet rolling in no-time. Lots of great video’s on YT that explain perfectly well on how to go about it as a beginner. I truly believe it pays you back if you spend a little more on a machine..
Cheers for the comment and for watching, I have done quite a bit of experimenting since this video, you absolutely can improve things with better machines. But I have managed to dial in my 2k to give almost Warhammer like quality now. Video inbound. But sure the cost of larger build plate models is now Way more affordable and is the way I would go now. I wouldn’t chase higher resolution printers at the moment though
3D printing is great, my setup cost me around $270 total (buying things on sale and using coupons as well) and so far I’ve printed over $350 worth of minis, my Deff Dread for my Ork army and my Magnus the Red being the most expensive pieces
Sunlu abs like resin has fixed the cost vs durability dilemma now. Personally I mix that with there nylon like in a 2:1 ratio(abs:nylon) and it seems similar to like a vinyl figure
Man, I printed the Mk1 Scavenger in less than 20hrs. No failures, fairly minimal waste thanks to hollowing. Elegoo Water washable is VERY durable, BTW.
Can't wait to get my Mars 4 DLP, and the wash and cure station and 2ltrs of the water washable Resin, should get a few good prints I reckon for a nooby at resin.
for big models like titans and vehicles just use a fdm printer. pla is so much lighter and a lot harder to break than resin. It is also cheaper and you can edit the infill to make it hollow without needing holes to drain resin and pla is not messy. Many will argue that fdm printers will not have as much detail and while that is true... you can have a .2 mm nozzle and .05 mm layer height so it can have good detail depending on what you do. for miniatures 100% use a resin printer but for almost any thing bigger fdm would be better for price and durability.
I think even in the time since I made this video, FDM has come a long way, it’s still not as good as resin for rendering details but for larger models, surface prep is easier for sure. Neither out performs injection moulded plastic though at least if you are gaming with them.
Tough resin and 8k printer makes your peint really sturdy and print faster thid model you shown turned out to be a day thing for me so yeah IT CAN BE WORTH IT if you're willing to spend time on it it's a hobby imo
Solid video! I printed a terrain set on my friends FDM printer and noticed after the STL & all the filament... Was I REALLY coming out ahead? If I paid myself even $5/hr, then not even close. (prep/cleanup, failures, etc..) I started looking into resin though since I love painting one-off display models. The biggest issue there is they're a lot cheaper, but I'm often doubling the price in order to cover shipping. I think I'd be able to get away with less than $30 worth of resin, STL, and headache for a small 32mm Myconid Shaman. And even if it took a couple days to print and cure, that's still like a MONTH or more faster than it takes for some of them to get shipped. ... Also bloat drone mower parts! I'm not paying 70 for a god damn bloat drone when there's still Dark Imperium ones kicking around for $10.
Yeh 💯 my printer is crazy useful but the cost factor is not as clear cut. Essentially I am prepared to pay more for the convenience. Depending on the model depends if the printer or the plastic is more convenient. Cheers for the comment
Lots of people combine resins to get the results they are looking for. As long as the recommended exposure times are within a small percentage of each other you are not going to see any problems. Just bear in mind even the toughest of UV resins aren’t as durable as high impact poly based plastics, like GW uses.
Thanks for the great video I’m pumped. I got a halot one and a wash and cure station for 100 US dollars. Have a ton of files from one page rules Patreon
I'd love to see some stress tests if you've got spare parts; plastic vs resin. My resin tends to be fairly durable (phrozen 8k) and I've not really had any trouble with fragility outside of 28mm skeletons and spears.
No FDM is fine for parts and terrain / flat surfaces but you can’t beat resin for detail yet. I just really needed a bigger printer.. I now have one! So will be repeating this on a newer machine
1st of all: flexible resins are not more expensive. Check out ABS like resins. They don't cost any more than the resin you used (about 40$ per litre). You just need IPA to clean them but thats dirt cheap, too. 2. You used a really huge model, and used the cheapest possible 3D printer with the standard tiny build plate for it. This obviously takes longer, since these printers are made for smaller models. You can do it of course, but it takes time. These cheap printers (I still use the Elegoo Mars 1) have an amazing quality, but printing huge stuff with them is tedious.
Thanks for the comment, I have always found the cost of resin to be highly variable, but I am no expert so thanks for the tip. Ref the model I printed a proxy knight to compare to a plastic knight. Yeh it’s tedious on a small cheap printer but it just reinforces the point, printing is great but it’s still expensive, complicated and time consuming. For folks with less time buying plastic is much easier. But if you have the time and space for a printer and all it’s accessories in the longer term it’s clearly going to be cheaper to print, especially if you want to print multiples.
yea, i only use my printer for tons of small models rather than one big one. if a small one breaks or prints badly, it's not the end of the world to glue him back/reprint him. if i need vehicles, i tend to just buy the real thing, less of a hassle and the process is faster
just get a Ender 3 to print the Miniatures, then coat the finished print with Resin. not only will it look really nice, but it will also be very durable because PLA doesn't break easily.
I thinking going into 3d printing because i want to hoard models, it would scratch my collecting itch, not interested in playing with them. Just printing,painting, putting on shelves . Thinking about getind 3d resin printer this summer
Most of these parts aren’t able to be hollowed, with the exception of the chest piece which was already. But thanks for watching, I am testing some new resin now actually
Good video as always. I bloody love my 3D printer. I've offset the costs by printing models for people. Once it's paid off that printer I'll be saving that income to buy a bigger one. What resin are you using? Mine is about £40 a bottle, Phrozen Sonic Aqua Gray 4K. It's bulletproof, sometimes I've had to knock some prints off the plate with a hammer and the print hasn't been damaged at all. I guess that's why the resin is near twice as expensive as yours! I'd like to use cheaper resin but I'm a bit worried about having to tune my settings to get really crisp prints again, and if they can be as crisp with cheaper resin. Have you used more expensive resin to make this comparison?
I use the resin in the video Elgoo water washable, it’s around £25 I messed about with a few other brands too. Don’t get me wrong I love my printer but when I stack up time spent and other expenses the cost of some 3D Prints and plastic can be negligible. There is 💯 room for both though. Thanks for watching
@@RisingApe thanks for replying - I didn't catch the exact bottle you held up during the vid. Yeah I love my 3D printer too and I'm much better at digitally kitbashing than I am in the old school way, but I love the ritual of clipping out bits from sprues and assembling. There's some incredible 3D model designers but at the end of the day I think GW are still the top of the pack and the only way you get access to those designs is through plastic. A lot of my printer's value comes from unique helmets, pauldrons, weapons, wheels, etc, that complement and work in harmony with plastic kits - perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
Yeh I use mine for that too, I also dallied with making my own parts too. And I have made toys for the kids to paint and gifts for folks too. Plenty of uses
I've been 3D printing for about two years now and ive concluded that, unless the big model im printing is just a Box like a Rhino, im never gonna print anything karger than say a Carnifex. And even then, its going to be wide and flat. Even with ABS-like and tough resin a walker is going to shatter and make your life miserable.
Now I agree GW thinks their models are made of Adamantium (or gold) & charge ridiculous prices this & the cost of the books are why I no longer play 40k, but have started playing BattleTech. A great thing about BT is you can use anything to represent your models & as a rule are tournament legal. Hell, they still give cardboard standies in the box sets! CGL also seems like a good company run by BT fans & they don't attack their fans that create great content. I can see printing GW minis, but that can really hurt smaller companies like CGL & personally I will only buy or make 3D models of units that CGL currently doesn't offer.
To be fair, who would 3D print something so big? I save on upgrades, extra weapons and custom Imperial Fist parts or to add parts to normal space marines to make Grey Knights. I also sell some custom parts and weapons at a fraction of the cost and it pays for my own prints. Win Win. But I wouldn't print something that large personally. Buy a used one, strip the paint and just add your own parts to it.
I completely agree, buy a second hand plastic one, BUT there are a lot of people trying to 3d print Titans out there. To print something bigger though, unsurprisingly you really need a bigger printer.
I was using water wash resin as well for ever until I started using sunlu it's $10 more but u get 2 bottles equivalent it's not water wash so u have to get some alcohol but the fumes and stuff are minimal I have alot of reptiles so fumes n stuff I worry about and the resin feels nice
Is it worth it? Definitively bc 3d printing is the only reason I can afford miniatures at all. You can buy 3d printers second hand, too. Or on sale. I bought a Mars Pro shortly after the Mars 2 Pro came out for about $120. I also got an Anycubic Mega S for about $80. For regular sized models I buy ABS like resin+ for ~$22/kg. Not as durable as vacuum formed hard plastic but it will usually survive a fall from the table. Bigger models are usually more durable if printed with the filament printer which will cost me about $9/kg *and* failed prints can be recycled back into filament. (I mean you could even cut old pet bottles into printing material at the stunning cost of nothing at all.) If you want more detail for a big model you can print some parts in resin, and some parts in filament. Or just print it completely in resin and use 15% infill in Lychee -- this will not only drastically cut the amount of material needed, it will also lower the impact force in case of any mishaps. The only thing missing from my calculations is the cleaning alcohol bc I don't even remember the price I paid for the two 10l canisters I bought in three years of 3d printing. It's really not that relevant. Printing time is not really a cost, imo. My minis will literally print themselves while I'm still painting the last batch. And misprints? I barely have any. Idk what y'all doing wrong. Maybe you just need to check your presupported files or, if you don't want to do that, read reviews before you buy. Some sculptors have a great support game (or hire people who are good with supports), some don't. Personally, I do most of my supports myself bc a lot of my minis are either free files or digital kitbashes bc we don't want two identical minis in our 6000pt army, do we? The real hidden cost is the time and dedication you need to learn your new tools. I started watching 3d printing tutorials months before I even had a printer. It's not too hard though, especially if you don't bother with non-supported files.
Absolutely valid, as I said in the video I am of an age where I have very little time available so that cost is significantly higher for me. But I do get where you are coming from, thanks for the comment
I don’t really consider time to be a factor with resin printing, sure it limits how much you can print, but I can sure print it faster than I’ll paint it so that’s kind of irrelevant, and it’s not like I sit about twiddling my thumbs waiting for a print to finish so who cares if it takes 8 hours tbh.
That’s a fair point, it can be annoying if you have deadlines, just have to be organised. I wanted to make the point that time does have a value and it’s worth considering. Thanks for the comment, it’s a good one.
@@RisingApe For sure it does need to be considered, if you have a deadline, say an upcoming tournament or event, you wouldn't want to be trying to get some last minute stuff printed.
This is a good video but could be expanded on a bit, say for instance, a person knew they wanted to print mini's and that was the primary reason for a resin printer, then they could spend just a bit more for a much larger printer, allowing them to print more per run and cutting down on the overall time, my saturn 2 cost me about $40 more than yours and can fit the entire model you displayed on 1 run, newer water washable resins, like the v2, are much less brittle than the older one, same price. Not as durable as the injection molded plastic of course, but it could survive a tip-over fall without worry, and for the smaller minis even table height falls, as others have mentioned, print something this size hollow, if it weighs less, it doesn't land as hard. and saves you resin to boot. This is such a subjective topic; to me, it only boils down to 1 thing, do you want to play at a store or just with your friends? 3d printing is great for one of these, not for the other.
Yup, this is really fair, I always make my videos from where I am in hobby right now and I have learned a lot since making it and have a few follow ups too, I make a point of trying to not say one way is better than the other it’s all about how you want to hobby at the end of the day.
Yeh cannot stress that you need proper ventilation this stuff even smells toxic. Something like a cooker extractor with a cabin filter that’s changed every couple of months should be fine though.
@@RisingApe got, it; one thing i wanna ask though - since i have no experience painting at all - do you recommend citadels paints? They look pretty decent and are - compared to other brands in my area comparable in price and amount i get, or do you use anything specific?
@@domschra there is not a lot wrong with citadel in my opinion, big range, widely available and contrast paints are excellent. I mainly use Kimera, but if was recommending a range for people to start with it would either be AKgen 3, Vallejo Game Colour or citadel. Whichever is easiest to get.
Very nice and balanced video.. however I strongly advise against water washable resin, it is insanely brittle. Elegoo ABS Like and stuff doesn't break quick anymore :D Especially large parts like that robot. :D I made the switch and I'm never going back. :D It's also so hard to get rid of the water, alcohol evaporates quicker and you need so so much less. :D
Thanks, I didn’t want to do a hatchet job on either way, they both have their pro’s and cons. I have used eco resins and a few others before and found them just as brittle but fully accept I am no expert here.
@@RisingApe Eco resin is just made from polymers made from organic material rather than derived from fossil fuels - similar to biofuel in a sense. It's no safer than regular resin and has worse material properties, similar to water washable in how brittle it is. It's a marketing gimmick, not even necessarily more eco friendly than regular resin and may even take more carbon to produce it - I wouldn't recommend it
Yes, light use of the printer is definitely not worth it. Kind of the reason i wanted to smack my brother for getting a resin printer since he does absolutely no tabletop gaming, i think hes printed like 20 things with it in the 5 months hes had it. I print tons of stuff though. Lot of which i chose to print because i genuinely preferred the STL file over the GW sculpt, others because the official model is static and you generally want multiples so i want variation. Heavy use of the printer is definitely way, way cheaper. You can mix resins. I mix Sunlu ABS-like 2-1 ratio with Sirayatech Tenacious, giving it significant drop resistance for about ~30USD per kg. Yes if i drop a thinner piece off the table it will likely break but so does plastic, i have tons of tau/necrons/orks with exposed plastic bits broken off and reglued and broken again. And usually when this mixture does break its a very clean break so easy to repair, no over-bent plastic to deal with. "But IPA is expensive" i hear people screaming. Not really. I had 4 gallons of IPA 99% last me about 1.5 years and that printer is printing something almost nonstop (think i had a month period in the last 1.5yrs where it wasnt doing anything). Use two vats, dirty vat and clean-ish vat. It stretches the IPA life significantly, and when the dirty vat gets too dirty, dump it out and now the new IPA in it is the new clean-ish vat. Also the fumes thing can be easily dealt with if you dont have a dedicated room to put it. Another reason i tend to not recommend printers for people is a LOT of people i come across are not willing to put in effort outside of the box, and 3D printing has a lot of extra effort. Its not hard to setup a fan+duct system to just suck the air out a nearby window, but its also enough effort to say it takes some so most wont bother.
this video didn't age well on printer prices, I got my anycubic photon mono x 4k for 150€, and that's a way better printer than halot one, half a year ago and now I think about upgrading to bigger build plate and there's some choice of 10" 6-8k printers for up to 350€
I know right, they have tumbled recently, that’s great news though, you can grab a 2k printer for just over £100 now, that said with proper settings a 2k printer can perform almost as well as a 4k/8k (I now have an 8k). It’s all about pixel size, and density, cheers for watching the video, I have a few follow ups that you may like to check out too.
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Some way of seeing how cheap or not 3D printingis: Check how much you have to pay someone else to print something for you.
I think it is too much work with 3d printing for it to take over. Something else will end up 'breaking' the market. Like some super efficient mold+inject system that can make a sort of produce on demand-service more effective and thus cheaper. Or finally an efficient enough prodiction line for mass printing high quality models. Resin and home printing has its place but just cant see it taking over because of cost, annoying to handle and hard to get right. Plus always at least somewhat brittle. But definately these super expensive gw kits, that also often lack any customization, will eventually run into something that makes it almost obsolete. But that will almost certainly be a service you pay for, not something everyone produces at home. Is my guess. :)
Games Workshop should embrace this trend. Unlike the poor execution of Metallica against their own fan base, because of copyright. In this case Games Workshop should (EMBRACE IT - INCITE IT - LEAD IT) make their own 8K 3D printer, (PAY-HAMMER Printer) for their stores. Have a two tier hobby. "Base" army sets. Sold in boxes - starter packs and cost effective bundles. But then PAY-HAMMER the more exotic models, and customizations for their war leader and other special units. Pay-To-Win or Pay-To-Customize. The box set should come with a Internal scratch and win QR code for one complimentary PAY-HAMMER 3d print... like a WarLord or Heavy Support. Therefore all sold generic-pre-bundled-armies, get one highly customized model, to help distinguish that bundled army from other low cost bundled armies. This exposes the customer to the extremely nice experience of getting something special. In addition, the box for that custom PAY-HAMMER is also printed. Folded, assembled and all inserts / transfers / special terrain markers / options ... and other "goodies" are included in the box, along with the PAY-HAMMER custom.
Eh, my armigers look SO much better and they cost me 15 bucks for the model. I have an anycubic max m3 and a nice max wash and cure, may as well use em. A pair of armigers is what... 60 bucks from gw? 100? I get no print failures because guess what... Its over an 8k printer, my settings are dialed because i know what im doing, any good models come presupported, and the resin models can even be hollowed if you want them light. I print in anycubic abslike resin which is beefy AF and cheap, so no breakage concerns.. dunno, seems like an ideal way to go, especially since when i go to make my mechanicus army itd cost me over 2000 cash for gw models for 1500 points... I've got 10 armigers now that cost me literally 60 bucks in resin... And they look SOOOO much more detailed than anything GW puts out. My canis rex looks great too, as does basically everything ive printed. You can do it too, and frankly the whole "ventilated area" thing is just a "put it in the garage, on your apartment patio, or...really anywhere with an open window cuz resin smells. Never been hurt by resin fumes though, and its not like my workshop is ventillated, the garage is air conditioned and sealed where my printers are.
Certainly a valid point about learning curves/ better printers/ different resins. If you are short of time/ space or only want 1 or two then buying second hand still seems like a better option and significantly easier. The ventilation argument though, it’s not worth messing about with it, I guess you could store your printer outside if you live somewhere where it’s warm/ never rains but what if you don’t have an outside space or live somewhere temperate? Basically if it works for you, great, but there is more than one way to do it, as ever, as long as you’re having fun, it’s all good
Not nearly as sexy as resin printing but a good fdm printer could probly do what you've printed with more durability and practically no smell and no toxic fumes
I don’t think you could get the detail unless you were using a top of the range FDM. Checkout my follow up video, by tweaking settings I improved the durability a lot. But if I wanted max durability with 0 fumes, the way to go is plastic.
3D printing is way better than GW models. Less clean up. Less parts so easier to build and WAY WAY cheaper. My printer has stopped running since GW started gas lighting its customers and raising prices again.. Do yourself a favor.. buy a 3D printer, you don't need GW to wargame...
I LOVE 3d printing, since this video I have gone through 5 machines and have two more on the way, but in terms of ease, and if cost is the main barrier, it’s much easier to just buy second hand minis and game with them instead if that’s your jam.
used a shit printer and an even worse setup combined with the worst resin for mini printing. i can print large models for about 15 to 30 euro's. Using a liters worth of resin is just straight up a lie.
I used an entry level printer, and a DIY setup and the resin use was my experience. Simply trying to reflect a real experience. Using a significantly “better” printer would only drive average costs up further. For smaller models these printers are excellent. But happy for you to suggest what I could do better.
Countless rule systems exist that are miniatures agnostic, with OPR being one of the most well known and arguably far better than GW's rules stems. OPR makes STL's for miniatures and terrain, while also providing supporters with the rules for all their game systems for no extra cost, yet they are making a ton of money doing so. There are also plenty of companies that still produce miniatures that are supported, as they don't gut their customers with hyper inflated price tags.
In my experience if you are playing the game, you are more likely to purchase from GW too, however there are SO many amazing games companies that need your support way more.
I think 3d printing shines more with smaller models. Troops are much better use. A box of GW will usually give you 5 to 10 models. With a lot of armies you might need up 40 or 80. Also you won't have to clean all the mold lines. There are a lot more on small models. It is really another hobby so it is a time sync.
💯 for printing cheap armies they are amazing
@@andrewsullivan2369Not really the same thing, but I printed almost 800 tiny chess pieces for a guy at work and he's been scattering them all over the building since he got them.
Best idea for posing isn't to drill etc, sub assemble the legs/arms files in something like Meshmixer. It's takes about 10 minutes and your print will be solid
That’s a great shout, hadn’t even considered it, I am not very confident with that stuff yet, but certainly something I want to get better at.
@@RisingApe Have a play with it, once you've got the basics it opens so many doors
@@RisingApe blender is also really good for 3D printing and modifying stls.
@@JoeFlamenco I use blender a little it’s challenging to learn though.
@@RisingApe yeah, it’s definitely got a learning curve. Once you’re past the “oh noes I borked the mesh!!!1” part it gets easier.
I buy Sunlu ABS like resin which is more fall resistant for about the same orice as your Anycubic water washable. Printing hollow will save you a ton of resin and money and make your prints less prone to shattering when dropped. Properly calibrating your exposure times can cut your print time significantly (and will improvr your prints' appearance, too). I got the larger Halot model, and the longest print i can even run on it is only 12 hours.
Failed prints will drop off as you gain experience. I remember when i first started with my old sheet metal Anycubic Photon, i probably had a failure about evwry other print. In the last month since my Halot arrived, though, not counting calibration and test prints I've had maybe 3 or 4 failures total.
This was some great insight, thank you. 3D printing is really challenging, so it's nice to see the other side of the coin besides "It's cheaper therefore better." It offers so much freedom as a hobbyist, though. Awesome video!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it.
3d printing in itself is just another hobby with a mechanical side to it as well.
Really appreciate you putting the whole price into perspective for the 3D printed models - so often people say, “the file was only 2 dollars,” and leave it there - a printer may be a one time cost, but what about filament or resin? What about waste from failed prints? Excellent perspective 👍🏿
On average I spend about 30- for 1k ml bottle but after searching n looking found a good resin company wer I get 2k ml for 40 depending on size of printer one or 2 prints pays for the bottle I always try to make sure you have a project to help pay for supplies exct
I agree, it’s easy to get taken in by the cost of the file and forget about the time it takes to print. Even taking into account clean up plastic is far faster
@@RisingApebut while it is printing I can be doing something else. Cleaning up mold lines is lost time.
i bought a small sla printer for about 100€ for printing troops. can fit about 10minis in one print. resin is 17€/1l when on sale.
Failed prints may occur, but once the printer is properly calibrated and the minis are sliced/supported well it's 1 fail for every 15 succesful prints
@@MrRaufasertapeterWhat printer did you buy, could you share the model?
Hey it's Fahad here. Thanks for the video. One thing our hobby seems to bring are little extra costs here and there. Sometimes it's paints we don't need or tools that weren't an upgrade on what we usually use. £4 here, £6 there. Eventually it all adds up.
This is the first video that takes into account all those extra costs that I've wondered about with 3D printing. Now all those questions are answered and I know exactly what I'm getting myself into if I do go down that road.
Thanks 🙏 I am not saying one is better than the other just trying to show to the pro’s and cons of each
I think it would be better for printing a massive amount of smaller models. Maybe it would be less likely to break if it fell over because there isn't as much mass.
Yup, no doubt small models print well, they are still quite brittle but the lack of mass helps
I got motion sickness from your face-jump-cuts.
Cheers for the feedback
@@RisingApe Great video, otherwise. Your price pointing highlighted that if you're gonna build knights/titans - or buy anything from Forge World -, buying a 3d printer really begins to make sense!
For sure, I have a larger build plate now though and that makes things even easier@@7hi5on35
Great video as always! I will say, while resin is definitely brittle af, Anycubic is just glass. Phrozen resin proved way, WAY more resistant than Anycubic to me, and whenever it breaks it doesn't shatter into oblivion and the mini is normally salvageable. Plus -at least here- it's normally the same price or even cheaper! Also, and this is just something I heard but haven't tested myself; I was told water washable resins are way more brittle than regular resin.
Thanks
I’m using sunlu waterashable and add about 60 ml of tenacious to a bottle.. they bounce back like a pingpong without breaking 😅 Sunlu is pretty cheap and has great flex by itself already. Way stronger than anycubic.. anycubic truly is glasslike but I also found elegoo to be quite brittle.. no experience with Phrozen..
I have printed a reaver and a warhound titan and the savings on those over the forge world models is massive. Also if you put a base on it and secure it it will be way less likely to fall over. But yes do have to be careful with resin models.
Amazing I do plan to print a Titan at some point, but I really need a bigger build play first! Thanks for watching
Location plays a big role in cost of resin. You can purchase good resin for around $20 US a bottle. Printing in a cold environment is going to give you way more print failures. I've been printing for years and just started painting at the end of last year. One huge advantage I've noticed is if i want to do minis to practices on, I can print a plate full for a few dollars and practice tons of different painting techniques. If i just want to practice working on wings, i just print those and practice. Even factoring in a lot of failures, you can get 80-100 miniatures out of a bottle of resin. Thats a lot of painting practice.
Absolutely, I haven’t printed anything as big as this before BUT I do print practice busts a and smaller scale stuff a lot. The big cost for me is time, I have very little hobby time as a parent working FT and making videos so I would rather spend time painting but there is room for both in my life
@RisingApe Yeah, printing large scale and getting the supports correct in resin takes a bit of practice. Hollowing out your model will lighten it up and save a lot of resin. I print in large scale a lot. Some models 450-500mm in height when put together. The newer mono printers are much much faster. I completely understand having to manage your time in the appropriate places. Good content. Appreciate you taking the time to make the videos!
Well if you have your machine dialed in you won't get any miss prints , that being said you can get a ton of minis for under 30 bucks .
Thank you for pointing this out, now i can send your well made video to people who have no idea what they talking about in facebook groups.
Haha, by all means
Great comparison mate! This could seriously save an overly keen hobbyist spending more money than they need to or making some simple early mistakes.
Thanks 🙏
Seriously check out CG Trader.. it’s amazing, link in description
As someone who's powerfully dyspraxic and clumsy, the brittleness and fragility of 3D resin is honestly by biggest fear. I just know ill break it because every single game I play, I already break or accidentally knock over something of mine, and I just can't trust myself to keep something like that as a game piece for long.
I have to say I agree, they work well as display pieces but I am keen to try out some of the ABS like resins
Just use ABS like resins. That stuff bends like crazy and doesn't cost any more.
Mix 'Tenacious' with another transparent resin - about 20% Tenacious is enough to make a model less brittle.
Highly recommend getting a UniTak3D enclosure. Keeps the heat in which makes the resin more fluid.
Also, a Reptile Heat Mat with thermostatic control under the whole printer (thermometer prob, drilled hole through lid, taped to side of vat) at 25-30c will allow you to run the Motor Speed at 3mm/s or faster. Also run Lift Height high to keep the resin mixing in the Vat as you print.
p.s. You'll need to run test prints of the new resin mix, it's going to behave differently than the two pure constituents.
In fact, you can smash the print time down loads on the Halot One with Motor Speed at 3mm/s, Lift Height about 6mm/s and Light Off Delay to 1s (a longer light off delay will make your printer live longer, but seriously, if it lasts 3 years it's don't it job and you'll have saved hours on print time).
Appreciate the tips cheers
Excellent thanks, hope you enjoyed the video too
@@RisingApe obviously 😅
just found your channel while building some models, love the videos keep it up :D
Excellent thanks for the watch! Glad you like them
printed two of them already. One for my adeptas Sororitas and one for Death Korps. Amazing models, easy to print and build.
Yeh station forge do some awesome models
Great stuff friend 👏 👍
Thanks mark
Great video! Just saw the bit where you said a 2k screen takes longer to print - that's not actually true. I think you've gotten confused between RGB and mono screens, where the mono screens let 3x the light through - although the Halot One is a mono printer, which is faster. Otherwise, the difference between screens is just resolution/pixel size.
The things that affect exposure times are resin, light intensity and temperature. Given your printer is in a garage in the UK at this time of year, I would imagine that temperature is the big issue you're facing and why your settings need to be so slow.
Although if I'm being 100% honest, I wouldn't recommend water washable resin in future - it's much harder to work with, extremely brittle and often leads to worse results regardless, especially when hollowed. IPA is cheap now after covid, and much quicker when it comes to washing and disposal.
Thanks for the feedback I am no expert on this (obviously) but I have found the water washable easier to use. I absolutely run the printer in a cold environment though. But I have not invested in any sort of heating at all, I want absolute minimum effort (partly laziness but also I have very little spare time) as I want to spend my hobby time painting or making videos not fiddling with printers. But I fully get I could do things to improve the printing.
@@RisingApe Didn't mean for it to come across as criticism, sorry - totally understand the lack of time/effort thing! I've been printing for a long time, and have been involved in research/done it professionally so just try to help out when I can:)
Temperature is such an important factor with resin printing - it directly impacts reaction speed (i.e., exposure time), and viscosity, which is really important for the forces involved and why you need the slow lift speeds/long light off delay.
I am interested in how you've found working with the water washable easier than normal resin. In my experience it's just a bit of a nightmare to work with - thoroughly washing takes more time/effort (weak solvent), prints take a long time to dry before curing, and disposing of contaminated resin water responsibly/safely is quite difficult. IPA is easy to work with in a well ventilated space, and you can use much better resins for the same price - I'd give it another try if you're able to:)
Absolutely no reason to apologise, i don’t take any feedback personally, thanks for commenting I appreciate it and I am by no means an expert. My experience with water washable is a quick rinse and it’s done. Ipa was the opposite for me ?
@@RisingApe Strange that IPA wasn't easier to wash for you! With the water washables I've tried, they've always come out a bit unclean/tacky even when physically scrubbing them, and I ended up just using IPA for them in the end.
For IPA it's best to have 2 tupperware containers, one for an initial 'dirty' wash to get rid of the bulk of the resin and one for a secondary 'clean wash' to thoroughly clean the rest. Dunk it in, close the lid swish it around for 20 seconds, out, and into the next one for the same. Makes it last much longer and you get a really clean result at the end of it.
Are you rinsing them under a tap/down the drain? Resin in the water supply is really really bad for aquatic life, it cause a lot of damage even at low parts per million. It's another reason I really don't like water washable, as it encourages that for a less-informed consumer.
SunLu nylon like resin.
Itll change your world.
Second recommendation.. will check it out, thanks for watching
Printers are way faster now. With lower curing times, lower lift heights and faster lift speeds.
It is worth the money to save and buy a little bit more capable machine. It would repay itself by printing faster and more reliable thus saving you large amounts of money due to less failures and saving lots of resin. For instance an Anycubic in the M series with a little larger build platform that whole model, in parts, can be printed within 12 hrs maybe even less because it would print it in one go because it would fit on the larger build plate.
Fair = fair. My experience was that the learning curve when first starting to 3D print does cost you a bottle of resin, but after learning and digging into it i was sweet rolling in no-time. Lots of great video’s on YT that explain perfectly well on how to go about it as a beginner.
I truly believe it pays you back if you spend a little more on a machine..
Cheers for the comment and for watching, I have done quite a bit of experimenting since this video, you absolutely can improve things with better machines. But I have managed to dial in my 2k to give almost Warhammer like quality now. Video inbound. But sure the cost of larger build plate models is now Way more affordable and is the way I would go now. I wouldn’t chase higher resolution printers at the moment though
3D printing is great, my setup cost me around $270 total (buying things on sale and using coupons as well) and so far I’ve printed over $350 worth of minis, my Deff Dread for my Ork army and my Magnus the Red being the most expensive pieces
Excellent 👌
it takes weeks for packages to arrive to my home so its always worth it to simply print whatever you want
Massive tick in the convenience box, that’s for sure!
"you only need a 2k printer to print amazing models".... YES!!!!! Someone gets it!
I am not sure I do.. this 3D printing lark still seems like magic to me 😂 cheers mate
Great video James! Very insightful
Thanks Nick
Easily the most reasonable layout of arguments regarding buy/print. Particularly the point on failed prints and time consumption.
Thanks 🙏
Love it … it’s a bit like the kids saying “let’s get a dog”…. There are lots of things behind that phrase beyond getting the actual dog
Yeh exactly, would I recommend a printer, absolutely but go in knowing what you’re letting yourself in for.
Sunlu abs like resin has fixed the cost vs durability dilemma now. Personally I mix that with there nylon like in a 2:1 ratio(abs:nylon) and it seems similar to like a vinyl figure
Thanks, I have been experimenting a lot with settings and resin since this video. New video out this week
Man, I printed the Mk1 Scavenger in less than 20hrs. No failures, fairly minimal waste thanks to hollowing.
Elegoo Water washable is VERY durable, BTW.
Excellent, lessons were definitely learned here for sure
As an Australian this just makes me happy.
Glad you enjoyed it
Can't wait to get my Mars 4 DLP, and the wash and cure station and 2ltrs of the water washable Resin, should get a few good prints I reckon for a nooby at resin.
Yup, sounds fun 🤩
for big models like titans and vehicles just use a fdm printer. pla is so much lighter and a lot harder to break than resin. It is also cheaper and you can edit the infill to make it hollow without needing holes to drain resin and pla is not messy. Many will argue that fdm printers will not have as much detail and while that is true... you can have a .2 mm nozzle and .05 mm layer height so it can have good detail depending on what you do. for miniatures 100% use a resin printer but for almost any thing bigger fdm would be better for price and durability.
I think even in the time since I made this video, FDM has come a long way, it’s still not as good as resin for rendering details but for larger models, surface prep is easier for sure. Neither out performs injection moulded plastic though at least if you are gaming with them.
Tough resin and 8k printer makes your peint really sturdy and print faster thid model you shown turned out to be a day thing for me so yeah IT CAN BE WORTH IT if you're willing to spend time on it it's a hobby imo
Fully agree, 3d printing is awesome but it’s a big investment in time/ money/ space too.
Solid video! I printed a terrain set on my friends FDM printer and noticed after the STL & all the filament... Was I REALLY coming out ahead? If I paid myself even $5/hr, then not even close. (prep/cleanup, failures, etc..)
I started looking into resin though since I love painting one-off display models. The biggest issue there is they're a lot cheaper, but I'm often doubling the price in order to cover shipping. I think I'd be able to get away with less than $30 worth of resin, STL, and headache for a small 32mm Myconid Shaman. And even if it took a couple days to print and cure, that's still like a MONTH or more faster than it takes for some of them to get shipped.
... Also bloat drone mower parts! I'm not paying 70 for a god damn bloat drone when there's still Dark Imperium ones kicking around for $10.
Yeh 💯 my printer is crazy useful but the cost factor is not as clear cut. Essentially I am prepared to pay more for the convenience. Depending on the model depends if the printer or the plastic is more convenient. Cheers for the comment
Great video. Do you think something like mixing in tenacious resin would be worth it for some peace of mind?
Lots of people combine resins to get the results they are looking for. As long as the recommended exposure times are within a small percentage of each other you are not going to see any problems. Just bear in mind even the toughest of UV resins aren’t as durable as high impact poly based plastics, like GW uses.
Yeh someone else recommended this too, for me, I will just pick up second hand models for the large scale stuff and stick to resin for display stuff.
@@stephenbutler9432 idk tenacious seems pretty strong, and gw plastic is honestly not *that* durable
Thanks for the great video I’m pumped. I got a halot one and a wash and cure station for 100 US dollars. Have a ton of files from one page rules Patreon
Nice, welcome to the fun
I'd love to see some stress tests if you've got spare parts; plastic vs resin. My resin tends to be fairly durable (phrozen 8k) and I've not really had any trouble with fragility outside of 28mm skeletons and spears.
I have a video on this coming up next year. Great shout cheers
Who is this James workshop and how good are his models
Haha 😂 I almost edited that bit out.. glad I didn’t now
Resin is for small models, fdm and a lil bit of sanding or a lot of hand tuning your printer is for big models?
No FDM is fine for parts and terrain / flat surfaces but you can’t beat resin for detail yet. I just really needed a bigger printer.. I now have one! So will be repeating this on a newer machine
Next, do a comparison of something like Forgeworld Crimson Paladins lol.
I actually snagged a set of the FW Crimson Paladins from eBay for £50.. maybe I need a video restoring them…
Fun stuff, as always my freind
Thanks buddy
Based Stormlight enjoyer
1st of all: flexible resins are not more expensive. Check out ABS like resins. They don't cost any more than the resin you used (about 40$ per litre). You just need IPA to clean them but thats dirt cheap, too.
2. You used a really huge model, and used the cheapest possible 3D printer with the standard tiny build plate for it. This obviously takes longer, since these printers are made for smaller models. You can do it of course, but it takes time. These cheap printers (I still use the Elegoo Mars 1) have an amazing quality, but printing huge stuff with them is tedious.
Thanks for the comment, I have always found the cost of resin to be highly variable, but I am no expert so thanks for the tip. Ref the model I printed a proxy knight to compare to a plastic knight. Yeh it’s tedious on a small cheap printer but it just reinforces the point, printing is great but it’s still expensive, complicated and time consuming. For folks with less time buying plastic is much easier. But if you have the time and space for a printer and all it’s accessories in the longer term it’s clearly going to be cheaper to print, especially if you want to print multiples.
yea, i only use my printer for tons of small models rather than one big one. if a small one breaks or prints badly, it's not the end of the world to glue him back/reprint him. if i need vehicles, i tend to just buy the real thing, less of a hassle and the process is faster
I have to say it’s not something I am keen to do again but then again… Titan 😂
ABS-like 2.0 resin doesn't seem to be very brittle. And yes, let's hope the parts of your knight are hollow.
just get a Ender 3 to print the Miniatures, then coat the finished print with Resin. not only will it look really nice, but it will also be very durable because PLA doesn't break easily.
Sadly there isn’t a way to keep the details on smaller minis. But I would love a PLA printer for other stuff.
I thinking going into 3d printing because i want to hoard models, it would scratch my collecting itch, not interested in playing with them. Just printing,painting, putting on shelves . Thinking about getind 3d resin printer this summer
There has never been a better time to do it. Welcome to the party
80% Sunlu Generic resin and 20% Siraya Tech tough mix by weight and you're golden. Also hollow the parts you can because you don't need a resin brick.
Most of these parts aren’t able to be hollowed, with the exception of the chest piece which was already. But thanks for watching, I am testing some new resin now actually
Is your printer base like 3cmx3cm - 9 prints
This was an older video so on a smaller plate, but still representative of something a beginner may have.
Good video as always. I bloody love my 3D printer. I've offset the costs by printing models for people. Once it's paid off that printer I'll be saving that income to buy a bigger one. What resin are you using? Mine is about £40 a bottle, Phrozen Sonic Aqua Gray 4K. It's bulletproof, sometimes I've had to knock some prints off the plate with a hammer and the print hasn't been damaged at all. I guess that's why the resin is near twice as expensive as yours! I'd like to use cheaper resin but I'm a bit worried about having to tune my settings to get really crisp prints again, and if they can be as crisp with cheaper resin. Have you used more expensive resin to make this comparison?
I use the resin in the video Elgoo water washable, it’s around £25 I messed about with a few other brands too. Don’t get me wrong I love my printer but when I stack up time spent and other expenses the cost of some 3D Prints and plastic can be negligible. There is 💯 room for both though. Thanks for watching
@@RisingApe thanks for replying - I didn't catch the exact bottle you held up during the vid. Yeah I love my 3D printer too and I'm much better at digitally kitbashing than I am in the old school way, but I love the ritual of clipping out bits from sprues and assembling. There's some incredible 3D model designers but at the end of the day I think GW are still the top of the pack and the only way you get access to those designs is through plastic. A lot of my printer's value comes from unique helmets, pauldrons, weapons, wheels, etc, that complement and work in harmony with plastic kits - perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
Yeh I use mine for that too, I also dallied with making my own parts too. And I have made toys for the kids to paint and gifts for folks too. Plenty of uses
I've been 3D printing for about two years now and ive concluded that, unless the big model im printing is just a Box like a Rhino, im never gonna print anything karger than say a Carnifex.
And even then, its going to be wide and flat. Even with ABS-like and tough resin a walker is going to shatter and make your life miserable.
Aye, there are resins that can do it now, but they cost so much that it’s cheaper to get second hand official plastic
Hmm. I didn't think I was a child either, but I've still dropped models like a numpty.
Me too.. maybe I am a child
Same :)
Now I agree GW thinks their models are made of Adamantium (or gold) & charge ridiculous prices this & the cost of the books are why I no longer play 40k, but have started playing BattleTech. A great thing about BT is you can use anything to represent your models & as a rule are tournament legal. Hell, they still give cardboard standies in the box sets!
CGL also seems like a good company run by BT fans & they don't attack their fans that create great content. I can see printing GW minis, but that can really hurt smaller companies like CGL & personally I will only buy or make 3D models of units that CGL currently doesn't offer.
Yeh BT is an incredible community, much easier to build a Lance to game with too
To be fair, who would 3D print something so big? I save on upgrades, extra weapons and custom Imperial Fist parts or to add parts to normal space marines to make Grey Knights. I also sell some custom parts and weapons at a fraction of the cost and it pays for my own prints. Win Win. But I wouldn't print something that large personally. Buy a used one, strip the paint and just add your own parts to it.
I completely agree, buy a second hand plastic one, BUT there are a lot of people trying to 3d print Titans out there. To print something bigger though, unsurprisingly you really need a bigger printer.
I was using water wash resin as well for ever until I started using sunlu it's $10 more but u get 2 bottles equivalent it's not water wash so u have to get some alcohol but the fumes and stuff are minimal I have alot of reptiles so fumes n stuff I worry about and the resin feels nice
Cool, thanks for the tip
Some solid points there. (-:
And yeah, not going to print for gaming, just because of the brittleness. But for busts, hell ye. (-:
💯 glad you liked it
investing in ABS like and not overcuring works wonders :)
Is it worth it? Definitively bc 3d printing is the only reason I can afford miniatures at all.
You can buy 3d printers second hand, too. Or on sale. I bought a Mars Pro shortly after the Mars 2 Pro came out for about $120. I also got an Anycubic Mega S for about $80.
For regular sized models I buy ABS like resin+ for ~$22/kg. Not as durable as vacuum formed hard plastic but it will usually survive a fall from the table. Bigger models are usually more durable if printed with the filament printer which will cost me about $9/kg *and* failed prints can be recycled back into filament. (I mean you could even cut old pet bottles into printing material at the stunning cost of nothing at all.) If you want more detail for a big model you can print some parts in resin, and some parts in filament. Or just print it completely in resin and use 15% infill in Lychee -- this will not only drastically cut the amount of material needed, it will also lower the impact force in case of any mishaps.
The only thing missing from my calculations is the cleaning alcohol bc I don't even remember the price I paid for the two 10l canisters I bought in three years of 3d printing. It's really not that relevant.
Printing time is not really a cost, imo. My minis will literally print themselves while I'm still painting the last batch.
And misprints? I barely have any. Idk what y'all doing wrong. Maybe you just need to check your presupported files or, if you don't want to do that, read reviews before you buy. Some sculptors have a great support game (or hire people who are good with supports), some don't.
Personally, I do most of my supports myself bc a lot of my minis are either free files or digital kitbashes bc we don't want two identical minis in our 6000pt army, do we?
The real hidden cost is the time and dedication you need to learn your new tools. I started watching 3d printing tutorials months before I even had a printer. It's not too hard though, especially if you don't bother with non-supported files.
Absolutely valid, as I said in the video I am of an age where I have very little time available so that cost is significantly higher for me. But I do get where you are coming from, thanks for the comment
Imagine some print failures are perfect for customizing your corrupted marines and knights. XD
There are no failures just more basing and scatter terrain
Aye, I do occasionally make it into terrain but usually is pretty useless. Cheers for watching the video though
I don’t really consider time to be a factor with resin printing, sure it limits how much you can print, but I can sure print it faster than I’ll paint it so that’s kind of irrelevant, and it’s not like I sit about twiddling my thumbs waiting for a print to finish so who cares if it takes 8 hours tbh.
That’s a fair point, it can be annoying if you have deadlines, just have to be organised. I wanted to make the point that time does have a value and it’s worth considering. Thanks for the comment, it’s a good one.
@@RisingApe For sure it does need to be considered, if you have a deadline, say an upcoming tournament or event, you wouldn't want to be trying to get some last minute stuff printed.
I can stop at one model, what are you talking about. OOhhh shiny a new model I need it.
Hahah exactly
This is a good video but could be expanded on a bit, say for instance, a person knew they wanted to print mini's and that was the primary reason for a resin printer, then they could spend just a bit more for a much larger printer, allowing them to print more per run and cutting down on the overall time, my saturn 2 cost me about $40 more than yours and can fit the entire model you displayed on 1 run, newer water washable resins, like the v2, are much less brittle than the older one, same price. Not as durable as the injection molded plastic of course, but it could survive a tip-over fall without worry, and for the smaller minis even table height falls, as others have mentioned, print something this size hollow, if it weighs less, it doesn't land as hard. and saves you resin to boot. This is such a subjective topic; to me, it only boils down to 1 thing, do you want to play at a store or just with your friends? 3d printing is great for one of these, not for the other.
Yup, this is really fair, I always make my videos from where I am in hobby right now and I have learned a lot since making it and have a few follow ups too, I make a point of trying to not say one way is better than the other it’s all about how you want to hobby at the end of the day.
I am now slightly concerned for the place where i want to print my shit soon
Yeh cannot stress that you need proper ventilation this stuff even smells toxic. Something like a cooker extractor with a cabin filter that’s changed every couple of months should be fine though.
@@RisingApe got, it; one thing i wanna ask though - since i have no experience painting at all - do you recommend citadels paints? They look pretty decent and are - compared to other brands in my area comparable in price and amount i get, or do you use anything specific?
@@domschra there is not a lot wrong with citadel in my opinion, big range, widely available and contrast paints are excellent. I mainly use Kimera, but if was recommending a range for people to start with it would either be AKgen 3, Vallejo Game Colour or citadel. Whichever is easiest to get.
@@RisingApe thx
@@RisingApeone last thing - what uv lamp do you use? I cant find any good ones - if at all, any site i search just shows me some shitty flashlights
so wanted to see it explode :)
Haha! I know I was going to push it over but I chickened out.. it 💯 would have shattered though
Very nice and balanced video.. however I strongly advise against water washable resin, it is insanely brittle. Elegoo ABS Like and stuff doesn't break quick anymore :D Especially large parts like that robot. :D I made the switch and I'm never going back. :D It's also so hard to get rid of the water, alcohol evaporates quicker and you need so so much less. :D
Thanks, I didn’t want to do a hatchet job on either way, they both have their pro’s and cons. I have used eco resins and a few others before and found them just as brittle but fully accept I am no expert here.
@@RisingApe Eco resin is just made from polymers made from organic material rather than derived from fossil fuels - similar to biofuel in a sense. It's no safer than regular resin and has worse material properties, similar to water washable in how brittle it is. It's a marketing gimmick, not even necessarily more eco friendly than regular resin and may even take more carbon to produce it - I wouldn't recommend it
@@NikkiAnnMarie indeed, I didn’t get on with it.
Yes, light use of the printer is definitely not worth it. Kind of the reason i wanted to smack my brother for getting a resin printer since he does absolutely no tabletop gaming, i think hes printed like 20 things with it in the 5 months hes had it.
I print tons of stuff though. Lot of which i chose to print because i genuinely preferred the STL file over the GW sculpt, others because the official model is static and you generally want multiples so i want variation. Heavy use of the printer is definitely way, way cheaper.
You can mix resins. I mix Sunlu ABS-like 2-1 ratio with Sirayatech Tenacious, giving it significant drop resistance for about ~30USD per kg. Yes if i drop a thinner piece off the table it will likely break but so does plastic, i have tons of tau/necrons/orks with exposed plastic bits broken off and reglued and broken again. And usually when this mixture does break its a very clean break so easy to repair, no over-bent plastic to deal with.
"But IPA is expensive" i hear people screaming. Not really. I had 4 gallons of IPA 99% last me about 1.5 years and that printer is printing something almost nonstop (think i had a month period in the last 1.5yrs where it wasnt doing anything). Use two vats, dirty vat and clean-ish vat. It stretches the IPA life significantly, and when the dirty vat gets too dirty, dump it out and now the new IPA in it is the new clean-ish vat.
Also the fumes thing can be easily dealt with if you dont have a dedicated room to put it. Another reason i tend to not recommend printers for people is a LOT of people i come across are not willing to put in effort outside of the box, and 3D printing has a lot of extra effort. Its not hard to setup a fan+duct system to just suck the air out a nearby window, but its also enough effort to say it takes some so most wont bother.
Thanks for the great reply, really valuable stuff.
Also the models for download and customization are endless!!!!
💯 so many options out there
this video didn't age well on printer prices, I got my anycubic photon mono x 4k for 150€, and that's a way better printer than halot one, half a year ago and now I think about upgrading to bigger build plate and there's some choice of 10" 6-8k printers for up to 350€
I know right, they have tumbled recently, that’s great news though, you can grab a 2k printer for just over £100 now, that said with proper settings a 2k printer can perform almost as well as a 4k/8k (I now have an 8k). It’s all about pixel size, and density, cheers for watching the video, I have a few follow ups that you may like to check out too.
Some way of seeing how cheap or not 3D printingis: Check how much you have to pay someone else to print something for you.
For sure, if I put the cost of my time into the model it’s way over the cost of the GW plastic.
Did you call it James Workshop? xD
Haha yup
I think it is too much work with 3d printing for it to take over. Something else will end up 'breaking' the market. Like some super efficient mold+inject system that can make a sort of produce on demand-service more effective and thus cheaper. Or finally an efficient enough prodiction line for mass printing high quality models. Resin and home printing has its place but just cant see it taking over because of cost, annoying to handle and hard to get right. Plus always at least somewhat brittle.
But definately these super expensive gw kits, that also often lack any customization, will eventually run into something that makes it almost obsolete. But that will almost certainly be a service you pay for, not something everyone produces at home. Is my guess. :)
Yeh there is no perfect solution to this stuff, you just have to find the best outcome for you.
There's good, fast, and cheap. You can only pick 2
Exactly
Games Workshop should embrace this trend. Unlike the poor execution of Metallica against their own fan base, because of copyright. In this case Games Workshop should (EMBRACE IT - INCITE IT - LEAD IT) make their own 8K 3D printer, (PAY-HAMMER Printer) for their stores. Have a two tier hobby. "Base" army sets. Sold in boxes - starter packs and cost effective bundles. But then PAY-HAMMER the more exotic models, and customizations for their war leader and other special units. Pay-To-Win or Pay-To-Customize. The box set should come with a Internal scratch and win QR code for one complimentary PAY-HAMMER 3d print... like a WarLord or Heavy Support. Therefore all sold generic-pre-bundled-armies, get one highly customized model, to help distinguish that bundled army from other low cost bundled armies. This exposes the customer to the extremely nice experience of getting something special. In addition, the box for that custom PAY-HAMMER is also printed. Folded, assembled and all inserts / transfers / special terrain markers / options ... and other "goodies" are included in the box, along with the PAY-HAMMER custom.
They could certainly start by offering OOP models or parts. Maybe one day
Eh, my armigers look SO much better and they cost me 15 bucks for the model. I have an anycubic max m3 and a nice max wash and cure, may as well use em. A pair of armigers is what... 60 bucks from gw? 100? I get no print failures because guess what... Its over an 8k printer, my settings are dialed because i know what im doing, any good models come presupported, and the resin models can even be hollowed if you want them light. I print in anycubic abslike resin which is beefy AF and cheap, so no breakage concerns.. dunno, seems like an ideal way to go, especially since when i go to make my mechanicus army itd cost me over 2000 cash for gw models for 1500 points...
I've got 10 armigers now that cost me literally 60 bucks in resin... And they look SOOOO much more detailed than anything GW puts out. My canis rex looks great too, as does basically everything ive printed. You can do it too, and frankly the whole "ventilated area" thing is just a "put it in the garage, on your apartment patio, or...really anywhere with an open window cuz resin smells. Never been hurt by resin fumes though, and its not like my workshop is ventillated, the garage is air conditioned and sealed where my printers are.
Certainly a valid point about learning curves/ better printers/ different resins. If you are short of time/ space or only want 1 or two then buying second hand still seems like a better option and significantly easier. The ventilation argument though, it’s not worth messing about with it, I guess you could store your printer outside if you live somewhere where it’s warm/ never rains but what if you don’t have an outside space or live somewhere temperate? Basically if it works for you, great, but there is more than one way to do it, as ever, as long as you’re having fun, it’s all good
Dude, too many camera changes… very hard to watch.
Thanks for the feedback
Are the details not even better? Because the GW Figures are shaped to get out of a mold. If you 3D Print it you dont even need to, right?
I would say they are on a par. I couldn’t tell the difference on the table top
Not nearly as sexy as resin printing but a good fdm printer could probly do what you've printed with more durability and practically no smell and no toxic fumes
I don’t think you could get the detail unless you were using a top of the range FDM. Checkout my follow up video, by tweaking settings I improved the durability a lot. But if I wanted max durability with 0 fumes, the way to go is plastic.
@@RisingApe True, I do use a Pursa Mini.
3D printing is way better than GW models. Less clean up. Less parts so easier to build and WAY WAY cheaper. My printer has stopped running since GW started gas lighting its customers and raising prices again.. Do yourself a favor.. buy a 3D printer, you don't need GW to wargame...
I LOVE 3d printing, since this video I have gone through 5 machines and have two more on the way, but in terms of ease, and if cost is the main barrier, it’s much easier to just buy second hand minis and game with them instead if that’s your jam.
used a shit printer and an even worse setup combined with the worst resin for mini printing. i can print large models for about 15 to 30 euro's. Using a liters worth of resin is just straight up a lie.
I used an entry level printer, and a DIY setup and the resin use was my experience. Simply trying to reflect a real experience. Using a significantly “better” printer would only drive average costs up further. For smaller models these printers are excellent. But happy for you to suggest what I could do better.
Btw it’s 110 in store still overpriced but cheaper
In £ yes, I tend to refer to prices in dollars as it’s more understandable internationally
Fair doos
@@Socs123it was a fair comment, thanks for watching, I will try to make it clearer in future though 👌
It was clear like it’s just I should look more into things
Models are for displaying 😀🥴
Haha! Mine certainly are..
It is.
You all are what kills the company that makes the game you love lol.
Countless rule systems exist that are miniatures agnostic, with OPR being one of the most well known and arguably far better than GW's rules stems.
OPR makes STL's for miniatures and terrain, while also providing supporters with the rules for all their game systems for no extra cost, yet they are making a ton of money doing so.
There are also plenty of companies that still produce miniatures that are supported, as they don't gut their customers with hyper inflated price tags.
In my experience if you are playing the game, you are more likely to purchase from GW too, however there are SO many amazing games companies that need your support way more.