3D printing tips

<p>While it is much cheaper printing miniatures than buying them from GW, it is very difficult to resist the temptation to keep the printer running as much of the time as possible. You can easily burn through &pound;80 of resin a week even on a medium-sized printer like the Mars 2 Pro if you&#39;re not careful. The temptation is made particularly strong if you subscribe to Patreon/MMF Tribes as there&#39;s the urge to get your money&#39;s worth from them.</p>
<p>Do not use a scraper to get models off the build plate - slide a modelling knife blade into where the print meets the buildplate and work your way around works much better.</p>
<p>A lot of resin is very brittle. I thoroughly recommend the following: <a href="https://amzn.eu/d/9TqnkQP" target="_blank">Siraya Tech Fast ABS-Like 3D Printer Resin</a> 405nm UV-Curing Non-Brittle High Precision 3D Printing Liquid Standard Photopolymer Resin for LCD DLP 3D Printing(Grey, 1kg)</p>
<p>Use FB forums/Discord forums to see what&#39;s available.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that Myminifactory.com does regular sales. Before making lots of purchases from one artist - see if there&#39;s a bundle deal that includes most of them and wait for a sale. However, not all artists participate in the special offer schemes.</p>
<p>Bear in mind that hollowing models will save you resin but even with careful draining you&#39;ll need to change your washing alcohol faster. Don&#39;t automatically assume that presupported files are the ones to use. Some presupports are horribly chunky/badly done. Check the supports out before printing.</p>
<p>To get maximum uptime I run my longest prints overnight (when it&#39;s not winter) and do shorter prints during the day.</p>
<p>When doing your own supports, remember that the side facing the buildplate will end up with some support scarring and will be less defined/crisp than other angles/facings. Therefore you need to work out what part of the model should be sacrificed. I typically print with models tilted back by 20-30 degrees.</p>
<p>Typically Chitubox&#39;s autosupport settings work pretty well, but they struggle with large flat surfaces like bases. You&#39;ll get less failures if you add a few supports where you think there might be issues.</p>
<p>When it comes to printing stuff specifically for 40k, I generally avoid printing anything that is available as a plastic kit, is below primaris space marine in scale and doesn&#39;t have a cool/unique twist on it. This is because the cost/effort savings aren&#39;t as great when substituting for GW&#39;s excellent plastic kits coupled with the limitations of 3D printing.</p>
<p>The beauty of 3D printing is that you can experiment with lots of models/styles/pieces. It&#39;s also a great way into busts &ndash; which are an awesome way of honing your painting skills.</p>
<p>If you use Chitubox, keep up to date with it &ndash; I had horribly long slicing times until I upgraded to the latest version.</p>
<p>Some of the digital artists I use/recommend are:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.patreon.com/ArchvillainGames/posts" target="_blank">ArchvillainGames</a> - they do fantastic fantasy miniatures and are branching into sci-fi. Note that their infantry models are scaled for D&amp;D and aren&#39;t heroic scale so don&#39;t work well for Age of Sigmar. Their 50mm base size and upwards models are awesome though. They do big monthly releases with several factions getting more than one release each.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.patreon.com/3DArtGuy/posts" target="_blank">3DArtGuy</a> - does fantastic/baroque fantasy and sci-fi including a lot of sculpts &#39;inspired&#39; by 40K/AoS characters. Great for adding a single extra characterful sculpt to an existing army. However, you will need to pay attention to scale as they&#39;re not necessarily scaled for tabletop use.</p>
<p><a href="//www.myminifactory.com/users/Solwyte" target="_blank">Solwye Studio</a> Does some amazing sculpts that look great alongside Adeptus/Dark Mechanicus armies</p>
<p><a href="https://www.myminifactory.com/users/Mini%20Monster%20Mayhem" target="_blank">Mini Monster Mayhem</a> Does some wonderful fantasy sculpts - their Forest Dragon is one of my favourite sculpts of all time. I did support them monthly via MMF Tribes, but stopped when the monthly releases became too wacky for me to use in Age of Sigmar.</p>
<p><a href="https://cults3d.com/en/users/Fummelfinger/creations" target="_blank">Fummelfinger</a> Does a great line in impressively chunky true scale space knights</p>
<p><a href="https://cults3d.com/en/users/corpsedragon/creations" target="_blank">Corpsedragon</a> is great if you&#39;re interested in sickly giant robots</p>
<p><a href="//cults3d.com/en/users/EmanG/creations
" target="_blank">EMANG</a> Does a brilliant line in disorganised demons</p>