White Knight's Custom 3D Printed Figures

[White Knight]

Originally Posted by Not User Name

All I can say is Wow. Those are awesome!

The resolution of the faces isn't the best, but they will work great for proxies.

[Arch-vile]

Jabba looks great, as do the rest!

[Not User Name]

Originally Posted by White Knight

The resolution of the faces isn't the best, but they will work great for proxies.

Easily the best proxies I've probably ever seen.

[caps]

You are making me consider a 3D Printer investment... how much did this cost you after all the printing materials? How durable are they if you throw them in containers?

[Ixe]

I work with 3D printers quite a bit so I may be able to help with some pointers. Acetone does smooth PLA material, but do so carefully since it can really erase all of the detail. What 3D printer do you have? Is it a MakerBot? I'm surprised that you're able to get all of the overhanging pieces. What are you using for support?

I don't know what exactly you're using, but in my experience the majority of the cost is tied up in the printer itself and not the material you're using. Low end consumer models (like MakerBots) run for around $2000 but those prices just climb and climb as things get more industrial and fancier. Spools of PLA filament, in contrast, run for maybe around $60 or so and these little miniatures don't use that much material. I'd imagine you could print well over a hundred of medium sized miniatures on a single spool.

PLA and ABS plastic is all quite durable, but finer pieces will obviously be more fragile. Some printers let you adjust how sturdy a piece is further by letting you set the infill of the material and how many layers to use for the shell (setting it higher uses more material, which doesn't matter so much for such small figures). If you threw it all in some container, I wouldn't be surprised at all if some thin spears and different weapon parts snapped off if things rattled around too much. Otherwise it should hold up quite well.

[White Knight]

Originally Posted by capsocrates

You are making me consider a 3D Printer investment... how much did this cost you after all the printing materials? How durable are they if you throw them in containers?

I bought the Velleman K8200 3D printer. It currently costs $750 from Jameco.com or $650 from Amazon. It comes as a kit—just a bunch of parts that need to be assembled from scratch, including cutting, stripping, routing, and soldering the wires. It can print up to 8”x8”x8” parts.

It can use two different types of plastic: ABS and PLA. Both cost about $35 for a 2.2 lb roll of good quality 3mm filament (you can buy a 2.2 lb roll for $25 on Amazon, but the print quality won’t be as good).

So far, I’ve gone through two rolls of PLA and a partial roll of ABS, for about $80 in materials. But I printed some stuff for work and home as well. One roll is about 110 meters, and I can print a figure for less than a meter of material (so Ixe was right—I can print about 100 figures for $35). The heroscape RttFF trees used more plastic (about 4-5 meters), and the large tree used about 12 meters if I remember correctly.

The figures are pretty durable. Throwing them in containers should be fine. I just took a spare 28mm Roman figure and tossed it around a little. It didn’t break until I tossed it from about 5 feet onto a tile floor—it broke at the ankles between the base and the legs. If they break, they are easy to fix—I normally use a solder/heat iron and weld them together, but epoxy works well also.

Originally Posted by Ixe

I work with 3D printers quite a bit so I may be able to help with some pointers. Acetone does smooth PLA material, but do so carefully since it can really erase all of the detail. What 3D printer do you have? Is it a MakerBot? I'm surprised that you're able to get all of the overhanging pieces. What are you using for support?

I don't know what exactly you're using, but in my experience the majority of the cost is tied up in the printer itself and not the material you're using. Low end consumer models (like MakerBots) run for around $2000 but those prices just climb and climb as things get more industrial and fancier. Spools of PLA filament, in contrast, run for maybe around $60 or so and these little miniatures don't use that much material. I'd imagine you could print well over a hundred of medium sized miniatures on a single spool.

PLA and ABS plastic is all quite durable, but finer pieces will obviously be more fragile. Some printers let you adjust how sturdy a piece is further by letting you set the infill of the material and how many layers to use for the shell (setting it higher uses more material, which doesn't matter so much for such small figures). If you threw it all in some container, I wouldn't be surprised at all if some thin spears and different weapon parts snapped off if things rattled around too much. Otherwise it should hold up quite well.

I try not to print with support material because it’s really hard to separate from the object. I’ve had good results with angles up to 45 degrees, and even steeper angles will often print OK (see Jabba’s arms or Yoda’s ears). If the angle is too steep, some of the material may droop and need to be cut off later.

I’ve modified some figures (Knights of Weston, Romans, Skeletons, etc…) with 45 degree supports under their arms specifically for printing. If it’s really visible I’ll cut it off, but usually I’ll just leave it there as extra support.

For extreme overhangs, I’ll use Blender to cut the figure into different parts. I printed the beholder in 4 parts and epoxied it together. I was having issued with swords and spears, so I printed the Romans, Knights, and Skeletons without swords and shields, printed the swords and shields separately, and then hot welded them together. The weapons and shields came out so much better quality printed horizontally rather than vertically. They are also a lot stronger than the vertically printed ones—because objects are printed in layers, the weak point is between layers.

I've done some Pokemon figures (to be added soon) and ended up splitting most of them in half for printing. Some, such as Flygon, I printed in two halves and then printed the wings and tail fan separately.

I've also found that I can use some heat to bend the figures after printing--so, for example, I could print a figure straight and then bend it afterwards to avoid an overhang.

[Yodaking]

You are off to a great start here! By the time I get my printer (next spring) you will be a real pro. Sharing what you learn here with us will be a valuable resource for those of us who fallow behind you. Thanks for doing so!

[White Knight]

Updated the first post with the .STL files for my 3D printed Pokemon figures:

Pokemon



Pidgey




Lapras




Rattata




Flygon




Gligar




Gastly




Furret




Bayleaf




Glalie




Heliolisk




Pangoro

[cwidje]

Did you make the stls, or did you find them somewhere?

[Arch-vile]

That is one random assortment of pokemon. They look great painted. It's nice how they're all sized appropriately in relation to one another - the pokemon figures I have are all the exact same size (with a couple exceptions).

[White Knight]

Originally Posted by cwidje

Did you make the stls, or did you find them somewhere?

I made the Heliolisk and Pangoro models.

The other models I found here and modified them for my printer. Some I cut in half to avoid overhangs. Others I fixed the broken .STL files. And others I increased thicknesses for better printing.

I sized them for Pokescape. My son has a LOT of Pokemon figures, but he was missing the ones I printed.

[White Knight]

2 more 3D prints

Rancor





Acklay