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I am in the market for a 3D printer to make minis for my pathfinder games. Does anyone else have a 3D printer that they use to create gaming minis? What printer did you get and how detailed are the minis it creates?
Not the answer to what you asked, but I used Hero Forge to make a custom character mini. Very nice if you only want to make a couple minis.
I'm curious how much such a printer costs, and how skilled in programming and 3D modelling you'd have to be to get results, or if there are already basic forms out there that you could juggle to get what you want.
My gut feeling is that it would be far easier to take advantage of the huge variety of unpainted miniatures available and paint them yourself. Easier both in terms of time and monetary investment. OTOH, if your real goal is to use use a 3D printer, and doing PF figurines is simply a pretext towards that end, hey, go for it.
I am in the market for a 3D printer to make minis for my pathfinder games. Does anyone else have a 3D printer that they use to create gaming minis? What printer did you get and how detailed are the minis it creates?
I took a look a while back. There are a few people on shapeways ( a 3D printing company that will print figures for you if you design them) that offer printed figures. Most of the figures I saw weren't very high quality. That might have changed since I looked though.
I have a couple of the hero Forge figures and the hi res figures are excellent. If they add a few more options (like a good 2 Handed weapon pose) they could become the goto place for minis. At $25 each they are a bit expensive but you are getting a custom figure.
As far as making figures yourself, I think designing the figure is likely the hardest part. Designing things with straight lines isn't bad but people are all curved shapes and that's a lot harder. If you have the skills to do this, then having a commercial printing house do them may be a better way to go. Unless you plan to make large numbers of figures that route is a lot cheaper.
The printers are coming down in price rapidly but I suspect that the cheaper ones aren't capable of the resolution needed for a 25mm mini. They also need to be capable of handling the right kind of material suitable for 25mm mini. Compare the detail on the Hero Forge standard material and the high res material. There is a big difference.
Morag
I have a 3d printer that I bought about two years ago.
If the only thing that you are buying the printer for is miniatures, don't bother.
You will be disappointed with the quality, unless you spend thousands on a printer.
It takes a long time to print anything, and the noise of the printer is a factor (I'm not allowed to start a print job when I get home from work, because it will still be going when people are trying to sleep, and when it is the only noise in the house, you can hear the printer from pretty much anywhere)
On a cost/quality front you'd be much better off just buying Bones minis. I think you'll do better just spending what you would have on a printer on miniatures.
If you were going to print large amounts of Dwarven Forge style terrain, then maybe the cost benefit ratio starts to swing back in the printer's favor. But even then, it would need to be a lot.
You also will want to make sure that there exist sufficient 3d models of all the stuff you want to print. Unless you use Maya or something as a job, or otherwise have 3d modelling skills from somewhere, you're certainly not making any significant amount of stuff yourself.