There are tons of sci-fi stl buildings in the internet, so many that I got overwhelmed. I finally settled on some samplers from Corvus Game Terrain (Tycho Starport, Magna Fortuna, Compound) and a retro Bunker from Doctor Spork. I can’t recall where I got the alien monolith from. Again, spray primer, airbrush zenithal, airbrush basecoat, washes and drybrushing. I decided to give different colours to the Corvus Game Terrain buildings from Magna Fortuna series, but perhaps I overdid it, and I don’t think they look good if all of them are placed together on the table. On the other hand 1-2 of them are good to break the monotony of the uniform color I painted the Tycho starport line.
With Orktober underway, I could not leave my space Orks unpainted. These are all 3d sculpts from thatwhatgrows patreon back catalogue. Bear in mind that their patreon is no longer active, but they also have some support-less sculpts in their itch.io store, from which I got the space goblins but haven’t gotten around to printing and painting them yet. Also while support-less they’re more oriented to resin printing, as I noticed some overhangs while printing in FDM. Could also have to do with the fact that I scaled them down 60% for 15mm scale.
Anyway enough talk, here are gathered: 1 armored ork boss, 2 ork bosses, an ork shaman, an orc with sword and pistol, and 6 orks with rifles.
Printed in Elegoo PLA Pro, at 0.06mm layer height on a Bambu Labs A1 mini with a 0.2mm nozzle. Painted with layering techniques (which I admit was hard to do on the FDM print) and I also used oil washes. Perhaps the contrast is too stark, and I could have gotten a similar result with less effort, but I like evolving my skills as a miniature painter.
I also changed my desk lamp with one with a led light and magnifying lens to assist with painting, but this had an impact to the photography, and for the particular figures I had to switch to a black background, and try to find the optimal exposure settings.
Armored Ork BossOrk ShamanOrk BossOrk BossOrk with Sword and PistolOrk with RifleOrk with RifleOrk with RifleOrk with RifleOrk with RifleOrk with RifleOrk with RifleSpace Ork Warband
A new category! after Miniatures and Terrain, I have printed, assembled and painted my first Vehicle. Since vehicles (and cavalry/flying mounts) tend to move fast, they don’t play a major role in smaller tabletop boards like mine. Vehicles can be something movable, like a tank, mech walker, to a prop/objective marker like a dropship or shuttle, up to a whole terrain board for a large starship.
I currently haven’t focused much on them, because I didn’t find many use cases, but I felt like I was always missing a space ship for my Five Parsecs from Home games. So a while ago I spent time and printed and assembled a shuttle, but it still sits in my closet in the pile of printed shame – I’m not going to share what it is until I have this painted and finished.
But lately I pledged on the MTV Kickstarter by games-art-by-Philipp on a small shuttle that would work perfect as a Five Parsecs from Home: Bug Hunt dropship. The files were delivered on Monday, and I got to printing them immediately. I realized it was smaller and more manageable than the shuttle I printed. Also I loved the assembly, as it uses Gridforge lock system which makes changing the floors very easy.
It would probably sit in my closet as well for a long time, but on my last trip to the dollar store, I found a pack of 100 acrylic paint markers for about a dozen bucks, and thought they’d be perfect for painting terrain and vehicles. So I decided to give it a shot and see if it makes my job easier or faster.
A pack of 100 acrylic paint markers from the dollar store
Printing was done in White Elegoo PLA, at 0.08mm layer height with a 0.4mm nozzle. The model was scaled down to 60% for a 15mm scale. First I assembled the ship and glued some parts that I knew that wouldn’t need removing in the future, and that wouldn’t interfere with spray priming. Also I printed the screen in transparent PLA – this is not the final screen I used.
The printed dropship with the roof and screen installed
Then I spray primed the entire thing in dark gray using the Army Painter Gamemaster Ruins&Cliffs Spray Primer. Once dry, I decided to start giving my acrylic markers a test. First I tested the coverage on a spare screen part I had spray primed, and then I tested overall painting techniques and behaviour on the under-the-gridforge floor (it’s not going to be visible when playing even when the top of the craft is open, so I could “fail” without needing to repaint.
Overall I discovered that the acrylic markers behaved well. Coverage isn’t perfect (they’re dollar store after all) but this could give some nice blending and artistic line effects. I used two different grays for the tiles and a deeper gray, closer to the primer color to repaint the grooves. What I absolutely loved was how I could stay within lines – the grip and control is much tighter than when using a brush – and how fast I could paint everything. With that done I decided to go ahead with basecoating (most of) the entire thing.
Testing the acrylic markers on the floor.
I decided to go with a Unity (from the Unified Space of Nordic Weasel Games) colour scheme, some red panels, different grays for the outside. Added some metallics with a brush, and gave some light yellows for the headlights. Despite having printed and primed several different interior choices (crates, passenger seats and console terminals) I decided to focus on the core set which only has the pilot seat and console and some different empty floor tiles. Doing the basecoating with the acrylic markers was a blast! Felt like a kid again playing with markers. Lines were tight and controlled; yes I needed to go back again and do a second and third coat, but I was building up from dark gray, and I hadn’t done a zenithal priming job. The alternatives would be to either do extensive masking and airbrushing or stipple drybrushing, or try to do everything with a brush, none of which would be easy at all. Something to note here that I first tested on the under-floor was how the marker paint job behaved with my washes, and I noticed reactivation if I applied it while the paint was touch dry – something which was not a problem with regular acrylics. This was important information for later, as I didn’t want to ruin the exterior paint job.
Basecoating complete
Once it dried well, I place back the wings, and followed up with a white drybrush all over the ship exterior to pick up the edges.
Edge highlighting with white drybrush.
I then applied my floor polish brown black wash. Also added some spot washes at the mechanical parts for oil grime and at the headlights with a soft tone. Once that dried, I followed with a final white drybrush all over the interior and exterior.
Overall I am thrilled with how it turned out. Took me about one day to finish it, but it was a joyful experience. Some pictures of the finished thing with my Five Parsecs from Home: Bug Hunt troopers.
I replaced the transparent PLA screen with a reprint using rectilinear solid infill for a grid look, but finally settled on a Hilbert curve solid infill as seen in the last interior image. I think it looks best as it gives this reinforced glass look.
Really amazing! Seems a resin print! Even the pilot seat and the controllers, so tiny and yet so detailed. The markers (simple markers not even the AP/AK ones) paint job unbelievable good, i’ll try it! One question, why did you use the gamemaster’s primer? Keep going you are truly inspirational
Thank you so much!
I got used to the army painter Gamemaster spray primers back when I bought the set, and I love how it isn’t toxic and doesn’t eat away at styrofoam.
Last year I bought a bunch of them when they had a sale (at Black Friday I think) for €5 each.
I didn’t think it would work on materials other than styro, good to know! Maybe i’ll try myself some paintjob with makers (i’ve got some from amazon in my “token period”)
Some more terrain items I have 3d printed for my sci fi battles. Mainly barrels, crates. Since I am scaling down for 15mm, single small barrels and crates are kinda pointless. They get knocked around easily, are hard to setup, and provide only minimal impact to the terrain. Therefore I chose grouped or larger containers.
Barrels and space junkCratesCratesWasteland wall ruinWasteland wall ruinSpaceship wall debrisAlien flora
Thank you!
It boils down to a few things: planning ahead, good models, and a good well calibrated printer.
The Bambu Labs A1/mini have proven to give robust quality prints. These are mostly printed with default settings. The fact that I go low in scale means I can go as high in quality as I need without spending a lot of time in printing. A 60% scale is approximately 3 times faster to print, and it offsets the increase of going down to 0.08mm layer height.
I spend a lot of time planning ahead. This includes looking at finding the right models for the job. If I can find terrain that prints well, paints nicely and works as intended, then that’s preferred. Also I plan ahead the paint job. A model might be printed and wait a long time before painting, not so much due to laziness (which is more a fact for miniatures models) but more so because I am trying to figure out the best series of steps to paint them quickly and have them look good enough.
Hope this helps!
I realised I had not posted the terrain I have been diligently working on since summer. An FDM printer is great for terrain, so much that I am having trouble finding storage space again.
The showcase here is a space junkyard. 6 different piles of space junk, some may look familiar to fans a long time ago of a galaxy far far away.
The paint job took a while. They were spray primed gray and zenithal primed with an airbrush. I painted them in different metallics: silver, bronze, copper, tin and graphite for variety. Followed up with my rust technique: heavy stipple brushing with a drybrush of random and successive colours: van dyke brown, burnt umber, raw umber, burnt sienna, raw sienna and vermillion. I added some rust texture by doing a pva-baking soda-vermillion mix and applying it thick on spots near painted rust. Sealed with a brown-black floor polish wash.
technoalchemist
1:50 am on October 5, 2025 Permalink
| Reply
Yeah, they say that 15mm allows you to store things easier. But because of that, then you want to have several things, so in the end you end up storing the same amount as in 28mm.
Recently I used Titancraft and bought the sci-fi package to create some coloured models to use in Talespire VTT. Titancraft is a miniatures design browser-based software that allows a lot of user intervention. I chose it over the competition due to cost (you buy the assets and can use them for unlimited downloads and uses), posability and texturing, and export formats (stl, obj and tsMod). I was finishing my Five Parsecs from Home: Bug Hunt game in physical format (set up a board and everything), and I realized that once more I was proxying a close-enough mini for one of my three main characters. I’m a 15mm scale player, so choices are limited and for the past few years acquisition, shipping cost, taxes and duties, and availability of miniatures becomes worse and worse – that’s the reason I got into 3d printing with an FDM printer. But I digress. The proxy I’ve been using for the Unity Trooper Ariana Roschke doesn’t actually fit. She usually goes into battle with a Hand Cannon and a Boarding Sword, and instead I used a heroic sci-fi woman holding dual swords.
That is not at all close to my concept, and I recalled that I had made a VTT version of Ariana in Titancraft. So…lightbulb moment, what if I could make an FDM model out of her? I decided I wouldn’t keep the same colour scheme since I wanted her to fit with the rest of my painted Unity Grunts (painted in something inspired by Starship Troopers and Cadian Imperial Guard). And this is the process I’ll talk about. And how I went from this:
Initial design meant for VTT
To this:
Final design ready for FDM
And finally this:
15mm TitanCraft model printed in FDM
1. Choose your basic model concept in TitanCraft
Don’t worry about posing at this time. Choose a model that best represents the character you want, and outfit the assets you like. It’s quite straightforward. You can use free assets, or buy the ones you like. Depending on your budget and what you plan on doing it might be best to buy asset packs or just the single use. You don’t pay for the assets until the time comes to download your character, and then only if you don’t own them already. Since we’re talking about FDM printing, some care must be taken here on limitations. Avoid parts that will create Islands or Overhangs. For example, since I was working with a model I had already designed for a VTT, ,I decided to remove the pauldrons, as they’d create more trouble than I wanted. You can always scale, rotate and translate stuff later, but you will have already some rough idea of what works or not. I also decided to remove the helmet from my model as I wanted something more distinguishing from arms length at table distance in 15mm. I gave her a nice braided ponytail.
2. Give it Heroic proportions
Heroic scale isn’t about the size of the model, but about proportions. If you notice the pewter or plastic cast models, they range in proportions from True scale to Heroic scale. True scale is what a real-life person would look like in a miniature size. Heroic scale offsets the proportions so that the parts that are more distinguishable to us, are more pronounced. This makes them look like angry babies with grownup features, but when you place them on the table they look better actually. Also for FDM (and even more for 15mm scale) it’s important as we strive, but we don’t get the same quality as resin, and heroic proportions help so that the miniature doesn’t end up with vague subtle features. Painted miniature models are all about illusion (same way we paint washes and highlights instead of flat colours). Titancraft models default to somewhere between True scale and Heroic scale, so in order to achieve this, we will use the Sizing tool. Artists learn to do proportions through the use of the Head size ratio, where an adult human would be near 7 Heads tall and a Baby 3-4 Heads. For Heroic scale we want to achieve something like 4-5 Heads (as I said, angry babies with grownup features).
There are a lot of sliders here, but the most important things to do are:
increase Head size (give it a couple notches to the right)
decrease Neck length (we want the head close to the body to minimize overhangs)
increase Hand size (just a bit to make it more visible in the painted model)
decrease Leg length (it will become shorter for a moment)
increase Height (to regain the lost height from the Leg length)
In order to find the proper Height, you can use Show Ruler function and add a Reference object (like a human). Just make sure the eye level is close to where you want it and choose the right model scale. Remember to remove any base during this step, and add it again later.
Sizing
3. Pose the model for FDM printing
Go into Pose and Advanced Controls to start fiddling around with proper placement so that you will not need any supports during printing. Again, we want to avoid any Overhangs or Islands. In TitanCraft you can click on each items Bones and Translate, Rotate or Scale them. It’s quite easy and intuitive to use. Remember to use the Basic Pose functions first to get a complex pose done (say for a fist or an open palm) before fine-tuning it with Advance Controls.
Things to look for:
Re-orient horizontal poses as vertical as possible
Stick any parts overhanging away from the figure
Touch anything needed back to the ground or to the figure
It may take some work to do, but I find the whole process enjoyable.
In the particular example, what I did:
Rotated the weapon arm, hand and wrist to be vertical
Rotated the left arm so that all fingers touch the leg
Rotated the sword so that it was flush with the back of the torso
Rotated the neck so that the chin isn’t too overhanging, and scaled the neck down
Rotated all parts of the braid so that it touched the torso and didn’t cover the sword blade
4. Add base and export
That’s pretty straightforward. Add a base to your liking and export to STL format. You can also optionally texture it to have some idea of how you’ll paint it later on.
The model scale I chose from TitanCraft is 30mm as I found that it’s closer to my printed miniatures.
Exported model in STL format
5. Slice and send to printer
I won’t go into any details about presets and printing. There’s tons of them, and this is out of scope of this guide. After fine-tuning a LOT, I have switched bach to the default presets, however I like to “chonkify” my miniatures with an extra +0.1 or more to the X-Y Contour Compensation settings. This tends to thicken the miniature without scaling it only in one dimension – it doesn’t look squished like a scaling in X-Y would. If you do need specific dimensions for the base be careful to avoid using this parameter on the base (i.e. through the use of a Primitive Modifier).
Depending on your design, you might get a warning or two about floating regions, but if you were careful they shouldn’t have any impact. I personally printed without supports.
In order to achieve the right size in 15mm, I used a 60% scaling down of the miniature. I have tested this against my own collection pewter miniatures from different ranges and manufacturers as well as digital sculpts.
You can see an example of my model below and an exaggerated example (which I didn’t use) to see how X-Y Contour Compensation works.
Imported model in Bambu StudioSliced model with +0.1 X-Y Contour CompensationExagerrated example at +0.3 X-Y Contour Compensation
6. Print and Paint
Pretty straightforward. If you have designed everything well, and make sure to follow the below recommendations, then you should have a nicely printed miniature at the end.
Use a good modern printer (I personally use Bambu Labs A1 mini)
Maintain and calibrate the printer (lubricate once per month and calibrate bed, wash and dry the plate)
Use a nozzle with a small diameter (0.2mm recommended)
Use a good quality PLA, and dry it if required (depending on climate; I have great results with Elegoo PLA)
For painting I went with a slap chop priming (being careful to drybrush horizontally along the layer lines, instead of against them) and a simple paint job. The wash turned out a bit darker than I’d like, but it’s within acceptable limits I guess.
I find that she’ll fit well with the rest of my Unity troopers, and I’m actually looking forward to designing, printing and painting the rest of the group (Kato Minoru and Ulla Voight).
Hope this guide helps more fellow hobbyists!
Comparison photo. Left to Right: Brite Minis, TitanCraft, Ion Age.
Some more of Brite Minis models that I printed in 15mm scale in FDM. As usual, printed in 0.06mm layer with a BBL@A1Mini, 0.2mm nozzle, Elegoo PLA PRO filament.
Space Gnome
Space Brute
Space Orc
Space Mind Flayer
Three Kobolds in Space Suit
Space Gnome with RifleSpace Brute/Ogre with ClubSpace OrcSpace Mind FlayerThree Kobolds in a Space Suit
Onibaba, 
technoalchemist are discussing. 
Solo, Pen, Paper and Dice 
technoalchemist 9:21 pm on October 22, 2025 Permalink |
The alien monolith is from dutchmogul (Ill Gotten Games). I have too, but still haven’t printed it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
giorgis 12:05 am on October 23, 2025 Permalink |
Yes! That’s where it is from! Thanks
LikeLike
Onibaba 9:17 am on October 23, 2025 Permalink |
Very nice as usual, some of them remind me the deadzone one’s
LikeLiked by 1 person