Reptilians, aliens, slugs. It wouldn’t be space opera without some (more) xenos. These sculpts from Brite Minis will make great additions to my existing collection.
I painted the reptilians green with vermillion colour armor. The slug and the alien, in simple colours. Gave the slug a yellow bottom part and satin varnish for this moist effect.
On another note, I tried to improve my miniatures photography. Used Adobe Lightroom and my white photo box and I think I’ve gotten some better results than before.
Space ReptilliansReptilian with minigunReptilian with pistolReptilian with rifleSpace alienSpace slug
Continuing with various robots from Brite Minis. I love the sculpts with the cloaks, I find them quite unique and fun. The robot inspector is nice too, plus a robot wizard. They can easily work as Soulless or Bots in Five Parsecs from Home., and will be a nice addition to my not-necrons (cyborgs from alternative armies).
Space RobotsSpace robotSpace robotSpace robotSpace robot deathead with scythe Space robot wizardSpace robot PI
More dudes in space. Four space bandits and one adventuress from Brite Minis. The space adventuress has a small imperfection in the face during printing that I hadn’t noticed until after painting, (these minis are tiny let’s not forget), but I guess it could be a scar from a space battle with a space beast.
Space BanditsSpace bandit with blade and pistolSpace bandit with club and pistolSpace bandit with club and rifleSpace bandit with shotgunSpace adventuress with shotgun
Pookah space nice from dutchmogul/Ill Gotten Games. Two space fringers already in 18mm scale, and one space pirate from 28mm scale that I had to scale down appropriately. I also did some reposing of the pistol arm of the latter for support less printing, but the supported version turned out okay as well, so I painted both.
Some more sci-fi miniatures from Brite Minis sculpts. Again printed in FDM, 15mm scale (60%), 0.03mm layer height. Printed in a Bambu Labs A1 mini with a 0.2mm nozzle and ELEGOO PLA.
They’re a space Minotaur, a space elf, a dwarf with minigun and cloudbuster (tribute to Donald Sutherland). The last two are actually “modern” minis that can double as sci-fi.
They’re not actually a space crew, but… they could be, and given that I painted them together as a group, here they are.
An odd space crewCloudbusterDwarf with minigunSpace ElfSpace Minotaur
Lately I’ve been printing and painting even more of sci fi miniatures. I’ve been reading Five Parsecs from Home: Tactics, and really want to get back into Unified Space. To do this, I’ll want to expand my collection with more sci fi minis and terrain, which I found recently to be a really enjoyable part of the hobby.
I finished several different sets these past few days, but I found that photography against the white photobox background really messes up with exposure. So I printed a black photobox, hoping for some better results. Exposure and contrast is better, but the background is visible as the gloss black layer lines of the photobox reflect the light that falls on them. Nevertheless I find it looks better.
So, Brite Minis has released a set of Space Knight riders. Since they’re modular, I took their heads and weapons, along with some from the Modular Space set, and printed five more Space Knights (and a Space Ranger).
Space Knight with Eyepatch Space Knight with BolterSpace Knight with Dual gunsSpace Knight with BolterSpace RangerThe entire squad of Space Knights
…and a Space Halfling. On a quest to reclaim long stolen credits by a Space Dragon.
Three Space Dwarves and a Space Halfling from Brite Minis. Printed in FDM, 0.03mm layer height. Love their style. Painted them in a similar style to their showcase pictures, washed with Soft Tone wash to lighten their look.
Space partySpace dwarf with pistolSpace dwarf with pistol and axeSpace dwarf with mini gunSpace Halfling
3d printing miniatures is not yet an exact science. There is a lot of trial and error, and when you get some consistent results, it is imperative that you maintain the same parameters for as long as possible in order to have repeatability. I’ve been printing a whole lot of miniatures lately using the settings I’ve defined, and I think it’s about time I’ve sat down and started painting them. I’m tackling first the sci-fi theme, starting with the Brite Minis Space Knights (now available only in MMF as Brite Minis modulars are available in the patreon only on the month of release).
I decided to go with a colour scheme similar to the one Brite Minis did on their print showcase. I’ve mixed different techniques; slap chop, layering and washes. Overkill? perhaps, but I love the end result. The armor is painted in reds (Karmine<Pyrole<Vermillion), the cloths are painted in yellows (Vermillion<Yellow/White mix), and finally some greens (Light Green<Yellow Green<Lemon Yellow), for the skin tone I went with my regular mix (Burnt Sienna<Naples Yellow Red<Naples Yellow Red Light), and some Silver for the metallics.
Space KnightsSpace Knight SergeantSpace Knight with BolterSpace Knight with Plasma gunSpace Knight with Flamer
In the past couple of months I’ve been 3d printing miniatures in 15mm scale using my Bambu Labs A1 mini with a 0.2mm nozzle and basic PLA filaments. The results so far were good, some better, some worse, but good enough for my (solo) table.
However, continuing my last post about painting these, I could not help but have a slight feeling of frustration fighting against these minor imperfections and layer lines.
So I decided to take a plunge further, and see if I can accomplish even better results on the printing side.
I’ll explain all my process, because I think there’s valuable info, if you don’t want to read it, and just want the print settings, scroll down.
The Basics
My machine is a Bambu Labs A1 mini. I have installed a 0.2mm nozzle. I got a big supply of ELEGOO PLA. It’s really cheap, as I got it at about 10 bucks a roll, final price with shipping, no customs or extra charges. Perhaps some more fancy filament would give better results, but that’s what I have and what I worked with.
Calibration
With Bambu Labs A1 mini I was complacent, reliant on the automated calibration settings, and just using filament manufacturer specs. It became evident to me that if I want to get the best print output I want, I’d have to do manual calibration.
I used Orca Slicer, and run a temperature tower from 190C to 230C. At the temperature of 190, 195 and 200 I had no stringing.
Temperature tower
I then did a Flow Rate compensation test. For ELEGOO PLA the manufacturer gives a value of 0.98. After running the calibration, I increased it to 1.029, as I found the +5 had the best surface.
Flow Rate calibration
I followed up with the Pressure Advance test. I did, Line, Pattern and Tower. For my 0.2mm nozzle this gave the best results at k 0.2
Pressure advance calibration
Just a minor note that I also flow rate calibrated all my 3 opened colours (white, black and space gray) of ELEGOO PLA and got consistent results of 0.2 for my 0.2mm nozzle and 0.02 for my 0.4mm nozzle.
Finally I did a retraction tower calibration and got no stringing at all. So I kept the retraction length at 0.4 as proposed.
Retraction calibration
The I printed a miniature with temperature at 200C. The improvement was evident, but I could see very fine stringing on the prime tower, so I decided to go lower, at 190C which is within manufacturer specs and also was good at the temperature tower, and what do you know? Stringing disappeared.
The takeaway here is if you want to print minis, spend some time and calibrate your printer. It pays off.
With this out of the way, let’s talk about print settings.
Acknowledgments
First of all I’d like acknowledge /u/HOHansen’s major input into giving valuable guidelines, settings, painting tips and driving the FDMminiatures printing community forwards. Thanks. I doubt all of this would have been possible without a strong foundation to experiment with.
Also many thanks to Fat Dragon Miniatures who have shared their print profiles and show that nice quality minis are possible with FDM.
Settings
I won’t go into many details here, as I have done this thoroughly in the past, but give some highlights and thoughts, as well as as key improvements.
First of all I decided to experiment. I used Orca Slicer and used all their fancy bells and whistles. Scarf joints, Precise Z height, whatever I read that could improve quality and was experimental, I enabled.
I lowered my Layer Height to 0.03mm. Yes. That’s lower than the calculated 20% of nozzle size. I reduced resolution to 0.001 and also the Slice Gap Closing radius value.
I reduced the speeds significantly. Quality takes time. I get 2-3 hours of printing time for a single 15mm miniature. Silly? Not for me.
Kept Arachne, and my Prime Tower.
NOTE: I have not tackled support settings yet. If you need supports you’ll have to plug in your own settings, these do NOT work.
Clean levelled plate, lubricated Axes, Dynamic Flow Calibration Disabled. Good to go.
Then I went ahead and printed a Brite mini with my fingers crossed. And what do you know? It worked, amazingly well if I may add. I then printed another one to ensure I have repeatability, and it wasn’t plain luck, it worked as well. Even my “shield” issue was gone (if you’ve noticed my prints so far, the shields had a warp in the lower left side).
There was no stringing and had to do no post processing with a lighter.
On purpose I chose well detailed miniatures like the space bandit and Greek hero.
Bandit frontBandit backGreek hero frontGreek hero back
Painting
I felt confident and decided to go ahead with my “regular” painting process and do my horizontal slap chop., a single damp coat of paint and varnish.
However as /u/Toprewolf proposed, I decided not to apply my regular water based washes, and experiment with Oil washes. Last time I had tried it, it didn’t work as I had hoped, but this time I studied better. I’m still expecting some quality supplies to arrive, but I still wanted to test it. So I decided to test an oil wash made with my dollar store oils on the Greek hero.
Greek hero frontGreek hero rear
It’s still pending the oils to cure and an oil varnish to secure it. But it’s good enough to showcase.
I’m absolutely thrilled with the results. The layer lines are almost nonexistent and this was evident in all steps. Imperfections have vanished. I could see details in the toes and sandals, that my painting covered.
Once I get my quality oils and varnish the minis, I’ll take new photos and upload the results and update this post but I know people are asking about this, so I wanted to share as early as possible.
Next steps
I’ve decided to modulate my hobby time so as to have the most fun, so it’s going to be mostly playing on weekends and painting and printing on weekdays.
On the printing front, the next thing I want to address is Supports.
Summary
Printing high quality minis in small scales is possible in FDM. You’ll need a quality printer that is carefully calibrated and well maintained. Filament must be in a good condition. Reducing the layer and resolution means you’ll need to go slow. Going slow, in turn means reducing the temperature to avoid stringing and oozing. A prime tower is important to allow for the small 15mm mini to cool before the next layer.
After 3d printing a couple of scores of miniatures in FDM with my Bambu Labs A1 mini printer, and playing with different settings and trying different painting styles, I decided I had to look into the painting techniques in a more scientific approach, and spending the time to run an experiment might pay off in the long run. So the concept is to print the same miniature, in 15mm, using the same print settings (I went rogue on this part a little down the road), and examine different techniques and if they accenuate or hide layer lines, and how easy or not it is to use with this type of miniatures.
I want to test if there are techniques to “fill” layer lines without losing detail. One technique that has been tested to work and will be used for the entirety of the experiment is the paint. Paint will be used unthinned, but in lean application. The brush won’t be filled with it, just a light coat will be applied each time. However it won’t be diluted as with normal painting, just a tad bit damp brush prior to using the paint.
I want to test if drybrushing accenuates layer lines, if black drybrushing hides them, how washes behave with layer lines and if a varnish prior to washes and/or prior to drybrushing can minimize any undesired results.
As a note for new readers, I’m a long time painter of 15mm minis, with table-ready results. My technique is: Slap-Chop (white drybrush over black primer) followed by Artists (tube) acrylics in a glaze-like fashion (either transparent to semi-opaque paints or diluted opaque paints accordingly) so that the slap-chop works like a highlight-shade. Finish with washes and varnish. Works well for 15mm with nice results without too much effort.
The model I decided to use is the Greek Hero from Brite Minis. I chose this model because it’s not an easy one. It has armor, cloak, scales, flesh, weapons, and a quite dynamic (for support free) pose. Also it’s support free, so I won’t have to deal with supports, which are a hit or miss thing at the moment as I haven’t nailed down the settings for 15mm, and it is not the purpose of this experiment.
The first 6 miniatures of the set were sliced in Bambu Studio. Printed with 0.2mm nozzle, 0.04mm layer height. Low print speeds at 50-150mms. Arachne wall generator. Elegoo PLA Space Gray, extruded with nozzle temperature at 200 Celsius. Down the road I printed a couple more with lower speeds at 25mms and 0.03mm layer height, and surprisingly they looked even better, but print time doubled or more at 2-3 hours. Nr 7 was sliced in Bambu Studio, and Nr 8 was sliced in Orca, which for some reason gave even better results. Could be by chance, and I’ll keep an eye for it in the future.
Since smartphone camera digital photography algorithms tend to distort the images, I wanted to get images as close to the true thing as possible. I 3d printed a Photobox in white PLA, for a proper background, and put back in use my old trusty Sony DSC-TX5 camera. Put it in Macro mode, and adjusted EV to +2 for exposure.
Miniature #1 0.04 mm Layer Height Vallejo Acrylic-Polyurethane Surface Primer Gloss Black Drybrush Army Painter Black Drybrush Army Painter White Basecoat with Amsterdam All Acrylics Standard Wash Army Painter Soft/Strong/Military Shader
Miniature #1
Miniature #2 0.04 mm Layer Height Vallejo Acrylic-Polyurethane Surface Primer Gloss Black Drybrush Army Painter Black Drybrush Army Painter Dungeon Base Drybrush Army Painter Dungeon Highlights Drybrush Army Painter White Basecoat with Amsterdam All Acrylics Standard Wash Army Painter Soft/Strong/Military Shader
Miniature #2
Miniature #3 0.04 mm Layer Height Vallejo Acrylic-Polyurethane Surface Primer Gloss Black Varnish Windsor Newton Matt Varnish Drybrush Army Painter Black Drybrush Army Painter Dungeon Base Drybrush Army Painter Dungeon Highlights Drybrush Army Painter White Basecoat with Amsterdam All Acrylics Standard Wash Army Painter Soft/Strong/Military Shader
Miniature #3
Miniature #4 0.04 mm Layer Height Amsterdam All Acrylics Deco Primer White Drybrush Army Painter Black Drybrush Army Painter White Basecoat with Amsterdam All Acrylics Standard Drybrush/Edge Highlight Army Painter White Wash Army Painter Soft/Strong/Military Shader
Miniature #4
Miniature #5 0.04 mm Layer Height Amsterdam All Acrylics Deco Primer White Drybrush Army Painter Black Drybrush Army Painter Dungeon Base Drybrush Army Painter Dungeon Highlights Drybrush Army Painter White Basecoat with Amsterdam All Acrylics Standard Wash Army Painter Soft/Strong/Military Shader
Miniature #5
Miniature #6 0.04 mm Layer Height Amsterdam All Acrylics Deco Primer White Varnish Windsor Newton Matt Varnish Drybrush Army Painter Black Drybrush Army Painter Dungeon Base Drybrush Army Painter Dungeon Highlights Drybrush Army Painter White Basecoat with Amsterdam All Acrylics Standard Wash Army Painter Soft/Strong/Military Shader
Miniature #6
Miniature #7 0.03 mm Layer Height, 25mms Speed Army Painter Terrain Primer Ruins & Cliffs Basecoat with Amsterdam All Acrylics Standard Wash Army Painter Soft/Strong/Military Shader Drybrush Army Painter White
Miniature #7
Miniature #8 0.03 mm Layer Height, 25mms Speed, Orca Slicer Army Painter Terrain Primer Ruins & Cliffs Basecoat/Shade/Highlight with Amsterdam All Acrylics Standard
Miniature #8
The Colour Schemes used are as follows:
#1-7 Flesh: Naples Yellow Red Deep/Soft Tone Tunic: Titanium White/Soft Tone Cloak: Pyrolle Red/Strong Tone Scale Shirt, Skirt, Sandals: Burnt Sienna/Strong Tone Hair: Yellow Ochre/Soft Tone Sword Blade: Silver/Military Shader Shield, Greaves, Helmet, Sword Pommel & Guard: Bronze/Military Shader Floor: Neutral Grey/Military Shader
After slap-chop, I couldn’t see any substantial difference between the Vallejo Acrylic Polyurethane Black Primer #1-3 and the Amsterdam All Acrylics Deco Primer White #4-6. The rattlecan spray primer by Army Painter worked very well. I’ll consider using it for mass-priming 3d-printed miniatures as it will save me a lot of time in the future. The dark gray vs black nature of the colour also is a nice base coat. As to hiding of layer lines I can’t really compare to the brush on primers since the two minis primed with it were printed with different settings.
Perhaps application was easier for the Vallejo and it dried faster. But there’s no sort of better or worse with regards to layers hiding. I considered them equal for the rest of the test, and used this opportunity to test different things (extra drybrush) on the final stages.
I couldn’t see any difference either between the ones that were varnished prior to slap chop vs the ones that weren’t. Layer lines seem similar. These are #2 vs #3 and #5 vs #6.
On the other hand, gradient grays a la zenithal vs a sharp sketch slap chop seem to make a difference. It’s mostly an illusion, but it does seem to help. Also it helps significantly when painting, as the black & white was much harder to “read” vs the gradient gray. Of course major factor here is the 15mm scale and the FDM imperfections.
Washes tend not to flow easily with FDM, as they get grabbed by layer lines. I could see that on the miniatures varnished before applying wash, there was better flow, without having any major impact on the end result though.
The one I like the most is #8, the one painted without drybrush and washes, just traditional shading and highlights – it’s the first time I attempted this type of painting, but it seems to work well, and layer lines are almost non-existent.
The one I like least is #7 the one painted without slap chop, but with washes and drybrush – second to last of the group. It’s too dark for my tastes, and details are non-existent, while layer lines are visible.
Between the main experiment of the figures #1-6 (different gradient slap chop, varnish steps in between, different primers, extra drybrushing) I can’t tell of any significant difference to the end result. Perhaps #2 & #5 are the best effort-to-result ratio.
Overall, I’d say that washes and drybrushing accenuate layer lines in 15mm. The best technique is to avoid their use altogether and do shading and highlights using different shades of the same colour paint. If however one was to do a regular slap chop, a black drybrush prior, mitigates it a little bit. A varnish prior to applying washes also allows for the wash to pool into the major recesses instead of the layer lines.
Solo, Pen, Paper and Dice 
Reply