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
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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
I’m a huge fan of the Alien movies. I recall going on the theatre alone on a Saturday morning to watch the then released Alien 4 (Resurrection).
As I’ve been taking a closer look at my Bug Hunt minis, I realised I wanted something more dynamic, fiercer and bigger than my OOP QRF models. Instead of rolling the dice with the pewter vendor scales, I decided to give it a shot with 3d printing.
I did find some free models that look quite good, but I was scared of scaling them down, and eventually settled on the Wakes Emporium Xeno Warriors X02.
These are meant for 6mm scale, so I scaled them up. Since they’re larger than what I envisioned, I scaled them up by 180%, to get a final result to my liking.
These came presupported for resin but since they’re scaled *up* the supports worked great for FDM too. I also gave them a +0.2mm X-Y compensation to make them even sturdier, and they printed fine. 0.2mm nozzle on a BBL@A1Mini with ELEGOO PLA PRO filament. 0.06mm layer height.
It’s 8 variants which I mirrored in the X axis for 16 variants total.
For painting the first 8, I had prepared with airbrush, but I was bored to take it out again for the next 8, so I used a drybrush. I’m wondering if you can see the difference. The drybrushed ones are darker and the layer lines are more visible.
Awesome movie. I read recently that they shot the first scene with the soldiers last when making the movie, so that the actors would have the necessary chemistry.
One of my favourite digital sculpts from Ill Gotten Games, the Robovermin. 5 variants. The particular Ill Gotten Games support free files, (as well as the Hungry Dead from the previous post) are part of their $1 Patreon tier for Multiverse Mondays (and access to the entire MM catalogue).
They’re in 5 variants if I remember correctly, which I doubled by mirroring along the X axis.
I love the concept and execution. I’ll proxy them as Berserk Robots in Bug Hunt.
There’s only one variant of a Grick from Brite Minis, but it’s quite vague, so by mirroring at X axis, the two variants are enough to create this mob feeling.
Scaled down 60% to have 15mm scale, they printed okay. I had a few failures at some of the prints at one tentacle, but I decided to keep them and not reprint, as it feels perfectly fine for them to be missing a limb. Perhaps during a challenge, a fight or mating or whatever these worm like things do.
I’ll use them mainly as Slithering Horrors for Five Parsecs from Home Bug Hunt.
For painting I did the following scheme:
Airbrush low/inside a purplish pale mix of turquoise, zinc white, YMC 321, yellow ochre, titanium white
technoalchemist are discussing. 
Onibaba are discussing. 
Lou, and 
Solo, Pen, Paper and Dice 
technoalchemist 1:50 am on October 5, 2025 Permalink |
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.
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giorgis 11:12 am on October 5, 2025 Permalink |
It’s a trap!
On the bright side, I get to have more terrain for the same amount of space.
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