Miniatures pt133 – Space Modulars
Support-free miniatures are a great way to print on FDM printers without having to deal with supports.
What are supports? Imagine that a 3d printer “builds” stuff in the Z axis. An FDM printer goes from the ground up, while a resin printer from the roof down (prints are upside down). In both cases the culprit is gravity. Because it all happens in Z slices. Each Z slice needs to be able to attach to the previous one, otherwise it will drop in the void. Resin printers are less problematic with supports, and also removal is easier especially since it can be done while the resin is still uncured. With FDM printers that’s another story. Gravity will ruin the print either with overhangs (imagine balconies), bridges (speaks for itself), or islands (z slices with parts that don’t connect anywhere).
To make it more clear, an overhang that would need supports would be a sword arm horizontal to the ground, a bridge would be a rider pose, and an island would be a knife arm with the blade dangling pointing downwards.
Therefore these would need supports. Supports are 3d constructs in the slicer which are printed and connect the parts to the bed plate or the model, that would otherwise be unprintable. These come with a caveat though. Filament is meant to stick together, so supports usually end up sticking too well on the model, and removing FDM supports can lead to scarring or parts breaking. There are some solutions which have their own problems, such as angling the miniature backwards, which essentially hides scarring, or using support or support interface of different filament (PETG or PVA), but this would increase print times, filament waste and requires a multi filament setup, that usually isn’t worth it.
So what support free miniatures sculptors do, is design and pose the miniatures in ways that there are no overhangs, bridges or islands. Sword arms are almost vertical to the ground, spear heads touch the ground, knives are held close to the body and touch it, etc etc. It’s an extra skill on top of miniature design. However even with this skill there are limitations, and you won’t be able to get into more dynamic poses easily.
A solution to this are modular miniatures. Cut the miniature in several parts that are support free on their own, and glue them together. Even this has its own limitations as the limbs for example cannot have angles that would cause overhangs, and you end up with open arms poses that could easily dance Zorba if placed all together. Good designers though, find the sweet spots of posing that resolves this. Another problem is the process of gluing.
Especially for scaled down to 15mm, gluing PLA can be a problem. Superglue (cyanoacrylate glue) doesn’t set fast enough, with PLA, as its catalyst is moisture, and you’re more likely to glue your fingers instead. To work around this you can use some baking soda (another catalyst) but then it sets up too fast and you may end up with baking soda particles glued to the mini if you’re not too careful.
I find that the best glue for PLA is UHU, especially the Allplast/Hardplast (depending on where you live). It contains ethyl acetate, which dissolves a small layer of PLA, and can bond it together. It’s also quite viscous so you only need to hold the pieces together for a short while. My main issue is that the nozzle is too big and I can’t put the tiny amount I need for 15mm with the control I want, but it doesn’t set too fast so I can clean up any mess.
To minimise this, I usually do some digital kitbashing beforehand, either in the slicer or in blender. I found that blender is excellent for this, as you can snap objects to faces, and they are placed where they should be as you grab them to place. So I usually place torsos to legs, and sometimes heads too, and print upper limbs separately.
I even went ahead and combined physical kitbashing with the modulars, by using one of GZG pewter heads with a torso. I had done a slot in the slicer for the head pin to drop right in. I miscalculated and had to use the drill in the end, but it was a lot easier with the slot in place.
I did several different modulars, and even combined some parts from other sets together, that’s the cool thing about Brite Minis modulars, they’re (mostly) meant to be used together however you like. Gave them some Unity color schemes, as there are meant to be aliens in the Unity army as well as humans (a couple of ferals and a gray alien). Love the humanoid heads that give this old school science fiction tv look.
The modular torsos all look a bit downwards, and the photos are angled higher up, so the faces aren’t always visible in the photos below. I’ll take this under consideration for future photos.
Solo, Pen, Paper and Dice 
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