Late last year, I mentioned that my brother, Mikey, had been printing out some 28mm scale scenery items for me on his 3D printer. A few of you expressed an interest in seeing what he did for me and so in this post I'll show you my recent acquisitions, courtesy of my very talented brother. He is far more tech savvy than I'll ever be! Note that he printed them out in a lurid green colour. I didn't mind what colour he used because I knew I'd be painting them. The transformation from unpainted to painted is remarkable. Next time I do one of these posts I'll show you the printouts in their natural state.
These items are from the first Hayland Terrain Kickstarter set, which mainly concentrated on modern day furniture items. The basic pledge of £40.00 netted you over 230 different models, which works out at about 17 pence each. This particular set was an optional add-on - the sci-fi generators and powercells set. It was the first set that I asked my brother to print out for me. Note that I have only shown a few of the powercells he printed out. He printed four large cells and eight small cells. They are stackable.
The set came with two sizes of generator - large and small. I asked Mikey to print out one large one and two smaller ones. Note that to customise them further, I have added control panels to them, taken from my Battle Systems Sci-fi Terrain sets. If I hadn't told you, I doubt if you'd have noticed. To me, they really make them look a lot better and they blend in seamlessly.
As you can see, the two generators are identical in all respects except size. Whilst the set did come with the two variants of the generator, it should be noted that one of the cool features of a 3D printer is that you can rescale objects to print them out to whatever size you want, given the constraints of your printing area.
I painted them in the three shades of Foundry Gunmetal 104 with a wash of Citadel Nuln Oil.
To add a splash of colour to them, I painted the hexagonal lights in Foundry Vivid Blue 22
To give you a sense of scale to these items, in this photo I have added my 28mm scale figure of Vampifan. I have to admit that I am very happy with these. Once they are painted, they do look superb. Look out for these appearing in the engine room of The Ace of Spades on my WOIN blog and possibly in other sci-fi games.
From another Hayland Terrain Kickstarter (I have backed all of his terrain Kickstarters so far), I got a number of sets designed for Wild West games. This particular set was from the Forge. It consists of, from left to right, a tool cabinet, a water bucket, an anvil, a forge with fire and bellows, and a coal bucket. Once again, the paintwork really brings them to life. I'll be adding these to my Sarissa MDF Blacksmith's model, once I get it painted. Vampifan appears again just to show you how big these scenery items are.
I have a whole load of furniture items I want printing but I'm a patient person and I don't want to overwhelm Mikey with my wish list, so I send him a few files at a time for him to print out when he has a moment to spare. The hardest part for me is prioritising which items I want printing first, given that I have such a huge backlog of items. Regarding the painting of them, they painted really well. I under-coated them in matt black primer, then just painted them as normal. No problem!
3D printing hasn't taken off yet but I'm sure it will. This post just gives a small insight into what can be done, but really, the sky is the limit. From what I've seen so far, 3D printing excels at scenery items but is not so good for printing out miniature figures. Mikey has printed out a few 28mm scale figures for me, some which I will show you, but they are just okay. Unfortunately they lack detail on their faces, which can look very indistinct. But, it is still early days and I'm sure it won't be too long before that hurdle is surmounted and we can get crisp, finely detailed figures. Just look at the way plastic figures are produced nowadays compared to those of twenty years ago.
These items are from the first Hayland Terrain Kickstarter set, which mainly concentrated on modern day furniture items. The basic pledge of £40.00 netted you over 230 different models, which works out at about 17 pence each. This particular set was an optional add-on - the sci-fi generators and powercells set. It was the first set that I asked my brother to print out for me. Note that I have only shown a few of the powercells he printed out. He printed four large cells and eight small cells. They are stackable.
The set came with two sizes of generator - large and small. I asked Mikey to print out one large one and two smaller ones. Note that to customise them further, I have added control panels to them, taken from my Battle Systems Sci-fi Terrain sets. If I hadn't told you, I doubt if you'd have noticed. To me, they really make them look a lot better and they blend in seamlessly.
As you can see, the two generators are identical in all respects except size. Whilst the set did come with the two variants of the generator, it should be noted that one of the cool features of a 3D printer is that you can rescale objects to print them out to whatever size you want, given the constraints of your printing area.
I painted them in the three shades of Foundry Gunmetal 104 with a wash of Citadel Nuln Oil.
To add a splash of colour to them, I painted the hexagonal lights in Foundry Vivid Blue 22
To give you a sense of scale to these items, in this photo I have added my 28mm scale figure of Vampifan. I have to admit that I am very happy with these. Once they are painted, they do look superb. Look out for these appearing in the engine room of The Ace of Spades on my WOIN blog and possibly in other sci-fi games.
From another Hayland Terrain Kickstarter (I have backed all of his terrain Kickstarters so far), I got a number of sets designed for Wild West games. This particular set was from the Forge. It consists of, from left to right, a tool cabinet, a water bucket, an anvil, a forge with fire and bellows, and a coal bucket. Once again, the paintwork really brings them to life. I'll be adding these to my Sarissa MDF Blacksmith's model, once I get it painted. Vampifan appears again just to show you how big these scenery items are.
I have a whole load of furniture items I want printing but I'm a patient person and I don't want to overwhelm Mikey with my wish list, so I send him a few files at a time for him to print out when he has a moment to spare. The hardest part for me is prioritising which items I want printing first, given that I have such a huge backlog of items. Regarding the painting of them, they painted really well. I under-coated them in matt black primer, then just painted them as normal. No problem!
3D printing hasn't taken off yet but I'm sure it will. This post just gives a small insight into what can be done, but really, the sky is the limit. From what I've seen so far, 3D printing excels at scenery items but is not so good for printing out miniature figures. Mikey has printed out a few 28mm scale figures for me, some which I will show you, but they are just okay. Unfortunately they lack detail on their faces, which can look very indistinct. But, it is still early days and I'm sure it won't be too long before that hurdle is surmounted and we can get crisp, finely detailed figures. Just look at the way plastic figures are produced nowadays compared to those of twenty years ago.