Have you ever wondered how to 3D print a miniature with superb quality for your games or RPG session? If yes just follow me, I’ll show you a quick guide how to.
Printer used: ELEGOO Saturn 4 Ultra
1. First of all you have to pick your favorite miniature.
There are lot of places where you can find 3d modeled miniatures ready to be 3d printed.
Here are some examples where you can look for:
- MyMiniFactory (https://www.myminifactory.com/) – lot of cool designers, tons of miniatures, very often you can get high quality minis for free.
- Cults3d (https://cults3d.com/) – same as above but less focused on miniatures.
- Thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/) – mostly free stuff, but hey, it’s worth to take a look.
- Printables (https://www.printables.com/) –
- Yeggi (https://www.yeggi.com/) – for more minis you can use search engines like Yeggi
- Google (https://www.google.com/)- often you can find companies webistes where you can buy minis directly. Just remember to add „stl” in input field.
Orc Ultimate Badasses Squad by PuppetsWar
2. Download and usually extract ZIP files to get .STL or .OBJ files of your minis.
Here what I got in the ZIP package – supported, renders, unsupported, bases.
Many 3d sculptors offer supported miniatures which help a lot, usually experienced companies do a great job offering this kind of stuff. In case if you don’t have a supported files you have to make them in order to print the objects.
| Supported files | Unsupported files |
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3. Slicer
You need slicer to cut the files for the 3d printer. I commonly use Chitubox (https://www.chitubox.com/) or Lychee (https://mango3d.io/download-lychee-slicer).
Resin and 3d printer settings
I’m using in this case 8K Standard Photopolymer Resin in Space Grey color, you can find a settings for this one on Elegoo website here: (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_jnyMfNkm4sPJhKyN46ey5CO-ks4MRyR/view)
Pick the 3d Printer and set all the values according to the spreadsheet. In my case it is Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra and 8k Standard Photopolymer Resin.
Supports
It’s important to have a good supports on the objects so they didn’t fall off the build plate. If you didn’t have one you can generate them automaticly in slicer and later add additional ones manually. It’s good to have couple thicker supports if object is just big and heavy. You don’t want to have failed prints, better to put few more supports just in case.
Rotate object to and try to find optimal position where remved supports will be less visible after removing.
Go to the Supports tab.
You can use help of Auto Support button (with „Middle” setting).
Check with layers slider if everything is well supported.
Before slicing please check your 3d printer and resin settings.
Return to the main tab and hit Slice button. Now you can save file for 3d Pinter. You can send it via Network or transfer on USB Pendrive.
4. Prepare resin
All of 3d Printing resins should be shaked and mixed well like there is no tomorrow. You have to be sure that pigment (in my case grey) is evenly mixed with resin. It’s not like just a single wobbly shake before use. Mix it well – you won’t regret.
Also keep in mind that resin printing need heat – warm enviorment is very helpful with succesful printing. 25-30°C is optimal tempeature. If you go much below this value be prepared to failed prints. You won’t like to print on a balcony, basement or cold room for example. (Skip to section 9. to see what too cold resin can do)
!!! Resin is very dangerous for you skin, eyes and your life overall. If you value your body just wear single-use gloves and wear mask or protective glasses. It’s not a joke !!!
Pour resin to the vat.
Wipe out excess of the resin on the bottle tip with paper towel. Keeping it clean will help a lot.
5. Print the file!
If you didn’t already transferred the file you can easily do that in Chitubox and start the print remotely.
Patiently wait till your miniatures take shape.
6. Cleaning / IPA washing
After printing you need to remove the miniatures from the build plate. Using spatula or other sharp object you can lever the bottom layer of the print.
Pour Isopropyl Alcohol to cleaning tank. Important – wear glasses and do it in well ventilated room. Just a tiny little drop in your eye will hurt you for hours.
Put carefully the 3d printed miniatures to the tank.
Clean it at least 2 minutes in isopropyl (IPA) bath
After cleaning from resin residue leave it to dry.
Just look at these, they look like injection molded! Elegoo Saturn 4 is an really Ultimate quality printer.
7. Post processing
Removing supports with hairblower. Fast, easy and efficient. Just watch out for finger burns. Gently heat the support and wait till they become soft and easy to peel off.
8. UV curing
Curing in UV lamp is very important step. If you didn’t have one you can use just our closest star emitting UV light like Sun (but it may take much longer time).
Congratulations, you’ve got 3d printed a miniatures!
Now it’s time to prepare it for painting!
9. When something went wrong section / Troubleshooting
It may happened that you didn’t meet resin temperature expectations. I did. I poured too cold resin to the vat and time of first layer curing was too short. At first it didn’t look that anything wrong can happened but it didn’t glued to buildplate too well.
When you see something like this just remove resin from the vat back to the bottle. Go to printer main menu Settings -> Tank Cleaning and set Exposure time. 15 seconds should be good. Hit Start and wait till printer will harden a very thin layer of resin.
Carefully remove resin sheet from the vat. Do not scratch the fep. Just be gentle.
Keep the failed print to track the objects that fell off the buildplate and reprint.
I have removed failed prints from the slicer and reprinted the missing guys. This time I have increased first layers curing time to 38s. The resin was bit warmer and everything goes well.
