I don't paint for competition, parade or display. I paint for combat.
This channel is dedicated to my hobby time and my journey with miniatures, mini painting and 3d printing; A hobby that I use to put awesome minis on my table for TTRPGs.
I use an Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro. its a great machine and is a reasonable price, but as with most 3d printers requires a bit of experience to operate to its fullest, though its also quite forgiving if it were to be someone's first machine. I do think the new BambuLabs A1 and A1 Mini look like they are 100% the best beginner friendly printer, that can get you printing fast and easy but are still very capable of giving you access to dive deeper when you're comfortable, I haven't tested myself but there is some great content covering them. I HIGHLY Recommend checking out "Once In a Six Side" he's done some great videos covering the A1's and has done follow up video on how to get some great FDM from those printers. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aP7m-BcP0eg.html
they realy look good. for the rust: try to put the rust on places where the metal would not get touched that often and where it would have more contact with water or other wet objects. for example: rust on the edge of a blade does not makes so much sense, when the weapon is in use. but rust on the spot, where the wood of a spear is conected with the meatal tip would look better. you also could try to thin down the rust effect color a bit more, so the paint behaves more like a wash and gets easier into the deeper parts of the model, where more rust would be found.
It looks brilliant! I think you should go in Legion order, but I also can't wait to see what you do with the White Scars, Salamanders, and Raven Guard. Just a clarification on the Dark Angels lore, though. Caliban was originally a forest world inhabited by fantasy monsters. The knights, who later became the Dark Angels, hunted the Great Beasts. During Luthor's rebellion, Caliban was destroyed Alderaan-style, with only the Dark Angels fortress surviving.
Awesome! Cool to know those details on Caliban, makes the angel's "knightly origin" make more sense, they definitely seem to be the most "fantasy themed" legion for sure.
It always feels like people get overly dramatic about "Muh layer lines" when you have about a dozen ways you can address them in FDM prints if they bother the person printing that much. If your choosing FDM because its cheaper or more convenient that obviously comes at a cost and that cost is putting in a bit more effort on print settings and miniature cleanup, assuming you arent just looking to put something on a board and arent concerned with how pretty it looks.
Short answer: No Long Answer: If you don’t mind layer lines so thick and chunky that the models like like they were built in Minecraft, then sure, they’re fine. Just know that everyone who compliments them thinks they look like crap even if they’re too polite to tell you.
Am interested in fdm printing minies although don't have an FDM printer (at hand right now). Been thinking about getting one, will see. Got a laser cutter and been using it away from home as can't use it here, was thinking about selling that..
I've been printing fdm minis for a while now, and I'll definitely try the blender tip, it seems easy enough to unscare me of this software 😅 The game changer for me has also been to change nozzle. Using only .4 nozzles is like buying a power drill and using only 1 bit with it. I heavily recommend everyone to buy a cheap kit of nozzles and experiment on your printer. Personally, I switch nozzles depending of the use case : .3 for miniatures (.2 is useless on average 3d printer, it cranks up the print time A LOT without too much improvement on details), .4 for terrains and vehicles, .6 for everyday life 3d prints. Switching nozzles is super easy and takes like 1 or 2 minutes maximum. All those on RU-vid that recommend you do a whole mechanicus ritual to change nozzle is bs. Just preheat, remove filament, unscrew, put a new one and you're good to go. Hope this helps. Again, great video !
Hero Forge is such an amazing tool for PCs and DMs alike: nothing brings a player such joy as to hold their own character that they made... except to see them on the battle map! It's basically the reason I got into 3D printing to begin with. Now I do all kinds of stuff
I printed plenty more 😄 - This is just highlighting the 'characters' that ended up needing minis for my campaign, plenty of monsters and unrelated character minis went through the printer for sure! Would've been an hour long video if I covered everything.
We're these printed on FDM? I discovered your channel after starting to think that resin printing just isn't for me. You have reignited my passion for fdm, and I'm getting my Creality K1 back in shape. I've been using Titancraft because of their asset format, but I haven't reevaluated which customizable mini site would be best for fdm. Any thoughts?
Some of these are! This campaign spanned long enough that I had access to a resin printer at the start of the campaign but didn't later on (due to being in a smaller space). But a few of the minis are printed in FDM - I've found it easy enough to print HeroForge models in FDM as long as your smart with designing the character to be a bit sturdier (having intersecting parts helps with this! - swords being supported by clipping into cloaks, things like that)
I would never have thought of drybrushing as the first step. Great looking model and the acid green effect really works. Again a colour I wouldn’t have considered for a black dragon. I really need to look at more art for inspiration. Now you have the awesome mini you to give it a stat-block worthy of the paint job so your players don’t stomp all over it and finish it off in a couple of rounds.
I would love to see a video about support-free models! Bonus points if you have any recommended viewing for learning how to sculpt support-free models lol
Thats a "Sta-Wet" Wet Palette - helps to keep Acrylic paints hydrated & stops them drying out as fast! - The pink is just some cheap thin cleaning sponges that I use as refills for the palette. You can find a ton of Info on youtube about them by just searching "mini painting wet palette" or something along those lines.
I used to play Warhammer Fantasy Battles and had (and still have) a huge Skaven army. Now I’ve moved on to D&D but still love to paint up minis. You have done an incredible job with this one and the mini itself is full of character. Do you varnish your minis? I think I would want to protect the paint job if I had painted it as good as you did. I use a matt varnish for most of my minis but they are always intended for game play so liable to get some abuse😊
Yes I do use matt varnish usually! I did accidentally did the gloss varnish on the base *first* 🙃 which was not my smartest moment. Because of that I've been putting it off, but next time I get the varnish out for some models ill be giving him a coat! 😅
Some amazing paint jobs! I love painting my minis and I am always excited to see other peoples work, even more so when it’s as good as this. Yes for a follow up video!
Such a cool insight into your campaign. I've been dming and painting minis for probably 12 years now, but most of my games are online and so I almost never get to use em in-person.
Thanks! Yeah, for me personally the minis are half the hobby and actually inform a lot of my worldbuilding. I fully get people that play online and it makes sense for a lot of reasons of course, but it must be a shame sometimes when you're also a mini-painter 🥲 I think I'd end up setting up an overhead webcam or something haha
I like your ideas. I use ABS with 25% fan. Squirt down with acetone in a needle, seals layers and makes it very strong. Try printing two or 3 models at a time for cooling. PLA is weak in thin extrusions. PETG is stringy. I print with many shells for strength. I put the model in Meshmixer, Increase size 5 times make solid, then add .1mm offset to model. Then I rescale back to 32 mm scale. Push the maximum edge of the scale for FDM success. This will thicken the model an hopefully not ruin the detail too much.
Literally my only complaint is I like it when my green skins are more bare chested, makes em' feel a bit more ragtag but, these are great sculpts, well painted
Awesome looking! Im painting a Local Legends green dragon, thats similar but not exact to D&D greens, not evil even just prankster😂. ❗️Keep in mind new designs of a race of dragons ( dragons a species ) like black, does NOT need to mean replacement of older designs. Think of it as phenotypes. Not all black dragons look exactly the same. And many more monsters in the new MM? Remember 1 dragon = 4 monsters due to 4 life stages. Also wish they add GEM dragons aaand missing second 5 of true dragons from Chromatics, Gem and Metallic families. I want to see yellow coastal salt dragons with win setup like a brass or coppers. Orange jungle dragons and purple mid-upper Underdark dragons in which the deep dragons are a lower underdark sub-species of.
I'm wondering if cutting off the horns and swapping them would have been better, as you wouldn't end up with that tight turn when getting them forward facing?
It's interesting that you did green webbing for the Dragon, but went with purple eyes. I tend to prefer purple webbing for black dragons, as I feel it keeps them closer to truly being a 'black' dragon, and avoids potential crossover with green dragons aesthetically.
For sure! I did consider purple for the webbing, and tossed up the options for a while. I ended up going with the green to try and pull some of the Acidic nature of a black dragon into the color scheme.
My biggest tip is to use PrusaSlicer and enable its organic supports - But if you want a more detailed answer to that question I actually have a video on the channel showing how I print minis in FDM - the only difference to the settings shown in that video is that this was printed at 0.12mm layer height (due its size) and possibly slightly thicker diameters on the organic supports settings!
My black dragon came from Rescale as well, from the Legendary Chromatics line they redid last year. Went black with grey uppertones, and used a sickly Nurgling Green on the wings and membrane parts on the spine, that model had bulging around its cheeks like it had acid sacs up there, so i used tesseract glow and it made it look like the acid was glowing through the thin skin of its cheeks. Had the same color leaking around its mouth and tounge, practically dripping with deadly substances.
Yeah! I'm liking some of their Legendary Chromatics, its cool to see their own take on the dragons - But I do love this Black Dragon and their Original Blue dragon a ton
The new Gold dragon is taking its inspiration from Chinese origins, giving it a Lung Dragon figure. Rescale is reprinting their metallic dragons line and have already redone their Silver Dragon and Brass Dragons with a new look. In the wake of the 2024 changes they might be updating their gold design to fit the new look! Im really excited for the coastal oceanbound bronze dragon, easily my favorite of the metallics.
I might not be the keenest on the new redesign for the 2024 black dragon (specifically the spiral shape of the horns), but WOW that paintwork is seriously amazing! Great job!
I don't think the lack of detail on WizKids is a quality issue, but an unfortunate stylistic choice. Many of the minis are based on illustrations from the books, which are drawn with more or less realistic proportions (idealized proportions yes, but trying to be a realistic image of an idealized person). But realistic proportions look like crap at 1/72 or 1/54 or whatever it is these days. You need something that looks more like a caricature, because otherwise the details just turn into blobs.
The human scale WIzkids minis are awful to paint, but the larger monster minis are passable... on the off chance you can find the monsters you want actually in stock...
Dunno If someone mentioned it before, but mantic Games also Had the Dungeon adventures Line, boxes With some Minis in a specific scheme, Like Green Skins, Heroes, Dungeon Bosses etc. I like the minis from mantic, my favorite is the Elf Prince. 😋 Other good minis are the Frostgrave wizard Minis from north star, 8 minis and alot options, for a ok price, bought the male and female versions.
You should be able to set a minimum layer time to let the previous layer cool instead of adding a 'purge tower'. Unless you're worried about oozing of course. Then I think the prime tower works well.
I looked into this but I think that Prusa is limited in this regard, as in it doesnt allow for a proper minimum layer time function, it only lets you slow the print on quick layers 🤷♂️ I could be wrong though!