3DPrinting

15763 readers

34 users here now

3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.

The r/functionalprint community is now located at: or [email protected]

There are CAD communities available at: [email protected] or [email protected]

Rules

No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
Do not create links to reddit
If you see an issue please flag it
No guns
No injury gore posts

If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe/ may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is ![](URL)

Moderation policy: Light, mostly invisible

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

What is the level of detail possible for 1:72 figures with PLA? (obsolete) (diyrpg.org)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

30 comments fedilink hide all child comments

(I've been informed that I had been told complete BS by the person trying to tell me that resin printing 1:72 wargame minis would be stupidly expensive. As such, my question here is no longer relevant.)

I am considering the option to get back into miniature painting by starting with 3D printing my own custom figures.

Given the price difference, it would have to be plastic (I read PLA is a good option), and for my purposes it would mostly be 1:72 scale figures.

The deciding factor is whether at such a small scale PLA can achieve a level of detail that doesn't look completely terrible. I'm used to 1:72 injection mold figures, and my previous paint work in the past was always so thick that much of the detail present on those would disappear anyway. So I'm really not looking for much.

But looking for existing images of such prints is very much not search engine friendly and I mostly just come up with Chinese soldier figures made out of some mystery material or figures of unknown scale.

Can anyone help me to find some reference pictures of 1:72 PLA figures so I can take a look if this level of detail is acceptable for me?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

For what it’s worth, I would bet finishing an FDM print with paint will be more annoying due to the layer lines before the scale would get in the way with a modern 3d printer as FDM does not produce a smooth surface finish like an injection molded part without further post processing like vapor smoothing which would also eat the details. I don’t have a resin printer though so I could be totally wrong.