While at Historicon this year I found a company that sells 3D printed figures for the Napoleonic Wars. Since they are 3D printed figures, they can be scaled to a variety of sizes. I bought one 40mm Polish Vistula Lancer because it looked like a figure that I would enjoy painting. And indeed I did.
The figure is a bit brittle noting that the left foot broke off on the way home, whilst carefully stored in a cardboard box. Accordingly, I can't see jumping into 40MM Napoleonics and using any brand of 3D printed figures. There are a couple of other brands that also have the same problem, but I don't care to name the names because I don't know enough about the printing process to talk intelligently about it.
I have to say that these are very attractive looking figures and my mouth drools over the thought of looking at a 24-figure regiment of these Vistula Lancers. Fear not, I don't intend to jump into 40mm Napoleonics. I know that there are a few of you are doubting me on this and I completely understand why.
On the other hand, 54mm Napoleonics...
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Lovely figure, looks great. My worry about 3d figures is how they will last on the table, metal figures can take a bit of a beating but are easy to fix, anything happens to 3d figures and I fear they will be ruined. I have some Portuguese Seven Years Wars figures coming so will see myself if they are viable. A unit of those 40mm chaps would look very impressive though!
ReplyDeleteI think that commercial figures need to be made using a more flexible, bendy resin.
DeleteHi Jim, as we briefly talked about last Saturday, there as many different varieties of resin out there as figure manufacturers, and people mix and match for toughness, print quality and flexibility. I rate the stuff I use as just slightly more brittle than ABS plastic, it still has some bend in it like hard plastics, for every day use.
ReplyDeleteI've been delighted with my own experiments in 3d printing. Hopefully more to show soon.