A Multitude of Maultiers (for 3d printing)

[Fitz]

I've been messing about in Blender, making a bunch of variants of 15mm Opel Maultiers.

The two on the right are ambulances, one closed up and the other with the back doors open and the steps down. Third from the right is an office/radio body. The others are fairly self-explanatory I think.

They're based on Bergman's Maultier model. I've just refined it a bit and added some stuff that I already had lying around in my design folders.

And here's another one, reusing some seated German infantry I originally put together as passengers for a SdKfz 7.

I had to put them through 3d Builder's Simplify operation to get the STL down to a reasonable size, but it imposed no real visible penalty, while dropping the file size from 95MB to about 11.

I did a test print of the ambulance variant with the open back doors and steps down. Taking into account my inexperience with resin printing in general, it printed okay, so I don't foresee any issues with any of the others either.

The STLs can be downloaded via my page on Thingiverse at https://www.thingiverse.com/mojobob/designs.

[fred]

They look great - and the printed one has come out well

Is it worth making interchangeable loads for the same base, or with 3D printing, is that just extra effort without saving any thing material, and you may as well have the full vehicle each time?

[Fitz]

Is it worth making interchangeable loads for the same base, or with 3D printing, is that just extra effort without saving any thing material, and you may as well have the full vehicle each time?

I was thinking about doing cargo inserts for the open-topped version. It would make life easier for the end-user I think, as it means you wouldn't have to paint a whole new vehicle for every cargo variant.

I also want to create some glue-in stretcher-rack modules for the open-backed ambulance body — at the moment, it's just an empty box, but printed-in detail in there would be impossible to paint.

[fred]

They both sound good ideas.

This 3D printing marlarky gets more tempting. 

[Ceeteegee]

Cargo inserts seem a logical addition as you've already done the PBI. Perhap's a mounting for the ubiquitous 2cm Flak and maybe a Maultier with the sides down 5 allow for an 'in action' model. Mine are  on the old Battlefront model and I didn't fancy removing the sides to  remodel.