Will 3d printers soon take over painting as well?

[Elbows]

Yeah the print quality on those planes is pretty atrocious.  The paint is "fine", and applied to a much better print, could easily be board-game ready.

[FinnN]

Well, Shapeways filed for bankruptcy today apparently https://www.voxelmatters.com/shapeways-files-for-bankruptcy so not an option anymore anyway. Not that surprising as their quality was eclipsed years ago and the costs were pretty high.

[zemjw]

Well, Shapeways filed for bankruptcy today apparently https://www.voxelmatters.com/shapeways-files-for-bankruptcy so not an option anymore anyway. Not that surprising as their quality was eclipsed years ago and the costs were pretty high.

I haven't used them for a while, but I did not see that coming My biggest complaint with them was that they insisted on using UPS for every delivery. That was so expensive that it was impractical to iterate a design with them. The materials were okay for what I wanted printed, but yeah, those are rough prints on the planes, which is a shame.

[Oldgamer]

Old gamer thanks for sharing those images - the colouring in looks great, and perhaps works even better on aircraft than on figures. Are you able to specify items like the numbers, so each plane is different?

What is disappointing on those is the quality of the 3d printing its self - it looks really rough - nothing like the smooth finish I see on the 3d prints my mate produces

You do not get a personal choice, the aircraft are all pilot specific but there is a lot of choice with some types, less with others.

I find that a couple of layers of satin varnish help with smoothing the surface texture. They offer a smoother finish but the price was too rich for me!

[YPU]

Yeah the print quality on those planes is pretty atrocious.  The paint is "fine", and applied to a much better print, could easily be board-game ready.

Ah see thats the problem here. The painting is an integral part of the printing method, which creates a layer of fine plastic grains which are "glued" together and get a drop of colour. Its a very different method from the common extrusion or resin printers people mainly use today. Those however do not have the option to integrate the colours in a particularly detailed way. Extrusion printers can work in multiple colored filaments, but thas also has limitations.

[Fitz]

SLS printing can be done at a much finer grain size than those examples, to the point where it becomes comparable to the output from older 2k resin printers. The SLS printers capable of doing that are still pretty expensive though.

The most promising full-colour (16 bit, I think) process right now prints picolitre drops of coloured resins in layers, exactly like an inkjet printer, and it prints its own water-soluble support shell at the same time. The resolution is pretty high, and the results are excellent, but again those printers are expensive enough that they'd be out of reach of 99.99% of home hobbyists.

[YPU]

SLS printing can be done at a much finer grain size than those examples, to the point where it becomes comparable to the output from older 2k resin printers. The SLS printers capable of doing that are still pretty expensive though.

The most promising full-colour (16 bit, I think) process right now prints picolitre drops of coloured resins in layers, exactly like an inkjet printer, and it prints its own water-soluble support shell at the same time. The resolution is pretty high, and the results are excellent, but again those printers are expensive enough that they'd be out of reach of 99.99% of home hobbyists.

exactly. Now, as I've said (in a lot of words) before here, I haven't seen any indications that we will have another sudden big innovation in that technology, but truth be told I also did not believe it when formlabs first claimed they had one with their resin printer. It may be right around the corner, but I don't think it is. With every colour you are adding so much extra needed systems, when the reason resin 3d printers became affordable is that people kept finding ways to make them simpler.

It may be an asinine comparison, but I sinceraly have more problems with my 2d color printer than I have with my 3d printer. When the 3d printer breaks I can get cheap replacement parts to fix it myself fairly easily. If doing colored 3d resin printing requires making the printer more like an inkjet or what have you, i'll stick to painting by hand thank you.

[Bloggard]

blimey, fascinating stuff - if somewhat daunting, in more ways than one, to an old-timer.

darn interesting read.

[Freddy]

You can play with yourself.
(no, not like that)
((ok, not JUST like that))

https://9gag.com/gag/aXPwdoP

[Codsticker]

You can play with yourself.
(no, not like that)
((ok, not JUST like that))

https://9gag.com/gag/aXPwdoP

Lol I was just going to post that.

[Inkpaduta]

I was at a Historicon a while back that there was a company that was doing that in 28mm.
You could be a general in a number of wars. Not sure how well it worked as I never saw or
heard of it again.

[Codsticker]

I was at a Historicon a while back that there was a company that was doing that in 28mm.
You could be a general in a number of wars. Not sure how well it worked as I never saw or
heard of it again.

Oh yeah, I remember seeing that; they did a 3D scan of your head and plopped it on a mini IIRC.

[zemjw]

Eldritch games has just announced a Kickstarter for 3d printed and painted figures - TableTop Game News article

Eldritch Foundry has announced an upcoming Kickstarter campaign, set to go live on October 29 at 8 a.m. Eastern time, offering a new level of customization for tabletop gamers. The campaign will introduce full-color 3D printed miniatures, allowing users to digitally “paint” their creations.

They do look more than good enough for rank and file.

[modelwarrior]

Eldritch games has just announced a Kickstarter for 3d printed and painted figures - TableTop Game News article

They do look more than good enough for rank and file.

The death of painting is upon us

[Fitz]

The death of painting is upon us

Not until those machines are cheap enough for an average person to have in their home.