Sunday 9 January 2022

10-20mm Hoplites - more test prints

I'm almost coming to the end of the scale testing stage, having landed on a style that looks good printed at 20mm, 15mm and 10mm.

I can't decide which scale I want to do... so making something that's multi use seems like the best idea.

20mm, perfect for Dragon Rampant perhaps. I have a soft spot for this size and think doing some classic fantasy armies like this will scratch an itch for Warhammer Fantasy Battle style gaming (miniature count wise especially - a block of 20 spearmen is more palatable at this size than at 30mm or whatever the warhammer size is now).

Every single mini there is slightly different... but you'd barely notice. Hopefully its subconscious. 


15mm. This is probably my go to for muti-based style gaming.


10mm, Warmaster. Doing 5 minis on a strip with interlinked/touching between the figures is of course the usual approach for 10mm. That's on the back burner, but printing individually isn't too much of a pain, and it really cuts down on production failures (a single broken spear tip on a strip of 5 ruins the entire print/cast). Straight from the horses mouth I recall hearing this from Rick Priestly... the designer of Warmaster mentioning this... in hindsight regretting they did 5 minis on a strip.)


The above shot shows the style evolution, the mini on the left was the fist with more of a realistic Hoplite. At smaller scales though they are slightly flimsy and lose their visual punch. The final version on the right is slightly more cartoonish than I generally prefer (as a sculptor I like the first one best) but the practicalities of production, painting and using them as gaming pieces trumps the 'artsy' sensibility.




Now that I've locked into the basic infantry I can't start on some more fantastical elements.



3 comments:

  1. Great to see your progress with the 3D sculpting and printing. One thing I was worried about was that these wouldn't have the same visual style as your physical sculpts due to the very different medium however that is not the case and the prints are looking great. Now about those Fallen Dwarves... ;)

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  2. Thanks mate. It's definitely a trick transitioning to digial. I'm planning on importing images of the existing ranges into zbrush so I can at least match the profile, scale and style. Lots of the basics still to learn but I'm itching to expand those Dwarves. As soon as I do I'll make some of the 3d prints available for sale.

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