Anvil Industry Digital Forge - gateway to 3D printing

My foray into 3D printing has been a complete doddle. 

The kit sat in it's box for a month while I made some preparations, but I was up and running in about 2 hours after opening it and plugging it all in (and that was going meticulously through all the setup configuration and tutorials)

Two things really make this easy - the Elegoo Mars 2 Pro itself, and also Anvil Industries digital forge.

Shameless plug for my pals at Anvil, they are your gateway. I'm a Patreon member and the volume of stuff and support you get for £7 a month is phenomenal. I'd highly recommend it even if your a newbie like me (more so if you're a newbie actually...)

This post on the Anvil blog with a few short videos is literally all you need to get you going in terms of guidance and tutorial.

https://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/3d-printing-miniatures-basics

I'll blog more about the printer itself (which comes with lots of the trimmings you'll need, like gloves, mask, scraper, USB stick, etc.) as well as the process, once I've had more practice.

Setting up a little printing station is a must, and I can't stress ventilation enough - there's an open window less than a metre to the left in that image. Lots of paper towels, gloves and alcohol for cleaning can seem daunting at first but once you have a little procedure established it's completely simple and no hassle whatsoever. The box at the bottom left of the shelf houses the gloves, towels, resin, etc. 

The two trays were actually box lids I bought at Homebase, very sturdy and a better alternative to flimsy plastic serving trays. (The trays are in case of any spill or mistakes on my part.)

I printed a ton of stuff, all from Anvil Industries welcome package on their Patreon... all except from those two chess piece towers, they're on the USB from Elegoo and the first test prints you do. They'll come in handy for Frostgrave terrain.

The reason Anvil are such a great place to start is that their models come pre-supported, meaning they've gone to the trouble of configuring all the struts and supports you need for printing. You literally load the file to your USB, stick that into the printer and push a few buttons to print it.

I'm slightly wary of a lot of the other fancy 3d sculpts you see being advertised on countless Patreons, pre-supported is always better... but I've read some reviews where the pre-support stuff was insufficient and people had failed prints required a bit of tweaking themselves. Anvil have always been great at this 'user experience' stuff so you can't go wrong with them.

That all said, I did have a bit of an experiment at building supports myself (I'll need to learn it sooner or later). The guy below was initially configured horizontal, a rookie mistake. I'll not do explaining the science any justice here, but if you look at the lower comparison shot you'll see the horizontal based print on the right is displaying some sag around the collar. That's gravity for you. 

This isn't the replicator on the Enterprise, there's some engineering know how required.

In summary... DO IT. I don't think I'll every buy a plastic mini ever again. And if I can get the STL, I'll buy that first instead of a physical cast.

In the long run hobbyists will save a massive amount of money. Every day there's new stuff hitting the market and the technology keeps improving. If you want a massive army, you'll pay on average pennies per miniature print. I suspect you could print an entire space marine chapter for about £200.

Lots of minis and massive armies are not my thing, for me personally the key is I can replicate stuff without sending it off to a mould maker, and experimentation is much faster.

I just need to get back into/good at 3D sculpting now. I'm sure I'll manage.

Legion of the Bull God

The idea behind this range is the Minotaur has usurped his adopted father, claimed the island of Crete and sired a mutant race. These are the vanguard ragged infantry that serve the Minotaur and seek to invade  mainland Greece..

Still lots of detail to add.

Kobaloi, Satyrs, Bulltaurs and other such stuff will find a home in this range.

Desert Orcs (or Goblin-Men.. or maybe Hobgoblins)

These are small scale in line with my Fallen Dwarf range (which is in line with Lord of the Rings miniatures). They will also serve as cannibals or 'low-men' for my mythology range.

More soon on these, armoured spearmen next, some characters... then cavalry.

Archers are singe piece. Swordsmen have interchangeable sword arms and shields (shields still to be made)

Critters

Some WIP shots of various bugs and general nuisance critters. These will prove useful for tons of ranges...

Boromir: High King and Ring Lord of Gondor

Part of an 'alternative of the rings' project I'm working on.

Still work in progress...

Heroic style Desert Rebels

 

Finally getting round to doing all my old smaller scale sculpts in chunky 'heroic style'. 

Not quite 100% replication but thematically close enough to the old desert rebels. More to follow, personal preference but I'm not keen on making 10 man strong units... 5 max for the time being.

3D printing - biting the bullet

Late to the party but by this stage there are so many resources and tutorials this should be easy.

Incidentally the total cost for all the associated stuff to start 3D printing (Printer, wash and cure, USB stick, gloves, cleaning alcohol, work tray, etc.) is roughly the same to start metal spin casting.

The main practical differences seem to be:

• Space - 3D printing requires slightly less space and is more 'home friendly' (you'd keep the metal spin caster in the garage but the 3d printer looks trendy in the office at home)

• Time - 3D printing has a bit of a time lapse vs metal spin casting, you can cast up 10-15 minis in as much time in metal. 3D printing said minis seems like it will take 3-5 hours depending on layout

• Hands on - naturally there's more 'manual labour' doing metal spin casting, but that has it's benefits such as quick corrections and tweaks to moulds to get the metal to flow better. The set up and let it run aspect with 3D printing seems to mean a greater cost sink if the print fails.

The similarity seems to be in the engineering aspect, metal spin casting needs gates, channels and air vents. 3D printing needs support struts. Different but similar challenges with both manufacturing processes.

I'll do a full comparison at a later date once I'm up and running.

I anticipate using this primarily for masters that go into metal spin cast moulds. Also, personal items and quick prototyping concepts. Mainly mechanical sculpts that require symmetry, flat surfaces and right angles.

That said, there's no reason I can't put 3D prints up on the webstore - this will help be flesh out some of the existing ranges with larger items.