crazmadsci Developing Skill

3D Printing: Science or an Art Form or Just Plain Luck?


I’ve recently been reflecting a lot about intricacies revolving around 3D printing. As a member of many different forums, discords, and groups around the subject for tabletop gaming I see repeatedly several of the same questions.

“What printer should I buy”

“What settings do you use?”

“What materials do I need?”

“Why did this print fail?”

You get the idea. These questions have been amplified over the course of the last year because 3D printing for tabletop has absolutely exploded due to Covid-19. In short, companies have had issues manufacturing and distributing models to their consumers. While consumers themselves couldn’t go to their local game store and buy models. This resulted in a mega boom of digital model availability and users wanting to 3D print. However many consumers jumping into the hobby were not expecting that 3D printing is not always a plug-n-play experience, resulting in the magnitude of questions.

While asking questions is not a bad thing and I vastly encourage it and one of the purpose of this site is to grow to become a place to find answers. The vast multitude of repeated questions indicates one main trend…

Many do not realize that 3D printing is a hobby much like miniature painting. It requires time, study, determination and most importantly practice. Not all hobbyists are at the same skill set. Not all printers or materials have the same capabilities. With a large variety of programs and settings how does one approach the hobby? Should it be approached with the scientific method of trial and error of slow changes? Or is there no real “right answer” and final product resulting from your individual personal taste or rather a production of art?

This now leads to the question on my mind: Is 3D Printing a Science an Artform or just Plain Luck?

While it might not seem to actually matter, I find this1 subject wildly interesting. Much like miniature painting there is a significantly noticeable difference between my very first print and one of my most recent ones. Personal growth and improvement are obviously evident.

  • First Ever Print August 2018
  • One of the Most Recent Prints August 2021

So what has changed between the two images above? The largest difference is probably in the printer used, a publicly available $180 printer Anet a8 and my personal $700 Prusa mk3s. However I could also argue the growth in knowledge with improvements to slicing software (software used to generate printing code) as well as my rapid growth of knowledge of the settings within these programs. There is also a very very important role and understatement of the importance of practice.

When is Science & Testing Important?

3D Printing is very is well known for its vast settings and available materials you should use when producing your product. Slowly changing variables and acknowledging the slight variations helps me as a hobbyist narrow down what is my preferred best result. As someone who went to university as a Chemist the scientific method and note keeping are my strengths. The power of observation plays a significant role in being able to grow and adapt to improved printing.

One primary way to slowly build and modify is the use of varying calibration tests such as that seen below. This series of tests was used to specifically test different geometric supporting structures to hold up your prints.

FDM Support Calibration Testing

FDM is not the only type of printing where I constantly test and explore. Iteration can be key in attempting to get the perfect print such as that using various exposure times on my resin printer.

Sometimes setting modifications are not enough. There are times that using a different material or brand can drastically impact both print quality and success as seen by the owlbear below. I noticed significantly more issues printing using Elegoo ABS-Like Resin with improved experiences using Epax Hard Grey resin.

Epax Hard Grey Resin (left) vs Elegoo Abs LIke resin (right)

Overall you could easily argue that testing and experimentation are crucial to improving the quality of your printing as apart of the hobby of 3D printing.

What about the Art?

In many ways the quality of your 3D print and its final appearance is dependent on the incredible collection of artists & sculptors the community has to offer. It is significantly noticeable and evident both in the final quality but also the success rate of your print job if that modeler is familiar with the technology you are using.

Let me explain. Not all 3D artists are used to creating art for 3D printing. Some come from different backgrounds such as game design and are working towards adapting that knowledge into the 3D printable space. These artists may not know all the intricacies, restrictions, and considerations when designing a model for a 3D printer. Likewise not all artists design with FDM printing in mind or resin for that matter. There are wide splits in the community in the as to what is best but there are also modelers out there specifically designing with specific technologies in mind.

Lets take two examples.

On the left for the image below you will see three skeletons. These skeletons are from the Dragonlock Miniature collection and made by Fat Dragon Games. These models are designed to print completely supportless on an FDM printer and be easy for someone using filament to produce miniatures for their tabletop game. You can see that all the objects like shields build from the capes or legs as ways to cheat the need of using supports. These models are also thicker in their arms and weapons to accommodate larger nozzle sizes and the mechanical restrictions of FDM printing. (Want to see more supportless Dragonlock miniatures? Check out the Dragonlock Miniature Kickstarter project I 100% printed).

For the example on the right you will see my wizard for my upcoming Frostgrave game. This miniature produced by Miniatures of Madness is obviously designed for resin miniatures. There are details on this figure that are so fine that I cannot express the difficulty of trying to get them to come out on my FDM printer. Printed using my Sonic Mini 4K you can see incredible detail in the shoulder pads, chains on the robes, and even a book floating in the air and held together with thin magical essence coming from his hands.

  • Dragonlock Miniature Skeleton (Filament)
  • Hold My Dwarf, miniatures of madness (resin)

These two comparisons show you the vast difference in goals and vision for their art in 3D printing that is capable. Because of the difference in goals the final version, model style, and print appearance are different because they knew the capabilities and restrictions of the method they wish to produce their models.

Now before I get people commenting down below that resin is the only way to produce miniatures or better choice. I want to stress the importance of Art. Each and every hobbyist has a different vision for their projects, its uses, as well as constraints when printing figures, terrain, buildings, etc. Also while some are designed for one method of production it does not mean it can’t be made both ways.

I recently have been test printing for the Lost Adventures Volume 3 Kickstarter: Uncharted Lands. As a test printer I am asked to sometimes print in filament or resin or in rare instances both. In this example below I have printed two kobolds from the Kobold Coalition. One is in filament and one is in resin. While an experienced hobbyist can tell which one is which most will not be able to especially with paint and on your tabletop. If the purpose of your hobby is to play on a table does it matter which way it was created?

Filament (light grey left) vs Resin (dark grey right)

Much like creating art with crayons vs oil paints there are considerations as to cost, durability, ease of use etc. For example I absolutely love my filament based miniatures because they are more durable and safer for my one and a half year old son to handle. While in the same breath I love my resin miniatures as a way to produce more models in the same amount of time with incredible detail.

The image and desire of final product will drastically influence the method and direction I approach a print.

Why Can’t It Be a Bit of Both?

Here lies the crux of my reflection. 3D printing isn’t just scientific and you can’t just create the most perfect artistic piece. I do not believe that you can just brute force yourself into the hobby in only one method. To truly become an expert and master I believe that a good balance between the two aspects of art and science must be achieved.

As someone who is constantly trying to learn and grow I admit to needing to approach my hobby with more artistic flair rather than pure mechanical perfection. Reading the numerous questions about the hobby space continues to provide insight as to the perspectives of others and can still teach me things.

It is not always easy to reflect on the elements and things to work on and improve in my hobby but has been an interesting thing to think about.

Conclusion

While I don’t think there is a perfect conclusion to this post and the answer to the question “Is 3D printing an artform or science” is different for everyone. I’m curious as to your thoughts about the hobby space. If you don’t 3D print what is your opinion from the outside looking into the hobby? What would you consider it to be? If you do print how to do you approach the hobby?

I am currently approaching the hobby in a super fascinating way which is pushing the limits of my understanding. While I’m not quite ready to mention it here yet, I can’t wait to share with you my experiences. I have about a week or so to go before the Frostgrave campaign officially starts, and I am racing towards the finish line to paint up the warbands in time.

What is on your hobby table? Working toward something fun?

As always, Happy Hobby,
Carrie aka Crazmadsci the Crazy Mad Scientist

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crazmadsci Skills

Contrast Paints: Understanding Their Usage

Last week I posted I paint job of the Hill Giant Tyrant Ogi Skullcrusher and my experimentation for painting skin. While it was setting my baseline for skill and observing room for improvement when painting skin I also really wanted to finish the model.

Since I already spent quite a few painting sessions on the miniature and already am behind schedule in painting my Frostgrave game with over 15 miniatures over the next month I decided to try in more detail the usage of citadels contrast paints. I am still very much new to using contrast paints and acknowledge a lot to learn. However here are some of my first experiences and observations using the paint.

What Are Contrast Paints?

Contrast paints are a paint formulated by Games Workshop to help assist new painters or even those who choose to speed up their painting process. Contrast paints are designed to base coat, shade and highlight the miniature in a single coat and most commonly used over a light undercoat. By suppling so many steps in a single application it can help a novice painter glaze over some technical steps and save valuable time going back to apply multiple coats or even colors to achieve similar effect.

The largest benefit of these paints can be used in tandem with a zenithal highlight (light color prime over a dark like the sun is shining at its zenith). Contrast Paints appear similar to a wash or shade but also appear somewhat thicker to allow for full coverage in painting the model.

While there are other companies who have created paint similar to the contrast paint, access to Games Workshop paints are widely available in my area and are considered by some to be the best of their type.

My Bias

Since the release of contrast paint in 2019 into the hobby space, I admit I’ve avoided buying and using a them. Having watched many YouTube channels during their release reviewing the product line the consensus was along the lines of interesting but not necessarily valuable to the experienced painter. You see the market of contrast paint was aimed towards the new painter as a way to do several painting techniques in one; base coat, shade, and highlight. Why would a experienced painter want to use them? An advanced painter has significantly more control and finesse doing these things the old fashioned way. As for me, why would an aspiring painter use them if it takes away from the practice of other techniques. I aim to grow not necessarily avoid tasks.

Over time however I’ve begun to notice an increase of usage of contrast paints in various applications for people. Many paint models for their games and are absolutely happy with the tabletop standard contrast paints provide. There is a growing category of people who have begun to use contrast paint as a unique tool in various situations providing yet another SKILL to use rather than a shortcut. Due to the increase in the latter I’ve decided to over come my prejudice and try them for myself.

I will also admit the that cost of contrast paint is something that has turned me off over time as well. Contrast paint can be roughly 40-50% more in cost than a standard container of paint.

My First Use of Contrast Paint

I was inspired to use contrast paint for the very first time during my woodworking deep dive color palette test. I saw several people in the painting community painting wooden objects such as doors and barrels with contrast. I absolutely loved how they turned out and asked “What was your process?” “Did you use a particular color?” The response: Contrast Paint.

Since contrast paints are commonly referred to as a “transparent filter” I loved seeing the difference in behavior using the three different undercoats: white, gray, and black. The biggest difference was noticed in the Gore Gunta Fur Contrast Paint. With a white primer the paint appears more red as opposed to brown.

I absolutely loved these colors and to be honest testing contrast myself on these tavern tiles made me excited to use contrast paint in my arsenal for other projects.

Contrast paints tested for Wood painting deep dive

My First Real Application of Contrast

After the wood working testing and not knowing how I wanted to finish painting the Hill Giant after my experiment with skin I realized that there were three areas on the Hill Giant that I technically had contrast paint for: Wood, Leather, and Fur. This was the perfect opportunity to see the contrast paints in a real application for a three dimensional miniatures instead of a relatively flat base. This distinction is valuable as contrast paints are intended to help add shade to a model.

For this test I attempted to experiment with three different starting processes to see how they responsed and behaved.

  • Tree Trunk: this tree trunk is mostly white but technically a zenithal highlight and would represent the most default usage of contrast paint. This would ideally produce shadow and contrast upon the addition of the contrast paint.
  • Fur texture: I painted a light grey color as a uniform bright undercoat to see what would happen. With a consistent color and not preshaded. This would be most similar to the white primed Gore Gunta Fur painted base from above.
  • For the leather I wanted to try to use two pre toned colors and see if the contrast paint was transparent enough to be impacted by the contrast paint and therefore potentially produce two variants of leather.
Hill Giant Prepped for Contrast Paint

The Leather

When I applied the snakebite leather contrast paint to the leather you can absolutely see below that the contrast paint completely over powered the under coat color of the hill giant. There is zero indication that any work went into painting the leather differently. This was by far the most disappointing portion of my testing with contrast paints. In order to fully use them the way I want to in the future I will have to learn more methods to thin down the contrast paints or mix them to increase the variety of color and tones for the paint itself.

To help compensate for this singular hue in color I did end up dry brushing and a small amount of edge highlighting to try and get more of that worn leather look.

Close up to the Leather work after Drybrushing

Fur and Wood

Applying the contrast paint to the wood and leather also yielded interesting results for me. While the fur behaved approximately as expected with darker recesses and lighter tops the wood overall did appear very splotchy. While this works very well for a tree trunk as there is no uniform color to the bark of a tree I am left frustrated in the consistency of the paint and my skill working it. I found the paint pooling in locations and not applying in a smooth layer. Again learning how to thin out the paint would be ideal.

Highlighting

At this state of using contrast paint I was largely disappointed. I know I am not the most skilled of painters but was frustrated that I could not move the paint in the direction I wanted to go and could not anticipate the results. Which is of course silly because the whole purpose of using these paints was to see how they behaved and to learn and grow.

Deciding to move forward and see what would happen I decided to apply more dry brushing and highlights to the contrast areas of the model in order to get more areas to pop and add variety of color. I added some of my original light gray color to the fur and some light brown to the tree. Overall I am really happy. I do and think overall there is much more life to the model and applying highlights yourself over the contrast paint is a necessity.

Perhaps I just need to learn more to add skills of contrast paints to my arsenal overall? What else could I have done?

Hill Giant with Highlights

Painted Hill Giant

In the end I am really happy with this model and the quality of its paint job. This is a fantastic tabletop standard piece and looking at it across the room brings a smile to my face. There is always aspects of any project you want to grow upon but in the end I think this figure is a great representation of my current skill and knowledge.

I also am really happy with the usage of some vallejo earth texture paste and a mixture of grass toughs to add final touches to the base. I tried to add the tuffs in between the rocks where grass or shrubbery would grow.

What’s Next?

While I have learned to no longer write off contrast paints and consider them a valuable tool. I definitely realize that I want to do more with them. Talking to some other hobbyists and watching more videos I realized that the use of Contrast Medium or some water will help thin down the contrast paint. I think perhaps the use of thinning down my contrast paint could help me unlock its potential. There is also different types of contrast paints. There is so much I can do and learn!

Maybe contrast paints deserve their own deep dive? Do you use contrast paints? What has worked for you and not? Lets start a dialogue to add this tool to our range of skills. How do you feel the model turned out?

As always Happy Hobbying.

~ Carrie the Crazy Mad Scientist

Hill GIant Painting: Skintones Base Line

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crazmadsci Deep Dive, Skills

Skin Deep Dive Part 1: Setting a Baseline

Recently on my hobby desk I picked out the Hill Giant Tyrant Ogi Skullcrusher from the Lost Adventures Volume 1 Kickstarter to paint. This was largely before I decided to dive into my Frostgrave series and I decided to attempt to work towards paining some of the models that I have printed. I refuse to call it a pile of shame but rather a collection of opportunity since I am really proud of my printed model collection. 2022 I’m looking at you as a major shift towards painting my backlog (already thinking of next years goals).

Hill Giant Printed Model

One of the things I wanted to do and focus on with this model was to set a baseline for myself and figure out what kind of questions I had when painting skin on models. You see in the past I have almost only used a flesh skintone paint and a wash in the past and call it done. This results in a glossy dirty finish of my miniatures. You can see the image below of some of my past painted models (2018-2021). Some of these represent models that I’ve painted perhaps only 20 miniatures ago (took a long break in 2019-2020) this does not include any of the terrain and building painting.

Previously Painted Figures

This collection showcases two 3D printed models and 3 figures from Reaper Bones. Other than the lack of depth of expression, and in the case of the bugbear on the far right any facial features painted what so ever. You can see I have quite a long way to go for improvement.

Other observations I can draw from these are a few things.

  • Even though I have painted very few models I feel as if my skill has grown tremendously
  • The skill sets and tools I have at my disposal for painting miniatures have grown.

So it is the perfect time to attempt to gauge my current baseline of skill for painting skintones. As I want to document my growth in the hobby more and current understanding to watch my growth of long period of time these baselines are incredibly helpful. I also attempted to dig more into contrast paints, how to use them and expectations of the paint but there is enough there that I am going to release a contrast paint deep dive part 1 from this model next Monday!

The Research

Around the time I really wanted to do more research around painting skin I was listening to a fantastic miniature painting podcast. I love to listen to and highly recommend: Paint Bravely the Podcast. In their July 5th episode “The Best Primer is NOT Black, White, or Grey” they discuss that using a red brown primer on models is great on showing the blood flowing through the figure. It is incredibly rare not to see a red or rosy hue on people of skins somewhere.

I also watch Squidmar Miniatures youtube and keep going back to one of his “Professional Painting Secrets – Squidmar Masterclass”. I have continuously watched the first 20 minutes of him painting the muscles of the bust. I really appreciate him breaking out into photoshop and explaining more about muscles. However in some ways I am still confused (more of that to come).

Regardless, this is a great spring board for me starting to do more.

The Inspiration

Now that I have more knowledge as to the mentality of painting skintones the second thing I struggle with is what colors to use. However as I was going through the Shadowfey Kickstarter updates for my Frostgrave buildings I noticed that they included a painting guide for the giants they released. I used their guide as the initial color reference and found paint similar in my collection although not perfect (thats ok).

Printable Scenery’s Giant used as inspiration

Paint In Progress

Using the Printable Scenery guide as a starting point I used paint conversion charts online to attempt to get as close as I could. The largest challenge for me is that I did not get a large chunk of time to paint and constantly had to remix the same tone since my workspace can dry out my wet pallete if i’m not careful and its been incredibly dry lately. This is when my paint journal came in really handy, I would commonly paint small squares next to my “official” mix to see how it compared before placing on the model. If you don’t keep a paint journal I highly recommend it. You can actually see all my “test” mixes next to the original as tiny dots clustered around a main one. I really struggled with my mix when I started using Elf Skintone.

For the very first base layer I used Citadel’s Deathclaw Brown, Terracota & Scarlet Red from Vallejo Game Color. I attempted to mix it so that way it had a strong red brown tone and after painting it on the model I actually really loved it. It felt like I already had great variable of the skin tone and a color I really appreciate.

Layer 1 (Mix #1): Deathclaw Brown, Terracota & Scarlet Red

I then used this layer and mixed in more Deathclaw brown to lighten it up and painted on top. This was the beginning of my first area of confusion. Watching the Squidmar master class it showed that I was supposed to paint the lighter tone into the muscle recesses and use the dark I believe only for the underside of the muscle. This is what I attempted here but do think it was the beginning of just “dark in the recesses” painting behavior.

Layer 2 (mix #1): Mix #1 + Deathclaw brown

I began to then continue building up and attempt to slowly paint less and less on the model to give it a better transition. This time my mix included the Vallejo Game Color Elf Skintone

Layer 3 (mix 3): Mix #2 + Elf Skintone

I then built up two more layers and the 5th layer was barely applied.

Layer 4 & 5: Elf Skintone & mix of Elf Skintone and Beast Hide

At the end of the skin I was torn on using a wash and for the sake of this experiment I decided against using a wash. Perhaps it would have lent itself to more depth? I have been attempting to improve my skills with layering and am finding myself using washes less on my paint jobs. I will definitely need to back to using shades and washes and attempt to use them in more sophisticated ways.

There was definitely a small bit of painting fatigue due to the number of painting sessions this took, getting large chunks of time to paint is really hard with small kids. While I would have liked to put more time on his skin I was happy. Also the six foot rule for how it would look on a game table told me it looks awesome enough to play with. The one benefit there is that the more definite and darker muscle is visible across the table and showcases him well.

Quick Reference

One thing I made for future reference was a handy quick reference of my layers, its overall transition, and ratios of paint mixed in my painting journal. I actually really loved how it came out and let me know if this would be useful for you and if I should continue to include my reference guides.

  • Hill Giant Skintone Reference Guide

Painting After Skin

After I finished painting his skin I still felt the need to experiment. The first experiment that I did was to see how I felt about using a blue linen or leather on his waist.

After throwing on some paint I realized it was absolutely not what I wanted on my model. Also thanks for the conversations and ideas from the 3D Printed Tabletop Discord.

I decided to revert back and paint his clothes a classic leather color. I wanted to showcase two colors of cloth with a reddish fur. So instead of trying a new color I decided to try some of my contrast paints which I do not have as much experience with. However II think a conversation about my obversions and questions around contrast paints deserve their own separate discussion, stay tune for next week on that!

Areas of Improvement

As for the skin there are definitely areas where I feel like the darker recesses on the model are too thick and transitions too short. I feel as if I should have had more visible transitions. Several of my middle layers such as #2 and #3 are not nearly as visible.

The lighter color paint and layers definitely overpower the red hue of rich living flesh I was going for. While I did end up with a Caucasian skintone it was not as rosy or red hue as I wanted. This made me remember at the very end that I should have used more of a glaze of thinner consistency which would help the transistions as well.

Lastly I realized I have no idea how some muscles of the human body actually work. For example I had no idea how to appropriately paint his back and hands. You can see that the transitions in muscles are very thick, not as well definite and look kind of goofy.

In progress shots of back and hand

Finished Image

While I do admit I need to take more photos of this guy I am extremely happy with his final result. Check it out and let me know what you think. Biggest highlight is that these are probably the best eyes I’ve ever painted.

What’s Next?

I definitely want to continue focusing on improving my knowledge and experiment a whole lot more with different skin tone colors and also increase the amount of diversity in my models. Learning more about the skin of different people around the globe is going to be a ton of fun and I want to see if I can truly capture peoples heritage in color.

Next step in this experiment is my testing of different base colors for undead flesh before I paint models for the Necromancer Warband.

As always Happy Hobbying.

~ Carrie the Crazy Mad Scientist

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