Anyone have hands on experience with 3D printing that can give some real world cost/effort comparisons to just buying premade stuff?
If you're only going to print a few pieces here and there, 3D printing isn't worth it. But if you're really into terrain (as I am
), then long term it's definitely more cost effective to print your own stuff. I believe the estimate for a standard dungeon wall tile from Dragonlock (Fat Dragon Games) is about 40 cents. Plus, if you need a single piece you can easily print it as opposed to buying a set (if that's the only way to get it).
There is the upfront cost for the STLs, but again, cheaper than buying pre-made terrain. Kickstarters, Patreons, sales, etc. help bring those costs down as well. As for the printer cost, that varies quite a bit and depends on how much tinkering you want to do. My preferred printer company is Prusa (my current printer is a Prusa MK3), but they can be pricey (~$900-$1000 for a pre-built, though that includes shipping from the Czech Republic). The most popular filament printer right now is probably the Ender 3, which you can get from Amazon for like $200-$300. It's a good printer, though it requires more work/maintenance than Prusa, so I prefer the latter which is essentially "fire and forget". But again, whether Prusa or Ender, in the long run it's still cheaper if you use it a lot.
The big downside with printing your own terrain is you obviously need to paint it yourself. When I bought Dwarven Forge in the past I'd always go for the pre-painted versions since I found the additional cost (compared to unpainted) to be definitely worth it. Though painting terrain generally isn't nearly as involved as painting figs (and can usually be done with cheap craft paints and dollar store brushes).
Miniatures are a little different. Conventional wisdom is that you print terrain with filament since it's cheaper and you don't need as much fine detail. For miniatures, you want a resin printer, with at least 4K resolution. You can get decent results with some figs in filament, but the model really needs to be designed for filament printing, plus you really need your printer settings to be dialed in just right. Resin printing gives great results, but there a lot more caveats:
- The toxicity of the liquid resin requires a lot more overhead in terms of PPE, venting fumes, etc.
- Resin prints need additional curing after the printing is done; filament just pops off your build plate and is good to go (though it may need a little cleanup).
- Resin is more expensive than filament.
- Resin printers are more expensive than filament generally, and checking Amazon the prices not only have gone up a lot of the printers are out of stock.
The other thing to keep in mind that is that the cost of individual STLs for resin figures is often as high or higher than the cost of an individual figure from a company like Reaper. I would say the quality of most resin figures is probably on par with Reaper's Bones Black or maybe Bones USA lines. But the typically cost for one STL is about $5, which is actually about the same as Bones Black (Bones USA is a little higher). If you buy a Reaper fig in the store, other than maybe cleaning some flash lines, you're done. With a resin STL you have to go through the process of slicing, printing, washing, and curing before you can get it to the point where you can paint it. And that's assuming the supports worked properly
Not trying to discourage resin printing - I love my Sonic Mini 4K and the results you can get are incredible. There are STLs out there that you just can't find from the physical miniature brands, and we're spoiled for choice. It's just that resin printing has a lot more to be aware of than filament.
Well, that was a lot
Hope that's helpful!