/diy/ - Do It Yourself

its so much easier and cheaper to make a mould and cast it man.

>>303173
true, but if I scan, then I can upload the results and share with you guys

I agree with you that they are expensive, but with the price of a 3d scanner you can buy an entire army

>>303193
true, but it is worth it if I share the scans with everyone, and 3d printers really aren't too expensive

>>303172
the quality of low level 3d printers isn't good enough for that level of detail.

Trust me, a 3d printer anywhere near good enough to create wargame figures will run you in the £10k+, repraps are good, but not at detail and have shit surface on that scale. The 3d scanner... well, i've seen a couple made from just cameras, but they literally CANT capture and sort of detail like the insides of belt buckles, just the gebneral sort of shape, so you'd lose all detail. From the expeirience ive had, warhammer is easiest to buy or make each soldier individually from greenstuff. BUT
If you do wanna do this... CAST THEM.

>>303218
how do we cast them? im very interested.

>>303319
>how do we cast them? im very interested.
My friend has done this a good deal.
You just need to practice making two-part molds out of blue silicone.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Two-Part-Silicone-Casting/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSH19G_6Yeo

>>303319
It's sorta nice GW is too cheap to put out metal anymore. When you get a box of figs, don't cut them out of the sprue. Look for the flash that shows where the mold line is. Follow that RTV silicone instructable, and cast with two part epoxy or something.

has anyone sold a self-cast warhammer figurine online?

is there anyway to tell a counterfeit from the real deal?

i assume matching the basic plastic color is the most important part

wait for this
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/formlabs/form-1-an-affordable-professional-3d-printer

>>303359

/tg/ has a shitload of image guides on casting figurines, judging from the close-ups of their counterfeit models they're practically indistinguishable from the real deal. The liquid plastic mix that they use is white, but you can get dyes to mix in to get that GW grey.

I'd post some image guides if I was at home.

>>303396
I'm pretty sure the just melting down the extra sprue bits will get the correct color on the molded minis.

On a side note, apparently casting your own is VERY illegal in the miniatures community.

For starters you'd be banned from competitive play. Hell I would have been fine with that except apparently you'd also be banned from playing in any Games workshop in store games which consists of most of the play many people ever see. And even if you were just to play among friends in homes...well apparently some of them are little bitches about it and would refuse to play with you because you didn't pay 400 dollars for what's basically a bucket of green army men. And these are kinda like magic cards. You don't really just build ONE army. You have extra shit to vary your army depending on what army you're against.

Let's not forget rule changes and shit that would force you to change your army.

Basically I thought about doing this after spending about 200 on a partial army and realizing that "Hey, hobbists have been casting their own little army men for decades. Why not just do that from the ones I have now!" And basically hearing my friends that do play not really wanting to play with me if I did that.

I'm so fucking glad I'm no longer an active nerd.

>>303732
if you cast yours from melted sprue, and the plastic was the right color, how would they ever tell the difference?

>>303732
you just have shit friends, similar situation , i had to no problems if someone would run a proxy deck of magic aganist me or just some cards, as long as it wasn't retarded shit like black lotus and the moxes.

but obviously if you want to play tourneys you gotta use the original ones.

Its there a 3d printer capable of replicating 25mm models? I'm thinking of opening a business that sells knock offs. Just locally though. I figured if I edit off the copyrighted bit I should be in a legal grey area

>>303783
>I figured if I edit off the copyrighted bit I should be in a legal grey area

Nope

>>303786
Okay, I want to do it and either hope I don't get caught or print generic models on demand. Also I already have 5K saved up for it.

>>303203
http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-Laser-3D-Printer-Stereolithography-at-Ho/
Fuck you, the sky is the limit.

>>303831
How about the cost efficiency?

>>303831
That's a really stupid design, you won't get much resolution, and the prints will take forever.

Get yourself a DLP projector, plastic vat capable of holding horrible nasty photopolymer, and a linear slide, and you've got a 3d printer that should have no trouble making miniatures.

Here's an example of one:
3dlprint.com

Only problem is that photopolymer you use to make the models is expensive.

As far as scanning goes, that's going to be difficult, especially for something as small and detailed as miniatures.

I doubt a cheap 3d scanner like a nextengine will be able to scan small figurines. You might be able to use a Roland MDX equipped with a touch probe, but that's going to be arduous and I'm sure you'll be able to get the resolution you need.

The absolute best way to scan these things that I can think of would be a micro CT scanner. Unless you are absolutely rolling in money, you will not be able to afford one.

However, you can usually buy access to them, at a rate of around $150 an hour and I'd say an hour would be enough to scan about 3 figurines. Though maybe you have some friend who has unfettered access to one of these machines?

Other than that, you could scan them destructively by casting them in clear block of resin, cutting off layer by layer, and taking a picture of each layer with a high resolution camera.

Also, IF you were going to do this casting would yield the best results for the least amount of money. The resolution is well within the means of /diy/ with some experimentation and devotion.

And if you were going to cast you should go out and get a brand box of miniatures that haven't been put together and cast the entire parts/sprue and all. Part of the reason they have specific parts in a specific sprue is due to the geometry of the part...by doing so you'll have a reusable negative that shouldn't be damaged when yanking the part out, basically you let the makers of the miniature figure out some of the hard parts. Also you can semi mass produce cheap knock offs and recoup your money.

Yeah any other time I'd be the white knight on here saying how bad it is to do shit like this because it's stealing...except Games Workshop is a goddamn monopoly and charges ridiculous prices. If it wasn't for GW this type of gaming would actually be VERY big except it's forced to just be a niche market due to the outrageous prices. We need this sort of civil disobedience to change the industry.

>>304136

how would you 'move' the counterfeits?
is ebay / amazon out of the question if all you are doing is selling already assembled and unpainted 'squads' ? im assuming if you sell unpackaged sprues , it would cause some questions to be asked?

>>303172
as a guy who's graduating on low-budget 3d printing, let me tell you its not worth the trouble. If you watn good copies of your minis, just make moulds, its much cheaper.
However, if you like to get into 3d printing or have loads of cash lying around, sure, go ahead. Though the most expensive part is going to be the 3d scanner..

The obvious choice for a 3d scanner is the NextEngine 3d.. it goes at $3000

>>303172
there is a veeeery cheaper and legal way to make a decent army:
conversions conversions conversions

grab youserlf some cheap historical minis (you can get 40 - 60 for 20€s) and make your own bits, cast them with a silicon and resin kit and BAM, instant awesome army for peanuts. It might not be legal on tournaments but if it's awesome no one will care on friendly games.

if you want to share stuff with us, then learn to make good moulds and sell them on the internet for delicious counterfeit goodness.

I would pay for a decent death korps of krieg infantry mould

I've used the far-right hand method with much success. It'll take a few tries to get it right, but once you do, it's like riding a goddamn bike.

Engineer-fag and standard nerd here!

Sorry OP but the technology isn't going to help you much here. Cheap 3D printers really don't produce the detail your going to want. For simple shapes you can post process the parts by abrasive blasting etc, but it really isn't practical on a 25mm figurine. You would probably get away with printing the big stuff, BUT (sorry) the material costs about 40c NZD per cm3 at industrial prices (so heaps more unless you can get a trade deal) and it'll take you a solid day to print a large model, plus probably the same to dress it up. Not really good bang for your buck.

As for 3D scanners, they actually take more skill and user input than you would expect. 3D scanners produce a mass of individual data points which you then need to knit together into a surface model, which to print then needs to be converted to a solid model. Again, the detail isn't up to much (on any machine that won't cost you $1000/hour to use).

BUT! (good one this time) there are actually lots of solid model files people have built for various reasons and are available on line. You will probably have to pay for them, but trust me, it's cheaper than building them yourself (unless you value you time at nothing). If you were to have a printer you were happy with.

As some people have said before, silicon molding is probably your best bet, although if your trying to sell them on the inter web, I' sure GW will happily sue you until your not a very happy nerd.

That said, prove me wrong! It'd be awesome to see it if you pulled it off!