Casting plastics and taking names.

[arntisdale]

Hello all, new to the forums, just recently grabbed HeroQuest + Kellar's Keep & RotWL on ebay for a fair chunk. Ye Olde Inn is a treasure trove for HQ!

I've been looking at those Minis 3d sculpts too, and was wondering if anyone else has checked them out? Some of them look good, and others look like their lacking some detail. I'm interested in getting some minis from the expansions that I don't have. I don't have original expansion pieces to compare them to, just the game system pieces, so I'm not sure how well they compare. Getting the actual original expansions seems like it will be near impossible and/or cost thousands. It looks like I'd be able to get pretty much all the minis the expansions would need for around $400, but I just haven't talked myself into it yet because... well... it's $400.

If anyone that actually has some of these original minis could take a look and let me know what they think, that would be appreciated.

Also, if anyone here is doing quality 3d printing, or plastic casts and wants to share what they might have available for sale, I'm interested.
Essentially, I'm looking for a full set of all the expansions I don't have, plus a couple extra of the main expansion pieces for my own quests.
... and because minis are cool...

[Kurgan]

I see a ton of plastic 3d printed minis on etsy. Many of them are really low res, or (despite being cheaper than the real thing) a bit expensive. For around $210 you can get essentially the expansion minis, but are they worth it? The pics make me think of those "Put them in water and they GROW!" toy figures from the 80s... they look like puffy or melted versions of the originals in many cases. I know folks have been saying the EQP & BQP had poorer quality sculpts than the original Games Workshop sets, but still...

the various "alternate poses" for the original Heroquest heroes are kind of cool but I wonder how well they look for real (not just the 3d models depicted). And as much as I would love to have a complete set of official (or cast original) Ogres, honestly I think there are better looking Ogres out there (I love the ones from the Reaper Bones line).

As for Reaper bones, that is the route I have gone when I can't find original. My picks for:

Female Barbarian: Ingrid, Female Viking

Female Elf Deladrin, Female Assassin

Even though this figure looks "closer" to the original in some ways, I think the above is way cooler, each to their own:

Aeris, Female Elf Ranger

In this thread I have my picks for the other replacements from among the Bones collection... The main figure that's hard to find a good match for without doing custom modification, is the Frozen Horror himself. The 3d prints of him I've seen so far look a lot less menacing.

[lestodante]

I know folks have been saying the EQP & BQP had poorer quality sculpts than the original Games Workshop sets, but still...

The problem is that they are smaller than the original figures and also the 2 American expasion weren't scanned at a decent quality so they are really missing a lot of details. It is better to buy a resin casting or a metal casting than a 3D printed version for this figures.

[Kurgan]

Isn't resin brittle, like ceramic? I don't have any experience with those. I'm used to tossing my miniatures onto the floor after they're defeated, so I wondered... j/k, but still, I've heard of stuff breaking just from being transported, and considering how many small bits minis tend to have, that doesn't sound good.

[lestodante]

it depends on the quality of the resin. It is similar to plastic/ABS.

[Kurgan]

So I risked it and got a few sample minis off of etsy in resin. I see a few imperfections, but overall they are pretty high quality in terms of detail, approaching that of the originals! They feel a little bit more like hardened clay than plastic (I wasn't going to do a full stress test, but there is a little bit of give in the swords for example, I wasn't sure if it was going to just come off in my hands and it didn't), and the bases have sprue/printing residue on them and some warping (on the base only, I guess you could carefully saw that off and re-base them). I have heard that if you put them in boiling water it weakens the resin and can cause breakage, so I avoided that and just cleaned them with dish soap and cold water. Very impressed so far. I've seen pictures of the 3d Printed scanned minis and they look terrible in comparison, agreed. What a neat way to make customs though, or top off your "army." The next step is to see how they take paint. I've never had to prime before, I wonder if I should? The hardest part seems to be the shipping price and time, but unless you have your own printer, this is the next best thing.

With the STL files (or whatever) the owner/author can modify them in their 3d program, rather than having to cast new body parts from scratch or saw pieces off of other figures and try to merge them on with green stuff, so that's cool.

This is definitely head and shoulders above the usual 3d printed plastic minis I've seen thus far. Price wise they're a little bit more expensive than say, Reaper Bones (plastic) miniatures of similar size per unit, which isn't bad.

[Pancho]

I concur Kurgan. I just got the Fimir shaman from Etsy, and if she is anything to go by, they are very nice miniatures.

I also agree that shipping costs and waiting times are a bit off putting, but I would use Etsy again if I wanted specific miniatures missing from my collection.

[Kurgan]

Yeah and if I recall correctly, the printers that can put out that kind of quality cost around $2500 (plus materials, which of course for that price you might as well track down the rare originals if that is what you are after), so it's a bargain if you're just planning to get a few figures. If they paint well, that's one less rare original that will be painted!

[monnock777]

Yeah and if I recall correctly, the printers that can put out that kind of quality cost around $2500 (plus materials, which of course for that price you might as well track down the rare originals if that is what you are after), so it's a bargain if you're just planning to get a few figures. If they paint well, that's one less rare original that will be painted!

With the home 3d printing you can see the layer line, like Kurgan stated, unless you spend the money for a professional level 3d printer you're not going to get as good of quaility miniatures.

[Kurgan]

on the other hand, if you're going to paint them, you can cover some of the flaws, and if you just want a big army and quality is less important to you, then its a cheap solution. Certainly easier than carving them out of wood or modeling them out of clay and a bit cooler than printing out 2D images.

I wonder if there is some kind of soft material you could rub those 3d prints down with to minimize the print lines, like maybe acrylic putty? Not too much or you'd lose detail of course.