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Fantasy miniatures 3d printing


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Best Way to Get Miniature 3D Printing Files (D&D, Warhammer)

So you got yourself a sweet resin printer and now you are ready to print some miniatures for Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer or your favourite skirmish game. The problem is: you do not have any files to print!

In this article, I go through how to get some good miniature 3D printing files. I explain what you should avoid and what you should look for and I tell you the best place to acquire miniature 3D printing files for your specific needs and use case.

Note: I am not sponsored or affiliated with any of the sites or creators mentioned in this post. I am merely a person that use those services and these are my opinions on what is best.

Places where you can get miniature 3D printing files

So there are quite a few options when it comes to getting your hands on miniature 3D printing files. The files are either free, something you buy on-demand, part of a subscription model, or part of a Kickstarter bulk deal.

The sites and places where you will get the files will be via the following types:

  • A Patreon subscription where you pay each month to receive a batch of miniature 3D printing files.
  • Websites where a specific company are selling their miniature 3D printing files
  • Platforms where you can buy files from various companies and sculptors.
  • Kickstarters where you buy a big bundle of 3D files.

Each method of acquiring miniature 3D printing files has various benefits and drawbacks. What works best for you depends on your use case. If you have no idea what to print, check out this page with 3D printer project ideas.

This is how I get my miniature 3D printing files:

  • I am a subscriber of various monthly Patreons. I have picked those subscriptions because they provide the style of sculpts that I like and because they give me a steady stream of miniatures of a qualitry I know I can trust each month. Sometimes the theme of the miniatures of the month is not to my liking – then I can either pause my sub or just stick with regardless. The amount of miniatures you get via these subscribtions is high and the cost is low. They are often very good quality.
  • At times I might have a specific need for a miniature for say my Dungeons and Dragons party. I will go to one of the platforms and search for the miniature I need and buy that specific file. It can also happen that I find a free one I like, but it is quite rare.
  • At times I will also invest in a Kickstarter what types ofr miniatures I like. As an example I have done that with the Titan Forge Miniatures Kickstarters and the Kickstarter for Hagglethorn Hollow to get some good terrain. These Kickstarters are most of the time a good bargain, but in most cases you will need to wait to recieve your files. But it can be a good way of building up a quick library of files for printing.

The type of miniature 3d printing files you need and the quality of the files

So what you are looking for are STL files that you can print on your printer (preferably a high-quality resin printer). If you do now know what else to do, our beginner’s guide to 3D printing miniatures will likely help you out a ton.

Get 3d printing files with supports ready made

If you want to make it as easy as possible on yourself, you should get miniature 3D printing files that come with “supports” already made in the file. The supports are there to make sure the print goes smoothly and nothing breaks off. If supports are not made for you, you will have to make them yourself. Not only is this time-consuming, but if something goes wrong with the print it might be the supports did you messed up (this leaves you with more things that can go wrong and more things you need to test to figure out the problem). I just hate doing supports, so I almost never buy files that are not pre-supported.

Bought vs free 3D printing files

You might have noticed in my description above that I rarely look for free files. There are two reasons for that:

  1. Free 3D files are often sculpted by amateurs that are just creating the 3D sculpt for fun or trying to get better. While this is cool, it also means that the finished result will most likely not look super good. With the sheer abundance of extremely good looking miniatures you can print, I think this is a bad option. For me, low quality sculpts leads to a poor painting experience.
  2. Free files will most likely not have supports on them when you get them. So while they are free, they are more time consuming to print.
  3. If you print big miniatures (think monsters) they are going to use up a lot of resin. If you buy premium 3D printing files they will most likely hollow the model for you, making you save quite a bit of resin and money in the long run.

There are of course exceptions to the rule. As an example, these 3D printing files for Dungeons and Dragons miniatures are free and super awesome!

Good Patreons for getting miniature 3D printing files

Patreon is my favorite way of getting my miniature files. I just love that steady stream of miniatures each month and it forces me to paint types of models I would never otherwise have touched. Below are some of my current favorite Patreons. This is by no means an exhaustive list (just go search on Patreon yourself).

All Patreons below do it in sort of the same way: each month you are a member you get access to a new batch of 3D printing files in a particular theme. If you want something from the old months, most of them sell it via Myminifactory (usually at a discount for Patreons). Most Patreons will also have some sort of welcome package with minis in it. It is possible to see, from the Patreons open posts, what the miniatures for the current month is.

Totally not a Stormcast EternalA Stormcast Eternal from age of Sigmar

I have on purpose not included any Patreons that borders way too close on any copyright infringement stuff. The images above are an example of what I would consider cutting it way close to stealing from an IP (the one is a Patreon selling his files the other is a Stormcast Eternal from GW).

If you just want a big old list of a lot of creators / studios making 3D printing files: this list is great!

Titan Forge Miniatures August 2020 release

Titan Forge Miniatures

Titan Forge Miniatures are by far my favorite Patreon for my miniature 3D files need. I recently went through my collection of files and I can see that I own every one they have made (Patreon and Kickstarter).

For me, they make a perfect combination of miniatures. I really like their style of sculpts. Some say they are bit blocky or bland, but I guess I just like them!

Titan Forge Miniatures September 2021 release

Each month they have a theme and the miniatures are made with that theme in mind. You get terrain and miniatures in that theme + a few heroes for use in say Dungeons and Dragons. I use them for making warbands for skirmish games, for DnD miniatures, and even to add units for my Warhammer armies.

For me, it is a good combination of big miniatures and smaller miniatures, monsters, and humonaids. They do not do busts, so if that is a must you are better off looking elsewhere.

Welcome package included.

Some of my favorite months of Titan Forge have been the Vampires and The Tavern (see images)

Titan Forge Miniatures May 2020 release

Titan Forge Miniatures Patreon

Titan Forge Miniatures Myminifactory shop

Artisan Guild release

Artisan Guild

Artisan Guild produces some very high-quality miniatures and their Patreon is super popular. For me, I only sub when it is something I really like. Each month is less diverse in what models you get, as it is very much the same style of the model with different weapons and loadouts.

Each release they do follow a specific pattern with 6 modular models, 4 special models (many times cavalry), 2 heroes, 1 boss or epic thing and some terrain.

They also have a welcome package.

Artisan Guild release

You can check out each month’s release via their Youtube Channel as well.

Artisan Guild Patreon

Artisan Guild Myminifactory shop

Archvillain Games

Archvillain Games is another super popular Patreon with monthly releases. These are a bit more grim dark and focus more heavily on monsters. If that is your jam, I can highly recommend them. They are perfect for a Dungeon Master trying to spruce up their collection with some nasty minis!

As is custom, they include a welcome package with minis. Also, as you can see from the images, they are very good at rendering the 3D files in a way so they look really good!

Archvillain Games Patreon

Archvillain Games Myminifactory shop

Punga Miniatures February 2021 release

Punga Miniatures

Punga Miniatures makes miniature 3D printing files designed for use in “Fantasy Football” (read: alternative teams for Blood Bowl). Some of the miniatures I really like, others are a bit off. They are more hit and miss, so this is a subscription I have on and off depending on the teams coming out. They mostly split the teams they release up in several different parts, so to get everything for a team you might need to sub for 2-3 months (but there are a lot of extra for the team you get).

Punga Miniatures November 2021 release

If you are into Blood Bowl, this is definitely a way of getting good alternative models or Big Guy models that are not from games workshop.

Punga Miniatures Patreon

Punga Miniatures Myminifactory shop

Platforms / Sites where you can buy or find free miniature 3D printing files

There are a lot of platforms where various creators can sell their files or give them away for free. These are the ones you should know about if you are into miniature printing.

Myminifactory

Myminifactory is my favorite platform for buying single miniatures. Creators set up a shop and you can buy from all of them via one site and login. Most of the big Patreons are also on there selling their miniatures (and if you are a Patreon you can get a huge discount on earlier releases). The common theme here is high-quality bought miniatures. Compared to the other platforms, Myminfactory really caters for the miniature side of things (so not a lot of weird other 3D printing stuff).

It is a good place to discover new creators because you can more easily see all of the miniatures they have made. There are also frequent sales from various stores.

One of the greatest things is that the things you buy are connected with your user, so it gets easy to figure out what files you have and find the one you are looking for (or just browsing your own collection once you get a huge list of files). Some Patreons have also connected their monthly sub, so you also get access to the miniatures on Myminifactor (which is a blessing if you forget to download them before the month ends).

You can also join the “Tribe” of a particular store. Most of the time this works in the same way as joining a Patreon. Because I am used to using Patreon for other things, I have not tried the tribe method.

If you buy a lot of stuff via Myminifactory, they also have a subscription program. For me, it looks kinda weird, as it only gives access to buying 3D printing stuff cheaper.

They also have an app, but it seems worse than just using a browser (you cannot buy things in the app as an example).

Thingiverse

Thingiverse is one of those sites: you either hate or love it and most people will mention it when they talk about 3D printing. The good thing is that everything on there is free. But it has a lot of stuff and most of it is not aimed at making good-looking miniatures. But you can find some gems on there, especially if you have a plastic printer as well. Not a place I would recommend you start, but once you get the hang of things (and can do manual supports), you can get some cool free stuff here.

Gambody site (maybe a biiit close to original models?)

Gambody

Gambody is a bit like Myminifactory, but the miniatures are less me style so have not used it much. The minis are all super high quality, so if that is your jam you can find some awesome things on there. Looking over some of the minis you will definitely see some that infringe on copyright (hello Space Marines), see yeah now you are warned. Most miniatures cost quite a lot on there, so definitely not a cheap option.

Cults3D

Cults3D is yet another platform for free and paid files. There is quite a lot of trademark and IP infringement on there, so if that is your thing it is likely one of the good places for you.

Pinshape

Pinshape does not have a lot of the things I am looking for, but it has some good ones. Not super miniature focused.

3DWargaming

If you are not into fantasy or sci-fi stuff, 3DWargaming might be your jam. The historical miniature aspect is not something we spend a lot of time on here on the site, but that is mainly because none of us actually play it.

Hero Forge

Hero Forge is a slightly different beast. You make custom miniatures that they can ship to you or that you can print Hero Forge miniatures yourself.

Wargame Vault

Wargame Vault is great if you are into historic wargaming.

Thingiverse

Thingiverse is the place your grandparents know you can get free 3D printing files. Mostly for FDM printers and not a lot of mini specific things. A lot of free stuff, but beware of super crappy files.

Thangs

Thangs is an agregrated search thing, where it find files from other websites. Pretty neat.

Websites where you can buy miniature 3D printing files

Loot Studios February 2022

Loot Studios

Loot Studious do a “Patreon like” subscription service, but just through their own website. That has some pros and cons, but I tend to subscribe on the months when I think there is something good. The price is a bit higher than other subs, but the quality is also a bit higher. Can totally recommend them, really like what they do.

The minis come in a small scale and a big scale and the big miniatures are hollowed out beforehand (saving you resin).

Printable Scenery

I have bought a few things in the past from Printable Scenery on backed some of their Kickstarters. I think the sculpts are awesome and they have a host of different designs. I think the price is a bit on step site, so I always buy from them in bulk or via a discount.

Waylayer

Waylayers sells sci-fi wargaming terrain. Not my thing right now, so I have not tried them

Storing and managing your 3D printing miniature files

So I just took a look at my folder with all 3D printing files. At is closing in on 300GB and I actually think I have quite a small collection. 3D printing files can be huge and once you get a lot it can be hard to manage. So from the start, you need some sort of system or else you can quickly get in trouble ( I know i messed up and lost a lot of files).

You need a system my friend!

A way of storing all your files

So most places will just let you download the files and store them however you want. While that is cool, it also means that they are not storing them for you. This is the case with most Patreons – which also means that you need to make sure you download the files for the month or they might be lost to you forever. Also, if you lose your files they are lost.

At first, I just uploaded my files to google drive or whatever. It quickly become clear that I needed way more space than any clod service could provide for a good price.

So right now I have settled for the following option (which works out great):

  1. Store it on a big hard drive (speed is not that important here, but size is) on my pc. I have a solid folder structure with a lot sub-folders for each Patreon, the month and so on. Should be easy to find what you need when you need it.
  2. Do a backup of computer with Backblaze (as I also create content it is the best way to backup A LOT of data). Backing up unlimited amounts of data is the key here.
  3. Do manual backup once in a while and store it on a big external harddrive and store that drive somewhere safe.

A way of knowing what miniatures you have acces to via files

So one thing is to have a good system in place for storing the files, another thing is to browse the files. I find it best to have images of all the files I own, preferably rendered in a nice way (the ones you get from the Patreon subs are very ideal). Right now I store mine in Google Photos, just because it is easy to browse every miniature I can print and I can easily send a link to the images if I need to share it with someone else.

Other great resources:
  • 3D printing miniatures guide
  • Best 3D printer for miniatures

Author's miniature robot "Goliath" for wargame.

Hello, dear readers of the portal 3D Today.

Today I would like to tell you about the use of a 3D printer, which helped to realize my modest creative potential.

Since childhood, like most boys, I loved to play with soldiers. But everything changed when, in the 3rd grade, a classmate brought a set of miniatures from the Technolog company to the lessons. There was a small book called “Fantasy Battles. Ultra Status Rules. Real rules for real kids wargame 90's. This divided the children's perception of the game into "before" and "after". Now tactics, planning, an element of chance and excitement have appeared in games, because. The outcome of the fight was decided by a die roll. Then I got older, Fantasy Battles were replaced by Armored Infantry and Robogear, and then Warhammer 40,000 at all. And 3D printing helped me with this. Surely, some of you have already seen some of the early works dedicated to tabletop wargames.

It has been a long journey from buying a printer from a craftsman and struggling with its curvature and settings, first steps in Fusion 360, and finally to an independent project.

The history of the creation of the robot "Goliath" began, as it happens, quite unexpectedly. Quite by accident I came across in VK collections of sketches of various robots. I was hooked by these some of them by the unusualness of their forms and layout. Their functionality is rather controversial, but if you start digging further, then you can completely abandon Sci-fi robotics.

It was clear that they were made by one person, but the author was not signed. Later I learned that these were the works of the Japanese designer Izumo Jyuki.

I wanted to create something similar, but in a paramilitary version. I decided to create a port loader robot with crane arms, which was then modified for defensive purposes.

The same Fusion 360 served as a modeling environment. It fit perfectly. I didn’t make each detail a separate file, but simply began to sculpt, stepping back a little for each new detail. The elements of the joints themselves were made in the form of simple cylinders and holes that fit into each other (the gap between them is 0. 2 mm, but it turned out that a little more was needed). The scale was set by eye, taking into account the dimensions so that a person 32 mm tall could easily fit in the cockpit.

The result is this handsome:

according to the history of the wargame, this robot is common in areas of South Africa, the coast of which has suffered from human activity. The size of the stand has been increased to 65 mm.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2577122

I modeled the robot immediately taking into account its printing on an FDM printer, so it is designed to get the maximum print quality with a minimum of support.

Printed gradually with blue ABS Striplast.

Layer 0.1 mm;

240 degree extruder;

95 degree table;

Speed: 60 mm/s

Airflow 35%;

Followed by brushing with acetone, scraping off the softened layer with a scalpel, sanding and again with acetone.

Primed with Kudo spray universal primer. Surprisingly, she hid minor flaws and scratches, and the surface turned out to be pleasantly smooth.

Painted with acrylic budget paints from Decola and Stary Star.

The complete robot itself consists of 29 parts (including the stand). And oddly enough, 29 degrees of freedom.

I also wanted to achieve an "easy to build" effect, and made the robot so that it requires a minimum of glue from the player to assemble. The robot retains the possibility of partial posture adjustment even after complete assembly (7 degrees of freedom).

Also one of the significant advantages of this model is its modularity. And this is expressed not only in interchangeable weapons. If desired, you can use separate modules for arms, torso and running gear in other models of robots and quickly release various modifications.

So far, the basic model has boom arms for moving loads, as well as 3 weapon options (which can be combined with each other):

1) Typhoon rocket launcher. It can be equipped with anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles.

Mounted on the model with 2. 5 mm magnets.

2) Flamethrower. Anti-personnel flamethrower supplying a 2-component mixture.

3) Heavy machine gun. A machine gun with a cylindrical ammunition feed box for destroying lightly armored vehicles.

Why were these options chosen? Not just like that, but for reasons of game design. Firstly, they all have different ranges of destruction and different applications, and secondly, they are quite simple to install and manufacture, which is required by the history of this robot.

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And finally, a little history of the robot itself or, as the boarders say, the background (background):

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The creation of the Goliath robot was dictated by the severe need to get the cheapest possible military robotic system for the scattered colonies of the Alliance for Advanced Development .

After the second New Genesis War, the metropolis almost completely abandoned military support for small settlements, concentrating defense on its own capitals and largest factories.

Raiders and genomod attacks left the colonies little choice but to accept their fate or look for an alternative in the materials at hand.

The solution was to upgrade for combat needs loader robots with sufficient strength and reliability. Only the cockpit was armored, and the manipulators were upgraded to install various weapons.

Low speed and almost no armor make this robot too formidable, but hundreds of abandoned dock loaders are found all over the African coast, which means hundreds of Goliaths are waiting in the wings.

The result is this robot, which, I hope, will not be the last:

Civilian version:

Militarized version:

And in scale with a miniature of 32 mm:

Article for the contest 'My 3D printer', in the nomination 'Creative story about the use of an FDM printer'

Choosing the best 3D printer for printing miniatures

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