[HN Gopher] The Year of the 3D Printed Miniature (and Other Lies...
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The Year of the 3D Printed Miniature (and Other Lies We Tell
Ourselves)
Author : sagacity
Score : 42 points
Date : 2025-12-29 16:57 UTC (6 days ago)
(HTM) web link (matduggan.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (matduggan.com)
| neonnoodle wrote:
| This was a very enjoyable read for me. I've never played 40K but
| have always been impressed with the craftsmanship and dedication
| of the community.
|
| I remember a lot of the early hype around 3D printing, most of
| which hasn't panned out where the consumer-hobbyist-level
| machines are concerned. My local game shop makes a lot of cool 3D
| printed stuff and sells it online or at cons, but even Etsy is
| now cracking down on prints of "commodity" STLs. IIRC under their
| new policy, you can't sell a print you didn't design yourself.
| This is ostensibly to cut down on the huge quantity of identical
| articulated toys.
|
| But the bigger takeaway (i.e., the kit car Ferrari analogy), is
| similar to how I've been thinking about AI image generation
| lately. You can walk down the streets of New York and buy a
| counterfeit Birkin bag or Rolex from a street vendor. Are
| knockoffs "disrupting" the market? I guess, in a way. But I think
| they also make the authentic item _more_ valuable by being so
| cheap and fake by comparison. AI-generated "Ghibli" pictures are
| the same.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > I remember a lot of the early hype around 3D printing, most
| of which hasn't panned out where the consumer-hobbyist-level
| machines are concerned.
|
| In my opinion people simply stopped following the big visions
| of that time and got satisfied with the current state of 3D
| printers instead of continuing to iterate on highly
| experimental designs that could bring the world nearer to these
| visions.
| fragmede wrote:
| Do they? The high quality fake Rolex that only a watch nerd can
| tell apart, vs the shitty fake Lolex are different worlds.
| Similarly, the AI fake Ghibli of myself is just fun. Would it
| mean more if if flew to Japan and commissioned a painter at
| Ghibli-world for $3,000 to make the same picture? Sure, but I'm
| not going to do that.
| gerdesj wrote:
| I remember when "Warty 40" was invented and largely supplanted
| Warhammer itself. I remember Citadel Miniatures and (A)D&D 1st
| editions, not to mention Traveler, Runequest, Tunnels and
| Trolls, Car Wars and many more. I was pretty decent at painting
| (quickly and accurately) and several kiddies used to pay me to
| get their latest regiment of space marines into action with the
| right colours. I went to a posh school and some of the kids had
| a lot more disposable income than me. I also had a lot more
| free time than I do now.
|
| Nowadays I own a 3D printer (Prusa 4S+ with nobs on upgraded
| from a 3) and an IT company.
|
| 16 year old me would have committed ... a minor crime ... for
| the printer but given that IT was a Commodore 64, I'm not sure
| how I would have driven the thing.
|
| However a 16 y/o me today with a 3D printer probably would be
| printing armies out of filament. I used to make plastic models
| too and saved up for several months to buy a double action air
| brush. My printer can churn out a small scale tank that rivals
| a Tamiya effort from back in the day. Some finishing is
| required but not much.
|
| I might have a go at some Warhammer models and see how it goes,
| just for old time's sake ...
| rozab wrote:
| This really is a fantastic piece of writing, one of the most
| entertaining I've read on HN
| aliclark wrote:
| This was a great read. It reminds me slightly of the book Alchemy
| by Rory Sutherland. I used to play Warhammer (Fantasy, not 40k)
| so it was really nice to reminisce.
| ndr42 wrote:
| A least the 3D printers today are great to print terrain, ruins
| and so on as a base for painting and decorating.
| iroddis wrote:
| This was a great read, and perfectly conveyed the combination of
| passion and anger of every WH player I've ever met has had.
|
| Given the time, it's hard not to view this same argument through
| the lens of AI. People who love crafting their creative works
| will still do it, even when AI can do it. They will still inspire
| others because they demonstrate what humans can do, and what we
| can aspire to.
| reactordev wrote:
| Honestly, resin printers are a god send to the miniatures
| community. Hands down best tech to print warhammer, n-scale, D&D,
| you name it.
| lovich wrote:
| His description of resin printing, especially the meth lab
| comparison and
|
| > At one point, he said the phrase "you really don't want to get
| this on your skin" with the casual tone of someone who had
| definitely gotten it on his skin.
|
| There are currently 10 3d printers in my household and there have
| been maybe 30 unique ones in total over the past 2 years but
| after the first 3-4 months of resin printing that was given to a
| friend and never revisited.
|
| I felt like it couldn't be done casually and even moderately safe
| at home but needed some sort of lab with good ventilation. We
| Jerry rigged a hood using a portable enclosure meant to grow weed
| in while routing the smell out of your dorm through a window and
| wore proper PPE the whole time but I still felt sketched out
| amelius wrote:
| A 3D printer can't even print a DVD case, with the transparent
| insert thing.
|
| There's a long way to go.
| fortran77 wrote:
| 3D printed miniatures are best printed not on FDM machines (the
| kind most hobbiest have) but on SLA machines. I'm not a gamer,
| but for Model Railroading, FDM 3D printing has changed the way a
| lot of modeling of architecture is done. For printing little HO
| scale people, SLA is a must.
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