Hi Guys,

I've been working on a bunch of generic parts, the fun thing about these is they were all designed in a 3D CAD program. They were printed out using a 3d printer before being cast in resin. It's been a lot of fun (with some frustration) learning how to do this stuff as it's so much differant than scratch building parts by hand.








here they are on a 32mm scaled mini. (mentally apply your favorite brand of plastic manz)

Yum! I think the Mantis Warriors are supposed to be especially styled on Samurai. There is a Mantis Warrior player on BoLS, who just did a batrep against Aventine's Orange Nids. Maybe you two can get together and make beautiful models? Nothing like a showcase for a good sales pitch to the community

Oh... btw... do you make Cyclone Missile Launchers?
They are almost like hen's teeth on eBay, and twice as expensive!

Hey Paulson, those are some extremely nice, and very detailed swords. That Ogre-Daichi is HUGE!

Oh and I love:





And a reminder, simply because it has been so long since we have seen fresh work from Paulson that no, you may not start asking him about buying his components through ATT. Please refer any question you may have via the link in his signature.

Cyclone missles, no as I'm not doing anything specificly aimed at GW lines.

Missle launchers however will most definitely happen.

Anybody that's read my older posts know I'm a huge fan of samurai stuff and decent samurai swords are impossible to find, I've never found any that have a very reaslistic look. That said I decided to make my own.




Of course it's huge, it's meant for Ogres afterall Japanese legend has plenty of Ogres and Ogre Magi and they are all pretty huge monsters so I wanted a large two handed sword worthy of being used by a big nasty ogre. It's sized so that it should fit most any 54mm scaled model. (and still be large)



With the Battletech 25th aniversary box set release I've returned to playing battletech as my primary gaming interest and I'm working on some custom mech parts and gearing up to do a couple complete mecha styled models. That of course means high tech weaponry and giant robot love. I've been a fan of Robotech since I was a kid and battletech was the first gaming product I ever bought. I was 10 years old when it came out, and man that makes me feel ancient but also has a lot of fond memories attached to it. Last time I played it was almost 10 years years ago, but some things are just classic and the ruleset is virtually the same as when I had left off so is it a welcome change of pace and it was very easy to get back into the groove of playing. (IMO they still have one of the best miniatures systems ever)

Anyways here's a couple of inprogress parts that are just about ready for printing. I'll probably make them in two seperate scales, one sized for btech scale which floats between 30-55mm depending on the model, and then a second larger version which will fit some 60-90mm tall models that I'm planning on doing .








Here's some concept art of one of the mech design I have in mind and plan on building for my own miniatures game:

Sweet Infant Jesus...

Well now I know who to go to when I want parts for crisis suit modifications...

Would you bu any chance be considering producing Railguns of varying sizes?

Are the models in your first post straight out of the printer, or did they require cleanup/polishing/etc? I've wanted to do 3d printing with my own designs for a long time, but all of the examples I've seen so far have had a really ugly grainy surface that would require as much cleanup time as just building the physical model from scratch. Has this finally changed?

The katanas in the second pic are straight from the printer. There are a few tiny ridges from the printing but it's very minimal, the only way to see them is under magnification or if you give them an ink wash. A quick go over with a hobby knife and priming gets rid of 99% of the stepping marks. (For table top quality they may only need priming) Personally I think they'd be fine without any work for most gamers but for my parts I did the extra clean up as it's for a commercial product, and it will also help reduce the wear and tear on the molds.

There's a huge differance in the quality of printing that companies offer, I'd previously used shapeways but wasn't overly impressed with their stuff and switched to using Moddler (http://www.moddler.com) which has a printing resolution that's about 8 times higher than shapeways. They can get down to 16 microns, which is under a thousandth of an inch, or thinner than a human hair. Print-A-Part (or fine line printing) is another comperable company and they have a micro printing which gets even smaller although it costs significantly more.

Here's a shot of some really crazy level of detail from fineline (and expensive!):




Here's a shot of the parts straight from the printer with no cleaning, overall I was very impressed with the level of detail.

Just finished the last details on this model and emailed it to the printers along with the mini-gun and missle launcher.

Will post pics of the parts as soon as they are onhand.








And a personal project I'm starting on, got a downloaded model that I need to clean up so it can be printed. (finished taking it apart but tons of work to do still)

...So let me see if I've understood this. You create 3d models, and email them to the company, who ship back printed parts?
And I really really want one of those katanas. Mmm.

Forget the katanas I want a mech haha, but seriously though the detail is great I wish I could get some custome guns for my marines, acr style...

Aww yeah a Destroid Defender from Macross. Nice!

If you could find a model of it it'd be amazing to build up a Destroid Monster MkII!

But yeah those 3d renders look like they'll make fantastic models! I'd love to arm FireWarriors with those rifles, or arm some suits with those missile pods. That's if they're actually that scale, which it sounds like they aren't

Tell you what Paulson, it's come a long way from those grid patterned Space Hulk tiles. Have to applaud you on learning and developing your skill with 3D tools.

Most interested in the mecha project, rather obvious considering I'm a Tau fan

- Tael.

Thanks Seb

I'm still pushing on learning things, I'd highly prefer to being doing this through a digital arts college but I can't really afford that so like most of my other art it's self teaching. I've seen a lot of really awesome stuff done with these programs and I want to pick up more of that advanced skill set so it's a good goal to push for. I'm happy with the progress I've made so far but there's a long way to go.

I managed to find files for pretty much all of the original destroids aka robotech defenders

defender/rifleman
tomahawk/warhammer
spartan/longbow

Monster MAC2

I'm missing the galdiator/archer so I may have to build that one from scratch. I located some armored veritech models for purchase which I can probably strip down to make a basic veritech. I've seen some Zentandi pods out there but none for download I'd liek to get ahold of those at some point as it'd complete the collection of Macross mechs and also let me make a Marauder for Battletech.

Brilliant, so you'll have a rather grand set of Macross mechs!

Although not really proper to the Tau aesthetic, it'd be funny to play a Monster in game as some kind of massive titan. 4 D Strength railguns and 2 ridiculously powered missile pods!

I've had one of my friends working on cleaning up a terran marine model, we finished the early test model last week and sent it to the printer. The Marine model arrived today and here's a couple pics.








It came out fairly well but is going to need a bunch of changes in order to be reprinted. The scribe lines on the armor are very weak if they show at all, hoses need to be snugged up flat against the joints in order to cast them properly. Back of the helmet is hollow and broke through while being cleaned, will have to be made completely solid. Thumb on left hand broke during cleaning. Pose will be adjusted once we get the details corrected.

Overall not a bad first run as we didn't really take the time to fuss around with the getting the details set at proper depth for printing. Gave a great test piece for figuring out what we need to tweak.

Hmmm...I know a fella over on FA who did an awesome Mark V Mjolnir armor rendering, perhaps I should have him pass it your way?

I've been insanely busy the last two weeks so I haven't had enough time for models.

Still touching up the terran marine. The rifleman/defender model had way too many problems for printing so I had to scrap it and start from scratch. The upside is that I can use the model for references and measurements so it has been helping speed up some of the work.

Here's a progress shot, still more work to do on the hips before I start on the legs. Details are intentionally on the blocky side as fine details and smooth edges will be lost when printed. About 18 hours or so on build time so far.

BY THE DARK GODS! PLEASE tell me that this will be a large model, or that a large variant will be made...

Rough plan for that one is about 90 mm. It would be possible to do it even larger but it'll have a pretty hefty price tag.

If it's cheaper then Forgeworld/GW, then you could count me in!