r/FDMminiatures

There’s a narrative that pops up in almost every Reddit thread about printing miniatures: you should always be chasing the highest possible print quality.

With resin, that's a much easier goal to achieve. With FDM, getting close often takes a lot more time, tuning, and effort. For many people, that extra effort simply isn't worth the return.

Resin absolutely produces better miniatures. But it isn't always an option. Cost, available space, ventilation, health concerns, or simply not wanting another hobby to manage are all perfectly valid reasons to stick with FDM.

Likewise, trying to make FDM indistinguishable from resin isn't always a worthwhile goal either.

That doesn't mean quality FDM miniatures aren't possible.

We've all seen what people like HOHansen and ObscuraNox have achieved. Their work has shown what's possible with enough knowledge and patience, and these days I print almost exclusively using ObscuraNox's settings in Orca Slicer. (Mostly because Bambu Studio still struggles to generate support interfaces consistently without manual intervention.)

But... I also print plenty of low-quality minis.

Trying out a new printer. Printing an army quickly for an upcoming game. Testing different scales. Practice models. Paint mules. Experimenting with settings.

There are lots of perfectly good reasons to intentionally print something that isn't the absolute best your printer can produce.

In fact, I'm still a big advocate for a 0.4mm nozzle using Bambu's stock 0.08 mm High Quality profile. Hit print. Go.

For a huge number of people, it's already good enough.

There absolutely is a place for high-quality FDM prints.  

But for me, they're the exception rather than the rule. I'm printing miniatures to play games with. Once they're on the tabletop, and especially once they're painted, the differences become much harder to notice than they do under a macro lens on Reddit.

The game comes first. Good-looking models are a bonus.

Which brings me to the point of this post.

There is absolutely a place for low-quality prints.

They're accessible to newcomers, require almost no tuning or experience, and can go from unopened printer to playable miniatures in a matter of hours. And they're often far better than people give them credit for.

Take the models in this photo. (OG prints)

These were printed on a brand-new X2D almost immediately after unboxing.

• 0.4 mm nozzle
• Stock 0.08 mm High Quality profile
• Filament wasn't dried
• No calibration
• Printed in Bambu Studio
• No support interfaces

Quick and dirty.

Originally I wasn't even planning to paint them. I simply wanted to see how quickly I could print an entire Kill Team— roughly two hours per miniature, about sixteen hours total.

Then I found an old can of aluminum spray paint. "Why not?"

From there... Everything went downhill.

I accidentally followed it with what turned out to be a thick gloss yellow spray. The metallic disappeared. The finish became ridiculously shiny.

Then came a homemade wash that didn't quite work. Followed by an overly enthusiastic drybrush. And finally a pretty terrible photo.

By most Reddit standards, these Strikers from Puppetswar should never have seen a gaming table.

Average prints. Questionable paint job. Game over.

Except... After sealing everything with a matte varnish to kill the gloss, they actually turned out...

...not too bad.

Not amazing. Not competition pieces. Just... good.

Good enough that I'm perfectly happy putting them on the table. They already look better than a lot of the sea of grey I see at my local game store.

All from what many people would dismiss as "bad" prints.

More importantly, I learned far more from these models than I would have by chasing perfection.

Spray priming. Washes. Colour choices. Drybrushing. Selective painting. Fast tabletop techniques.

Every one of those lessons came from prints that most people would have told me weren't worth painting in the first place.

Sometimes "good enough" really is good enough.

Bambu A1, brand new .2 nozzle, FDG settings.

My .4 nozzle is printing just fine, none of these weird layer gaps. But when I switch to the .2, things go wrong.

Is it time to do the screwing thing?

EDIT: added printer model, correct nozzle sizes.

For the past few weeks I've been having this bizarre issue where the back side of all of my prints looks like garbage, especially the bottom few mm. The weird thing is it doesn't apply to the front, nor does it seem to apply to the supports. I've deep cleaned all axis rails, reset settings to previous parameters, adjusted heat, etc. Nothing seems to help. I don't get it.

General settings: A1 Mini, 0.2mm nozzle, 0.06 or 0.08mm layer height, FDG profile (though it persists with standard as well), 100% fan.

Another issue I've been having is nozzle collision, but strangely only if I have multiple objects. Something like this prints perfectly fine, but as soon as something else goes down the nozzle starts ripping everything off the bed.

When I prime FDM prints it feels like the print is soaking up the primer. The coverage seems far worse. Is it just me?

Here's my recent print and prime. It eventually covers, but I use so much primer.

Using Mr. Finisher Surfacer with level thinner.

Hey! I made Apc in 28mm scale with commander. Free download link in comments. I test printed it on bambu lab a1 mini with 0.2 mm nozzle. Moveable wheels and weapon tower.

I printed this guy a few months ago for the lols after some cheeky chap released him on Cults the same day as the real deal went live on Warhammer.com.

Found him rolling around in the "to paint" drawer the other day and decided to slap some paint on him. Now he's back in the drawer since I don't play Space Marines 👍

Hi, I'm looking for advice from someone more knowledgeable about printer calibration and settings. I'm currently printing supportless figures, but unfortunately, the overhangs are very poor. Does anyone know how to improve them?

I'm printing on a Bambu Lab A1 Mini, .02 nozzle, ObscuraNox settings, and esun PLA 2.0 HS.

This was a cheap Amazon 28mm DnD mini. Didn’t know if the community had any suggestions to replace the hammer. Superglue only lasts so long, the handle of the weapon is very flimsy.

I’ve been testing the snapmaker U1 as a multi colour miniature printer, using the 0.2mm nozzles.

The profile is not perfectly tuned yet, but the results are pretty good. Especially for people like me who struggle with painting minis…

Honestly in my opinion, this type of miniature is totally acceptable for DND or tabletop games.

I posted my first mini here, and those are the ones that follow, i still avoid to much detailed minis, humans and 32mm minis, so i mainly paint monsters for now

Those for are from a patreon that make awesome supporless minis called brite minis

Printed on Biqu Frostbite plate with Sunlu PLA 2.0 Plus on X2D.
The primer hasn't been applied yet.
I want to make a new series of them, with all the different versions and with different weapons, a great pastime!

This one turned out even better than the one I posted earlier. Can’t believe this quality from a .4mm nozzle. My print on the left, GW Trajann on the right.

I started printing these last month and now I can't stop. So far, I've had a better experience printing larger models like the terminators and the dreadnought, all with tree supports. Gonna try printing some models with separate parts now. I'm using an A1 mini with a 0.2mm nozzle, Bambu's PLA Lite and ObscuraNox's settings.

Hey everyone,

I've been working on designing interactive puzzles for my modular dungeon, and I wanted to share the final look with you all! I'd love to hear your thoughts.

The Kickstarter campaign is currently live for anyone interested in checking out the full dungeon.
Kickstarter campaign link

This is my first attempt at printing a "mini" on my a1 mini. Was slightly frustrating as had to print pieces one at a time but oh boy the money saved makes it worth it! Please ignore the painting it is in no way my forte.