r/minis

I'm wondering if anyone has any tips regarding 3D printing miniatures. Which software would be best to design? Would I have to "sculpt" them or is there 3D CAD- type software I could use? Any other tips? I have a functional knowledge of 2D and 3D cad software (AutoCAD, Inventor, Creo, etc).

I work for an engineering company designing large equipment for municipalities. There is a small contest going on at work to see who can take a particular piece of our equipment and create a 3" tall "mech hero" (marketing words) that best represents that product. (i.e. Incorporating parts of the equipment into the design) They plan on handing these out at an annual conference in place of the normal pens, mugs, lanyards, etc. as a marketing "gimmick." Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

I’m running a horror campaign and need some cool looking grotesque body horror monsters to throw into the game, grungy dark looking minis in general are also appreciated. I’m not talking about normal monsters I need really messed up grotesque looking stuff. Budget doesn’t really matter, but I do care about ease of access I prefer something that’s not gonna take weeks or months for shipping as I don’t have an insane amount of time to wait, I am based in the Eastern US.

I’m open to just about anything EXCEPT 3D printing. Anytime I ask for where to look for stuff this is the first thing people suggest so I want to make it very very clear I do NOT want to 3D print things nor do I have a 3D printer. 3D printing is 100% off the table and not something I’ll change my stance on, it’s basically its own hobby and one that I very much hate doing.

I apologize if I come off as rude I’m just tired of being bombarded with “make your own” and “3D print them” anytime I ask about miniatures or terrain, it gets super annoying and is not helpful at all for me.

i need to find small swords, battle axes, etc in a size of 15mm long or smaller to fit inside of some charms i’m making. it seems that the standard sizes for models are a bit bigger than that… ideally i would find a silicone mold to make them myself out of resin but again all the ones i’ve seen are a bit big. has anyone seen something like that?

I play DnD and like to use personalized minis when my group is doing long-term campaigns. I usually put them in a bit of bubble wrap and put that into a Chessex dicebox, but my latest mini is potentially fragile and I'm looking for a better idea. Ideally it would be fairly small since I'm only taking one mini at a time, and would come with foam padding that I can cut/pop out to size.

So what do you all use?

Anyone know of free tall ship stls from the age of sail? Looking to print some models.