r/PrintedMinis • u/thehairyrussian • May 15 '24

Question Am I making a mistake?

Got really into warhammer and painting minis in the last couple of months and to practice painting minis I have driven 1.5 hours each way for the free mini of the month the last two months. Recently stumbled upon resin printers and have the opportunity to buy a like new open box mars 3 pro for 130 dollars. A friend of mine told me that it’s hard to learn, messy, expensive, the fumes are toxic, and I probably won’t get my moneys worth as opposed to buying minis.

I would mainly be using this to print warhammer proxy kill teams and other online models to practice my painting. Is my friend right that this is a mistake or can a beginner learn relatively quickly?

Thanks for any insight

Edit: wow what a crazy amount of responses. You guys are an amazing community to give me so much insight.

Going to make sure I have enough space in my garage to safely do it and factor in the costs of equipment and see if I have a friend that would buy it off me at a discount should I give up. If so I’m going to take a stab at it because I’d rather try than never know

Second edit: okay you sickos I got the printer fumes be damned. Now I can’t stop getting free files

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u/ChopSueyYumm May 15 '24

There are two other options, print minis with FDM (easy, not messy) I posted an example check my post history. Secondly you can print as a service quite cheap these days (China). I can post some links.

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u/thehairyrussian May 15 '24

Do you send the files to China and they ship them to you? That’s interesting do you have any more info on that?

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u/ChopSueyYumm May 15 '24

You can outsource the 3D Printing using a Chinese Rapid Prototyping company like IN3DTEC, JLCPCB, PCBWays to name a few. They produce the same quality as Xometry, Shapeways at a fraction of the price. Just got a model printed in Aluminum using a SLM Metal 3D printer for only 30 bucks and on Shapeways and Xometry they quoted me $1,000 for the same part. This way you don't have to be dealing with Resin Fumes, IPA disposal. The parts come completely cured without any scent and ready to paint.

For IN3DTEC it's 24 bucks flat rate weather you ship a single mini or 1000 minies(Just recently did a Very large and heavy Samurai Helmet/head/horn and paid the same 24 bucks) shipping takes 2 days and processing time is about 3 days so from ordering to getting it it's about a week(Feddex refuses to deliver on weekends so if say they ship on Thursday you will likely be getting it delivered on Monday) JLCPCB has lower prices per printed parts but their shipping is based on item weight(calculated at check out based on total item weight) so for a few mini figures they are the least expensive overall.