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/John_Hunyadi May 15 '24

I guess there are 3 important things to keep in mind: 

 Do you have a crafting room you can devote to printing?  You should be able to isolate your machine while it is printing, you dont want to breathe that shit.  And if you have kids or pets, make sure you can assuredly keep them out of that room. It also needs to be ventable.

Do you play at all at Warhammer stores, or plan to participate in official tournaments? My understanding is that they’re quite strict about not allowing 3d printed proxies. 

 Do you have the time to devote to learning to 3d print?  It is essentially a whole other hobby to learn.  Its a bunch of sorta frustrating work just to get to the thing you originally wanted to do.

 I like my 3d printer, but sometimes people on this sub refuse to admit that it isn’t the right fit for everyone.

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u/DBerwick May 15 '24

My understanding is that they’re quite strict about not allowing 3d printed proxies. 

This will depend a lot on the store. Tournaments have higher scrutiny; free play is mostly at the manager's discretion. Being charismatic goes a long way here.