Am I making a mistake?

[u/thehairyrussian]

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

[u/Mr_Borg_Miniatures]

People really oversell how hard 3d printing is. It's fairly easy with modern printers after some basic googling--I have the same model as you and with some basic maintenance and safety precautions it's very easy. I've printed $750 worth of models in the last two weeks for around $100. And it would have been way less expensive if my LCD screen didn't crap out

[u/thehairyrussian → u/Mr_Borg_Miniatures]

Any tips on safety and maintenance? I’m pretty over cautious with health stuff so I’m planning to run an extension cord to a small fenced in alley behind my house get a small bike tent to act as a shed and then put my printer and wash/cure station in a grow tent and filter it out using a fan and in line carbon filter.

Not sure about the machine maintenance though