3D printing a Spartan!

A long long time ago in a bar far far away, A drunken conversation took place with regards to the how the wargaming world would change once tech was more accessible to the masses....

And boy oh boy its now that time!

So after printing a legion table and a zone mortalis board I figured it was about time that I tried something apart from terrain and off to thingieverse I went!

Now some stuff is very practical and useful however I'm looking for the "oh that's cool" files and I must admit that there are some very talented people out there and the designs that they have produced are mind blowing, however the million dollar question is will it print!

So I decided to take the plunge and go balls deep, As I'm purely focusing on the 13th Legion - World Eaters the design that I found fitted the feel of the world eaters and decided to go for it.

so it started off with the front ramp. 

then onto the front half of the hull. 

then onto the track units, 

Starting to take shape nicely 

Then it was onto the task of assembling this bad boy! 

So due to the joins and the like a bit of prep work was needed before starting on the painting

the doors were not very defined so I decided to have a bit of a play and use some waste bits of filament to make an edge and then some spare symbols from rhino doors cut out and I was quite happy with the result, 

So once all the boring stuff was done, I broke out the airbrush and the painting began. 

 Once the block colours were sorted then it was just a matter of getting the detail work done, however I'd ran out of gun metal for the side sponsons and heavy bolters

Once that stuff had turn up and Steve over at Barwell Body Works sorted out my poorly airbrush due to another anton special technique that screwed the cone and I didn't even realise it! 

Go buy some stuff from him, he's the man!

barwell body works

In fact the courses that Steve runs are superb, go give it a crack!

 

So with the 105 back in action it was a simple task of doing the weapons and gluing them on, I did consider magnets for transportation however they didn't hold very well, So I glued them on.

So that's the transport for some horrible mofo's to go charging across the field of battle, now lets consider the whole situation with the fact that this is 99% home made from files I found on the net and total cost its about 20 quid of material and printer running cost.

So with the right amount of skill it is possible to replicate off the shelf models of a certain size, with liquid printers then that's going to be aimed at the smaller models like infantry and upgrades which you can already do via shapeways however the STL files are not available for purchase so you would need to find these on the net or design them yourself and we're not all as talented in the same area.

Will this replace shop bought kits?

No of course not but a few will continue to push the limits of the tech and use it for the table top world.

Oh and if you want the link to the model click below...

www.thingiverse.com/thing:3120549