Marc Pavone is one of the stalwart supporters and users of my PORTABLE WARGAME. He regularly contributes to the FaceBook page as well as to the Compendium.
He recently contacted me about his experiments with 3D printing, and I was so impressed that I asked him if I could feature some of his prints on my blog, along with some explanatory text by him.
I use a ToyBox brand printer; it's geared towards children, so quality is sacrificed for speed and ease of use. Despite the limitations I've managed to do quite a bit. Everything is made up of very basic shapes and the results are a bit rough as the closeups show. They also illustrate the limitations of an inexpensive 3D printer.
I started by simply trying to create a hex of the correct size, in this case 37mm. That was quick and easy so the next step was making a raised hill that I could place a figure on without it falling over.
This was also easy to do, so the next thing I tried was making a hill that wasn't a perfect hex. I did that by overlapping 4 truncated cones which left me with a flat space to put a mini on while also giving it a little slope so it's obvious that it's a hill.
The mountains came next and they're just overlapping cones. I made a few different ‘mountain ranges’ so there's a little variety. These were designed with the intention of making it difficult if not impossible to stand a figure on without them falling over, as I use the mountains as impassable terrain.
The last terrain I designed were the forts and forests. They are simply cubic walls with cylinders for the towers. The trickiest part to design was the arch for the gate since that tool is opaque in its implementation. The different design options don't change what it seems like they should, but I got it working. The layers of the print work to my advantage here since it gives a stacked masonry look. The forest hexes are cleverly designed, even if I say so myself. Three of the trees are the same height while the other four are of lower, varied heights. This allows me to stand a unit on top without it tipping or sliding off. Then I added domes as boulders and shrubs to complete the look. The unpainted fort on the left was an experiment in how detailed I could make it. I like the result, but it takes longer to print.
I then tried creating some 3D soldiers. They are almost entirely cylinders and cones, with a couple cubes thrown in to make the backpacks. I was surprised that I was able to include a nose on the face as well as a brim and decoration on the soldier's shako, in addition to his feet. The musket is still a tube, but notice in the second picture, the soldier has hands that are posed appropriately. The soldiers in the first picture are the simplest and were more about learning the design app than realism. They are about 1" tall and are shown front and back and are printed at 100%, 75% and 50% scale. The nice thing is scaling them is a matter of a couple clicks and it's done. The soldiers in the second picture are also 1" tall but I included the bedroll, backpack, nose, brim, decoration on the hat, rounded the shoulders, added hands and feet and the crossbelts so the body has some detail. Overall, they have a very Nutcracker look to them.
My last project was to create 37mm hex bases that I designed for use with paper minis. There is a raised unit number (1-6) on the back side for the player's reference and a raised triangle pointing in the direction of the unit's facing. After printing I had to clean out the slot a bit and then I used a black permanent marker to ink in the number and the facing arrow. The slot will very snugly hold a paper mini printed on card. I like to use Patrick Crusiau's paper minis for my games. They're cartoony without being silly and just accurate enough without being unusable in any game besides a Waterloo game.
I was very impressed by Marc's experiments in 3D printing. It is something that I have considered doing but felt that it was probably beyond my level of competence to do, but Marc has demonstrated that with a bit of trial and error and some patience, anyone can design things that can be 3D printed and that will fulfill one's own wargaming requirements.
It has certainly given me something to think about, and with my birthday not far off, who knows if I'll buy myself a simple 3D printer as a birthday present to myself!
