DEVLOG 1 - research and Trello board link

I decided to do some research into how 3D printed models are made, some tips to bare in mind, and the general process i will need to follow to create my 3D print. Below are some videos and websites i looked at and the corresponding notes from each.

Notes:

Setting up the resin printer:

- Good ventilation, use nitrile gloves, use a 3m mask to avoid inhaling fumes
- Resin tank and build plate can touch resin, everything else shouldn't
- Soap and water wont remove it, you need isopropyl alcohol.

Chitubox:

- some miniatures can be printed upright with minimal interference [don't rely on this though, its always best to print at an angle] , the auto support tool is pretty useful.

Cleaning models:

- Fill cleaning machine with isopropyl alcohol.

- Small models can be washed in a two cycle process, with the initial stage with a duration of  5 minutes, dunk it in another vat of isopropyl alcohol, then back into the main cleaning device for another 5 minutes.

Removing models:

-use a scraper to remove your models from the build plate.

- gently remove supports while wearing gloves, for fragile elements, use pliers to remove supports

- cure in UV light for 2 minutes [for small miniatures], you can do this before removing supports so that you can remove the supports without having to wear gloves.

- if you have anything that needs gluing on your models, use superglue as no other kind of glue will work.

Notes:

- can use z-brush to add details to your models made on maya/blender

-Dynamic topology

- you dont need to worry about topology for 3D printing, just focus on support placement 

- if you need to decrease polygons, just simply use decimate tool

Sizing guide

Mahajan, P., 2023. Sizes of DND Miniatures: A Complete Guide [online]. SelfCAD. available at:

 https://www.selfcad.com/blog/what-size-are-dnd-miniatures [Acessed 14 October 2025]

- miniatures are usually 28mm tall [the website also has a good height chart]

- take into consideration the size of your model to decide what size base it should have, this website has a very good size recommendation chart.

- The base size is very important when making miniatures for tabletop games as the models will be used on a grid map, as such the bases should be small enough [or be representative of the scale of the creature] on the grid.

I will include any more information i gain onto this post. My next step is to decide what i would like to model, and begin making some sketches and orthographic references to aid me in the modelling process.

Not directly relating to research into how to make models, but I found an interesting video that talked a bit about how 3D prints are used in mass scale production. While 3D printing is certainly more economical on a small scale, to print out models in mass, it would take a long time to reach the scale that PLA injection moulding can produce. With this in mind though, 3D prints are used within the injection mould creation pipeline to create master copies that are then used to create moulds from. These models can also test out what does/doesn't work for the overall look of the model, so that revisions can be made early into the process. This in turn cuts down on costs due to errors further down the line, and overall acts as a great prototyping tool.

This video also talks a bit about how 3D printing benefits small indie companies by allowing them to produce miniatures themselves without having to pay a larger miniature printing company to create assets for them. This company "Tabletop Time" in particular shows the process of 3D printing their "Space Bear" miniatures from sculpt to 3D print. They do bring up however that it is quite time consuming to print their own miniatures as there is more room for human error with 3D printing compared to PLA printing. It seems to be a trade off, 3D printing is cheaper to do, but takes longer and has more room for errors when compared to the more expensive yet fast to produce injection moulding.

I also created a Trello board to track my progress for this project.

https://trello.com/b/r2pzodtd/my-trello-board