3D printers are miraculous tools that have transformed the miniature wargaming hobby, allowing indie sculptors to reach a global audience with their original designs, and allowing gamers to literally print entire armies of figures at home. But the next time someone says that it's "just cheaper" to get 3D printed models than it is to buy plastic model kits, I am going to dunk their head in a vat of photocure resin.
If you buy a bottle of 3D printing resin, you can make more models from it than if you spent the same amount of money on plastic, resin, or metal model kits. That's true if you factor in the cost of the electricity you use while printing, and it's true even if you're using the more durable, flexible resins like Phrozen RPG resin or Fauxhammer Wargamer Resin that are best for gaming miniatures. A 4k resolution 3D printer can produce models that are more than adequate for miniature wargames, and 8k and above models are hard to distinguish from professionally cast sculpts.
But comparing the price of raw resin against finished model kits really isn't adequate. The process of 3D printing a mini - enchanting and magical as it is - is not the same as buying a box of toy soldiers. There are prerequisites that some people simply won't be able to meet, and for those who can, there's a whole list of hidden costs to factor in, costs of money and time.
If you want to get started with resin 3D printing, you first need a room to do it in, because photocure resins produce noxious vapors, can be harmful to the skin, and absolutely should not be swallowed. Your print room shouldn't be accessible to children or pets, primarily for their health, but also because little hands, hairs, and paws can all ruin in-progress prints. This room must be isolated from daylight. I recently moved house and invested a grand electrifying an outdoors storage room with a four foot ceiling because there was nowhere else suitable for my resin printers.
Obviously you need to buy a printer, ideally with the largest build plate you can get to ensure larger models will fit in it. Then you're going to need a system for cleaning the residual liquid resin off finished prints, which may involve a large quantity of isopropyl alcohol. Unless you want to rely on curing your models in daylight - not really recommended - you will also need a UV curing station.
Since you don't want to get resin goo on or in your body, you also need PPE: a filtration mask (disposable, or with replaceable filter cartridges), goggles, and disposable latex or nitrile gloves. You'll also need storage and processing systems for the waste you generate, which will include used gloves, print supports, kitchen roll or wool pads used to clean up spills, and the resin-laden IPA or water left over after cleaning a print. This chemical waste needs to be blasted with UV light to harden the resin - at which point you shouldn't forget that microparticles of cured resin are also hazardous waste that can damage your lungs if inhaled.
The resin vat - the magical tank of goo that models rise out of like Baron Harkonnen in the regeneration bath in Dune - is a pit of nightmares. It's wide and heavy and awkward to move, especially when there's any resin in it, doubly so when you need to tip it up and empty it out. The bottom of the vat is a sheet of see-through FEP plastic. If you break it - and though it's not easy to do that, it's also not hard - you will spill liquid regret everywhere. Add FEP film and plastic funnels to the list of consumables and contaminated waste you'll deal with.
If you do spill resin - because the FEP splits, you overfill the resin vat, or your hand shakes while you're pouring - there's a good chance it will land on the printer. You can mop that up, but if any cures - perhaps because it got onto the print screen during a print - you first need to heat it up until it's soft enough to peel off with a plastic scraper. If it gets inside the printer you just have to pray it doesn't leak into anything important.
Resin prints can fail in a variety of ways, and a failed print needs at least as much processing as a finished one. You've got to keep your resin vat nice and clean as any cured particles floating around can interfere with the printing process. The temperature of the resin also needs to be correct - I added a temperature control fan to my Mars 5 Ultra so I can still print during winter.
The sliced 3D printer files need to be right for the machine and the resin you're using. Most 3D models come presupported, but sometimes the presupported files aren't good enough for the job, which you'll only discover after they've failed to print. And until you have a lot of experience, you won't know exactly which of these, or all the other possible causes of a print failure, is actually responsible.
When it works, 3D printing is incredible. Huge models rise fully formed from the goo, with designs so complex that they would only be possible via traditional casting techniques if they were broken up into dozens of tiny pieces. An efficient 3D printing setup can produce models more cheaply than you can buy them at retail - cheaply enough that Steamforged Games uses 3D printing as the primary production method for the entire Warmachine range. But they're a business, with business levels of expertise, and a business focus on making the process as seamless as possible.
For the rest of us, the only way to think of 3D printing is as a hobby in its own right, totally separate from painting minis or playing wargames, with its own costs and challenges - or you can add your own time, billed at your hourly rate, to the cost of any figures you print. And the next person who says "3D printer goes brrr" can clean my resin vats.
Don't even get me started on FDM printers. If you've got a tale of triumph or resin-drenched woe, why not share it in the Wargamer Discord community?