Printed Hayland Terrain 3D Scenery Items 01

Late last year, I mentioned that my brother, Mikey, had been printing out some 28mm scale scenery items for me on his 3D printer. A few of you expressed an interest in seeing what he did for me and so in this post I'll show you my recent acquisitions, courtesy of my very talented brother. He is far more tech savvy than I'll ever be! Note that he printed them out in a lurid green colour. I didn't mind what colour he used because I knew I'd be painting them. The transformation from unpainted to painted is remarkable. Next time I do one of these posts I'll show you the printouts in their natural state.

These items are from the first Hayland Terrain Kickstarter set, which mainly concentrated on modern day furniture items. The basic pledge of £40.00 netted you over 230 different models, which works out at about 17 pence each. This particular set was an optional add-on - the sci-fi generators and powercells set. It was the first set that I asked my brother to print out for me. Note that I have only shown a few of the powercells he printed out. He printed four large cells and eight small cells. They are stackable.

The set came with two sizes of generator - large and small. I asked Mikey to print out one large one and two smaller ones. Note that to customise them further, I have added control panels to them, taken from my Battle Systems Sci-fi Terrain sets. If I hadn't told you, I doubt if you'd have noticed. To me, they really make them look a lot better and they blend in seamlessly.

As you can see, the two generators are identical in all respects except size. Whilst the set did come with the two variants of the generator, it should be noted that one of the cool features of a 3D printer is that you can rescale objects to print them out to whatever size you want, given the constraints of your printing area.

 I painted them in the three shades of Foundry Gunmetal 104 with a wash of Citadel Nuln Oil.

 To add a splash of colour to them, I painted the hexagonal lights in Foundry Vivid Blue 22

To give you a sense of scale to these items, in this photo I have added my 28mm scale figure of Vampifan. I have to admit that I am very happy with these. Once they are painted, they do look superb. Look out for these appearing in the engine room of The Ace of Spades on my WOIN blog and possibly in other sci-fi games.

From another Hayland Terrain Kickstarter (I have backed all of his terrain Kickstarters so far), I got a number of sets designed for Wild West games. This particular set was from the Forge. It consists of, from left to right, a tool cabinet, a water bucket, an anvil, a forge with fire and bellows, and a coal bucket. Once again, the paintwork really brings them to life. I'll be adding these to my Sarissa MDF Blacksmith's model, once I get it painted. Vampifan appears again just to show you how big these scenery items are.
I have a whole load of furniture items I want printing but I'm a patient person and I don't want to overwhelm Mikey with my wish list, so I send him a few files at a time for him to print out when he has a moment to spare. The hardest part for me is prioritising which items I want printing first, given that I have such a huge backlog of items. Regarding the painting of them, they painted really well. I under-coated them in matt black primer, then just painted them as normal. No problem!
3D printing hasn't taken off yet but I'm sure it will. This post just gives a small insight into what can be done, but really, the sky is the limit. From what I've seen so far, 3D printing excels at scenery items but is not so good for printing out miniature figures. Mikey has printed out a few 28mm scale figures for me, some which I will show you, but they are just okay. Unfortunately they lack detail on their faces, which can look very indistinct. But, it is still early days and I'm sure it won't be too long before that hurdle is surmounted and we can get crisp, finely detailed figures. Just look at the way plastic figures are produced nowadays compared to those of twenty years ago.

WIP - 3D Printed Sci-Fi Scenery

Last year my brother, Mike, built a 3D printer for his computer. He is a computer wizkid and my go to guy if ever I have any problems with my computer. Anyway, one of the first things he wanted to make with his 3D printer was a model of the starship Discovery from the film, 2001, A Space Odyssey. This was a major undertaking that would take a very long time to make. He made good progress but when he went to replace the printer spool he was using to build it he found that it was no longer available for sale. So he switched to another manufacturer's printer spool and discovered it was much, much better than the one he was originally using. The surface detail was much sharper and by then he had learned how to save time with his build and to make it more efficiently. At this point he had two choices - continue on with the build or start afresh. We discussed this and both agreed it would be wisest to start afresh so that the model would be consistent in its uniformity. So, what to do with the parts he'd already made? That proved to be an easy decision. I offered to take the parts he'd made off him and use them as scenery items in my Judge Dredd Miniatures Game campaign. Just looking at them, I could see so many possibilities. So just last week, when Mike came to visit me during the Easter holidays (he lives in Preston and I live on the opposite side of the country in Gateshead), he brought all the pieces for me... plus a few extras.

This photo above shows everything he brought over. The two items at the far right are not parts of the Discovery model. I'll tell you about them shortly.

The two half sections that made up the front dome of the Discovery when put together in the above configuration looks just like some sort of small 28mm scale hab-zone building.

These components could be used as storage units or support pillars. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to leave them as is or use the connector rings to make four double height units.

At the top left is a component that could sit on a building's roof perhaps as a sensor array. The three booster engines would make great high tech chimneys. The hollowed out section in the middle row could be used as the body of a transport vehicle but will need a few more components to make it work. It's a conversion I could do. Or I might use it as a wall panel with the hollowed part facing inwards. That's what I plan for the long solid section to the right of it and the other items. The two curved sections will be used as barriers.

Here is more square wall panels and in the top left corner another roof item, possibly a lookout bay. It goes without saying that I will be painting all of these items.

One of the two non-Discovery items that Mike made for me was a Judge Dredd badge. This was such a nice surprise. Mike knows that I am a huge Judge Dredd fan. The other item is one of the very first things he made with his 3D printer. It's high tech bear trap like device and yes, it is a working a model. By twisting the base clockwise or anti-clockwise you can open or close the white jaws. I can see so many possibilities for using this. It could be used as a high-tech trap or the doors to a missile launch facility or some kind of an airlock.

Having told you that Mike wanted to make a 3D model of the Discovery it would be remiss of me not to show you the finished model. Mike finished making it just last week and took a couple of photos of it, which I'm only too happy to share with you. I reckon this is most probably 10mm scale or maybe 15mm scale. Honestly, how freaking impressive is this? 😮

This is what Mike had to say about it - "Total length is around 1100mm – I bought a 1000mm metal rod but it doesn’t go right to the ends of the sphere front and boosters back. I look at it and think it’s amazing that it came from nothing – it wasn’t like a model kit - I printed it from a very small (7.61Mb) CAD file and I take my hat off to the guy that modelled it. I also love how it’s free on Thingiverse. I reckon it probably cost me between £12 to £15 in materials, so very cheap for what it is. I downloaded the file about a year before my printer was finished so I always knew it would be one of the first prints. I estimate the plastic parts to be around 650 grams in weight and it takes roughly 1 hour per 10 grams to print, so about 65 hours in total."
The possibilities for the future are incredible. 3D printing is here to stay and is going to be a major part in the future of gaming. So much is already available and I'm very excited about 3D printing. It can only get better and more affordable.