BenMowbray
Mongoose
Hi all!
I am new to these forums, but not to Traveller which I have been playing on and off for ten years and am now running my first homebrew campaign (which is a mix of Traveller, Bubblegum Crisis, Yamato and Macross). However, it is not the campaign that brings me here, but rather a side project!
I am not sure how many other people use miniatures in their Traveller campaign, but I have a lot of old star wars and reaper bones miniatures that I use in my game when there is a protracted battle. I have used battlemaps and drawn out things before, but it is tedious and hard to prepare beforehand. I have considered buying some 3D terrain, but it is very expensive and not usually to my taste. There is a ton of good stuff for fantasy themed tabletop, but sci-fi choices seem limited.
However, recently, my profession as a 3D animator brought me into close contact with 3D printing, and I realised that I could design and print terrain to my own liking, which I have done! I thought I would share my progress!
This is what I have on hand that is mostly finished, the beginnings of an engineering room with shield generators. I tried to use styles that inspire me, so there are lots of Foss/Cobb Alien set influences...
The doors open from the top...
On top of these, I have also designed some 3x2" staterooms (unpainted, but can show progress if there is an interest), low births/hypersleep chambers, and an airlock, although because of the scale, it needed to be 2x2" and has more of an Alien look than a classic traveller airlock which I guess is circular rather than square.
Process and
I modelled all the parts in Autodesk Maya and converted them to STL for printing. I print in ABS with my FlashForge Creator Pro using Simplify3D (expensive, but well worth the investment, it fixes many printing problems). I use medium quality, which is .2 mm/layer.
I had a much earlier design where I tried to make a shuttle, but I used much thinner plastic and my own snapping system that was just way too prone to problems. Fortunately, I noticed that OpenLOCK had an open license, and asked for one and got one, so I have used their system.
One regret I also have is having printed at 25.4mm scale - I wish I had done 30 mm, since then the minis barely fit in the squares and usually are 28-32 mm scale. They won't fit easily in staterooms with enclosed walls built in. A 30 mm scale would allow for walls on the individual tiles and more room - the benefit of 3D printing though is that I can just reprint them at this scale in the future! A few cents extra per piece, but oh well.
Painting
I have only base coated the tiles with grey base coat (some is spray, other pieces are just brushed on), followed by slight detailing, such as the yellow, then a shade wash and dry brush for highlights. There is no detail on the panelling - the look of rivets and patterns in the floor plates is actually a side effect of the 3D printing process! Each piece took me about 2-5 minutes total to paint.
So, that's where I am at... I guess I will post some more if there is interest!
I am new to these forums, but not to Traveller which I have been playing on and off for ten years and am now running my first homebrew campaign (which is a mix of Traveller, Bubblegum Crisis, Yamato and Macross). However, it is not the campaign that brings me here, but rather a side project!
I am not sure how many other people use miniatures in their Traveller campaign, but I have a lot of old star wars and reaper bones miniatures that I use in my game when there is a protracted battle. I have used battlemaps and drawn out things before, but it is tedious and hard to prepare beforehand. I have considered buying some 3D terrain, but it is very expensive and not usually to my taste. There is a ton of good stuff for fantasy themed tabletop, but sci-fi choices seem limited.
However, recently, my profession as a 3D animator brought me into close contact with 3D printing, and I realised that I could design and print terrain to my own liking, which I have done! I thought I would share my progress!
This is what I have on hand that is mostly finished, the beginnings of an engineering room with shield generators. I tried to use styles that inspire me, so there are lots of Foss/Cobb Alien set influences...
The doors open from the top...
On top of these, I have also designed some 3x2" staterooms (unpainted, but can show progress if there is an interest), low births/hypersleep chambers, and an airlock, although because of the scale, it needed to be 2x2" and has more of an Alien look than a classic traveller airlock which I guess is circular rather than square.
Process and
I modelled all the parts in Autodesk Maya and converted them to STL for printing. I print in ABS with my FlashForge Creator Pro using Simplify3D (expensive, but well worth the investment, it fixes many printing problems). I use medium quality, which is .2 mm/layer.
I had a much earlier design where I tried to make a shuttle, but I used much thinner plastic and my own snapping system that was just way too prone to problems. Fortunately, I noticed that OpenLOCK had an open license, and asked for one and got one, so I have used their system.
One regret I also have is having printed at 25.4mm scale - I wish I had done 30 mm, since then the minis barely fit in the squares and usually are 28-32 mm scale. They won't fit easily in staterooms with enclosed walls built in. A 30 mm scale would allow for walls on the individual tiles and more room - the benefit of 3D printing though is that I can just reprint them at this scale in the future! A few cents extra per piece, but oh well.
Painting
I have only base coated the tiles with grey base coat (some is spray, other pieces are just brushed on), followed by slight detailing, such as the yellow, then a shade wash and dry brush for highlights. There is no detail on the panelling - the look of rivets and patterns in the floor plates is actually a side effect of the 3D printing process! Each piece took me about 2-5 minutes total to paint.
So, that's where I am at... I guess I will post some more if there is interest!
