I was shopping on Amazon and came across some 3D printed terrain items. Specifically, two sets of scary trees. One set is plain and the other has carved faces (think Game of Thrones). I looked at the photos and the models looked pretty clean (the companies always clean them up for the photos). The description was not clear on the printing material used, so I was leery. However, the price was right, so I ordered them to see what was what.
The box arrived and I opened them up to see what I got. Unfortunately, looking at the trees I found these were clearly plastic filament prints (you always want resin based 3D printing). That means that each miniature has lateral seams along the entire model. This is the standard problem with 3D plastic printing. You end up with the stripes that either have to be ignored or sanded down. Well, sanding usually does not make sense, as it wipes out the detail. Had the trees been printed sideways, this could have worked as a bark grain pattern. However, they were not, so I had four trees with horizontal lines…
Since it was just some trees and I did not pay too much, I thought I would try something different to see if I could mask the lines. The first step was to use thick automotive primer to paint the trees, followed by another coat of brown spray. The next step was to dip the trees in Minwax Dark Brown wood stain. It was my hope that all this would smooth out the lines to conceal them!
Unfortunately, hope does not paint miniatures…. I looked at the trees once the Minwax dried and still saw the lines. I hoped that some of that was only visual because of the opaqueness of the stain. So the next step was to wet and dry brush to see if the lines would clear up!
Well, I hit the three levels of wet brush and highlight and still see the lines. In all honesty, they are much more subtle than they started, but still visible. My next experiment is to paint such miniatures in brush on gloss coat to see if that will do the trick. I will be sure to post that when I try it. In the meantime, I have some trees that look “OK” at a distance. So, not a total bust.
- Manteuffel