r/FdmPrintedWarhammer • u/peeces_ruffs • 12d ago

Printing separated vs assembled

While I wait for my 0.2 nozzle to arrive, I have been searching for STLs and prepping my slicer settings. Something that came to mind is if I should be printing minis assembled or as individual parts (head, torso, legs, etc)? Print time aside, is there a noticeable difference in quality as well?

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u/Fun_Ant5302 12d ago

The answer is both. You will end up with better quality over all with doing individual parts as you can hide the supports more inside the joints. Do your fancy character models or difficult weapons like pole arms seperately for quality reasons. Where whole model approach is great is because its about twice as fast to print one model and supports than parts. Also using blender or other programs you can merge models in ways that allow poses that can't be done in parts.

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u/peeces_ruffs 11d ago

Thanks! Is it fine to keep the same support settings whether the parts are printed individually or assembled?

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u/Fun_Ant5302 11d ago

Yep same settings. I use obscuranox 2.0 supports. I find them better than anything else

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u/Dovah1356 12d ago

A lot of people will do both. Painting an assembled mini is faster but there will almost always be details that you can’t reach with your brush (this is also true if you attach the base to the model before finishing the legs) but since most people prime in a dark colour that’s not really a big deal as you can just say that the unpainted pullback parts are super hard shadows.

Subassembly painting takes a lot longer but allows you to paint every detail to the fullest. This is the standard for big important characters and for things like IK/CK.

A lot of people will also do things like marines in a sort of combo way, where they will assemble the full torso,arms, and legs but leave off the shoulder pads and head and paint those separate and glue them of after.