Does anybody have experiences with painting minis from shapeways?

YES. What plastic type are you trying to paint?

I SHAPEWAYS MINIATURES AND ALL OF YOU THAT POST YOUR DESIGNS THERE.

White plastic. The info provided said they had a slight grainy feel. How much sanding,etc. until they look good(?) Regular testors paint ok? Washes for detail?

It's worth paying for the highest detail possible; the lower detail prints have a VERY rough texture that soak up a lot of paint and just don't look good, IMO. Highest-quality will still have some texture, but look great and painting mitigates that to a degree.
Some folks sand a little with a very light sandpaper to remove some of the visible print "layering" but I've just gone straight to paint.

For reference, I have a Slave 2 and a clone-era Y-wing.

As a designer and a gamer i always..ALWAYS suggest frosted ultra detail or extreme detail. More expensive but far superior in detail and texture. i try to dissuade people from ordering all but the largest ships in white plastic. And even then only if the ship is too big for detail. They have introduced a new material hi definition acrylate that shows a lot of promise. The ships i have designed and ordered in it have come out quite well. And it is a bit cheaper than the detail materials although requires a bit more clean up, Other people have had kless luck with HDA though so id defintiely ask around

Thanks for the help. I ordered the ghost docking bay,a tie droid and a chiss claw craft. Since I play casual, I don't see any problem with painting/playing with pre-a new hope. Will try the frosted minis at some point. Regards.

Since this topic was created, been meaning, can someone post pictures of Frosted Ultra Detail and Frosted Extreme Detail, both fresh out of the box, and primed ready to pain, and finished paint, Im still on the fence with the idea of 3D Printed products....and really want to get some good pictures to help sway one way or the other....

(Disclaimer: i am not FFG personnel)

A word of caution:

This is FFG's own forums. The painting forum was already closed down once!

Citing @Vorpal Sword, he is referring to this subforum:

"However, after talking briefly with an attorney friend, here are my conservative guesses:

(1) Do not use this forum to sell anything or advertise services.

(2) Do not use this forum to show off non-FFG stuff, especially stuff that may not be officially licensed. Scratch builds are probably okay, especially scratch builds clearly intended for use as terrain or homebrew ships for X-wing. But otherwise if it looks like Star Wars and you didn't buy it from FFG, don't put it up here."

So please do not start threads naming other companies alreday in the thread title. Do not compare other companies products here, esp. ships.

8 hours ago, Managarmr said:

(2) Do not use this forum to show off non-FFG stuff, especially stuff that may not be officially licensed. Scratch builds are probably okay, especially scratch builds clearly intended for use as terrain or homebrew ships for X-wing. But otherwise if it looks like Star Wars and you didn't buy it from FFG, don't put it up here."

Just to say that there was a rather heated discussion about this a short while ago, and an FFG employees response can be found here:

(so, no actual advertising or, I guess, links to sales pages, but showing models/paintjobs is apparently ok )

I was talking to a Warhammer player at my FLGS, he suggested using a cloth rotar and jewelry polish to clean up the 3D printed white plastic models.

My first purchase was this same type of plastic, never ever again. It is worth it for the frosted ultra detail or better (plus it smells like cherries!!).

I am sorry I started this thread. I just wanted to get help because I do not have painting experience like Barry, Gosric and other talented people. I didn't mean to cause trouble.

You're not causing trouble, FFG has already (in that other thread that Barry exploded the forum with) indicated that posting, asking questions, and otherwise displaying 3rd party work is perfectly okay...just don't try to SELL anything here

Edit: Also keep an eye on your e-mail from Shapeways, they tend to do sales on the high end specific plastics (like the frosted ultra detail) and general discounts around the holiday season. Can really take the edge off the cost delta between the cheap stuff and the good stuff.

I've tried using a mix of primer and white glue to attempt filling the porous nature of WSF with some success...also tried Mr Surfacer, but that didn't seem to help...I think you have to ask yourself if you want models that stand up to close inspection, or look just OK at tabletop distances...vs cost for the better materials...vs whether you're ever likely to get a model you really like from any other source - ever!

Oh, I tend to buy the WSF as the overseas shipping costs are, frankly, ridiculous [my last 2 came from the Netherlands, not as far as a lot of the states in the US are from the manufacturing point] and don't feel the combined price with the nicer materials are really worth it

an out of the box comparison shot of the same ship in the three best materials

Interesting to hear your thoughts on the Hi-Def Acrylate Gosric as I haven't seen it myself yet. With a bit of luck I'll get round to painting my latest acquisitions soon...

It is definitely more toy like, durable and easier to paint etc

but sometimes evidently there are more of the little nubs from the support strands, Though i would assume that it depends on whether it is printed at the main facility or one of the outsourced people it since i havent had that happen yet

On 3/31/2017 at 0:48 PM, Gosric said:

an out of the box comparison shot of the same ship in the three best materials

Thanks for this, I wanna print up a few Venators for Armada but everytime i go to click print, there is this giant 80 dollar + Price tag in front of it that is just like.....will it be worth it and OMG the price, OMG the price.....

Come on FFG, release the Venator for Armada....and if you feel bold, for X-wing too!

the price can be off putting it is true. I try to make things as cheap as possible when i design a ship, with hollowing and such like. But the shapeways base cost rather than any markup is what does it. Especially for either epic scale or Armada since, for example, the shapeways material cost to make even a hollow edge is quite steep. They didnt have it in mind when they designed the ISD *L*