Ok... so, we know that the Legion models are somewhere in the neighborhood of 34-36mm tall. An average American male is 5'10", or about 1.78m. In 1/48 scale, that works out to the average American male being 37mm tall. That's pretty close. What this means is that 1/48 scale models should work pretty well as Legion terrain.

It also means that if you have a 3D printer, you can download any of the ships designed for X-Wing scale (about 1:270) and scale them up 562.5%, which would print them at 1:48 scale. Detail might be a little light depending on the model, but could work perfectly for a crashed model or a model with comparatively low detail to begin with. My plan is to try it out over the next couple of days. A dude named (I think) Astrofossil has some good models I plan on using as test models.

As a quick update, I downloaded the basic TIE/ln model from AstroFossil last night and found it to be very highly detailed for an X-Wing scale mini. I rotated it a bit and cut the bottom half off, so that it'll look like it's crashed and sinking into sand when set on a table. I hit print on my 3D printer before leaving for work today. We'll see how the detail holds up. I'm printing it on the 'normal' setting, which is a 0.2mm layer height. I'm thinking that between painting, weathering and application of battle damage, I'll be able to cover up any particularly rough looking printer artifacts.

More to come tonight.

Can't wait to see how this comes out!

2 minutes ago, Palomarus said:

Can't wait to see how this comes out!

lol... I can't wait to see how it turns out either! I have a piece of MDF cut that I think will fit the finished model. It'll really be two pieces... the upper half of one wing with the cockpit and then the other wing by itself that I'll probably make into separate terrain. One nice thing about the basic TIE is that the wings block line of sight pretty well. That makes for solid war gaming terrain.

Lol. I started on the endor bunker today, and ofc had a nozzle block

I am about to pull the trigger on a 3D printer of my own. So I am overjoyed to see all the stuff people are doing with them here and on the facebook star wars terrain group.

22 minutes ago, Palomarus said:

I am about to pull the trigger on a 3D printer of my own. So I am overjoyed to see all the stuff people are doing with them here and on the facebook star wars terrain group.

I'm very happy with my Prusa i3 Mk2S. I bought the kit version and assembled it myself. The theory is that if something goes wrong, I'll know how to take it apart and fix it.

My printer is sloooooow, but I figured I'd jazz this thread up with a work in progress photo showing the crashed TIE being printed. The end goal is to glue it to some MDF and sand the base. I want to make it look like it's crashed on Tattooine (or Jakku or whatever). The one wing is attached to the cockpit. The other isn't. I should still have hours before it's done printing.

Nice! If you can add smoke and/fire effects , it would really take it to another level.

So, quick update. The print job finished successfully after about 23 hours of printing. The result is solid. I'd post a pic, but I'm at work right now and can't scale it down to the 0.2MB limit. I'm extremely happy with the result.

I have a piece of MDF cut and hope to have the terrain piece completely finished at some point this weekend. It's not like TIE Fighters have a complex color palette... although I may try some Rebel graffiti.

This looks awesome... It will look amazing on a battle field... just need to convince the wife on the importance of a 3d printer...

From what I can tell that the crashed TIE looks great. @KrisWall May I ask what Brand and model 3D printer your using? My interest in 3D printing has certainly been piqued with all the great 3D terrain I see being posted and I think it would be an invaluable investment for this game and others.

9 minutes ago, OldSchoolEmpire said:

From what I can tell that the crashed TIE looks great. @KrisWall May I ask what Brand and model 3D printer your using? My interest in 3D printing has certainly been piqued with all the great 3D terrain I see being posted and I think it would be an invaluable investment for this game and others.

I have a Prusa i3 Mk2S. It comes in two versions... pre-assembled or as a kit. I bought the kit, which cost ~$200 less and took ~7 hours to assemble. I liked the idea of saving money (obviously) and also knowing exactly how the thing went together, in case I ever need to fix something.

It can print down to a 0.05mm (50 micron) layer height. This TIE was printed at a .2mm (200 micron) layer height. The better the quality, the longer it takes to print. Printing at 50 micron resolution might have taken 4 days to print.

3 minutes ago, KrisWall said:

I have a Prusa i3 Mk2S. It comes in two versions... pre-assembled or as a kit. I bought the kit, which cost ~$200 less and took ~7 hours to assemble. I liked the idea of saving money (obviously) and also knowing exactly how the thing went together, in case I ever need to fix something.

It can print down to a 0.05mm (50 micron) layer height. This TIE was printed at a .2mm (200 micron) layer height. The better the quality, the longer it takes to print. Printing at 50 micron resolution might have taken 4 days to print.

The other nice thing about the kit in the US is that you avoid paying import tax, since that is required on items valued over $800. That also weighed into my decision in the kit vs. assembled.

1 hour ago, Basylle said:

The other nice thing about the kit in the US is that you avoid paying import tax, since that is required on items valued over $800. That also weighed into my decision in the kit vs. assembled.

I hadn't considered that, but you're absolutely correct.

@KrisWall , yea I'm sold on the Prusa i3 MK2S. I have binge watched youtube reviews of the Prusa and everything 3d printing related since yesterday. Any recommendations for someone new to 3d printing? Also any update on the crashed TIE?

1 hour ago, OldSchoolEmpire said:

@KrisWall , yea I'm sold on the Prusa i3 MK2S. I have binge watched youtube reviews of the Prusa and everything 3d printing related since yesterday. Any recommendations for someone new to 3d printing? Also any update on the crashed TIE?

there is not "one size fits all" printing profiles. You will need to tinker with popular ones.

you will need patience.

Sound advice!

On 9/22/2017 at 10:36 AM, KrisWall said:

Printing at 50 micron resolution might have taken 4 days to print.

.. and most people are too blind to notice the difference. Still that is an amazing resolution. Most 3D printed stuff I've seen look like crap.

6 hours ago, OldSchoolEmpire said:

@KrisWall , yea I'm sold on the Prusa i3 MK2S. I have binge watched youtube reviews of the Prusa and everything 3d printing related since yesterday. Any recommendations for someone new to 3d printing? Also any update on the crashed TIE?

The Mk2S is excellent (I've got the kit, too), but the Mk3 has just been announced. I would recommend getting that, since it is much improved. The biggest advantage with regard to the kit is probably that the Y-axis is now a few pieces of aluminum instead of an assortment of nuts and threaded rods that need to be properly aligned. This alone may shave two hours off the build time and prevent a lot of headaches.

The most important thing is getting the height of the first layer dialled in correctly . I've been printing happily ever since. I modelled the Endor bunker in OpenSCAD, split into individual parts it's about a 20 hour print at 0.3mm layer height.

On 9/22/2017 at 3:45 PM, KrisWall said:

So, quick update. The print job finished successfully after about 23 hours of printing.

Wow, that takes a lot longer than I had imagined it would. No mass production of crashed Tie-fighters then It looks great though from what I can tell.

13 hours ago, Lord Tareq said:

Wow, that takes a lot longer than I had imagined it would. No mass production of crashed Tie-fighters then It looks great though from what I can tell.

There are some shortcuts by setting it up for higher resolutions and wearing the detail difference. You don't get what you imagined time wise until you spend waaaay too much on the printer.

Let me know what you guys would like to see, I have a 1/2 done "Starfighter" that looks like a certain letter and the rebel ship from episode 7 that Leia rescues Han on. Didnt go down the ship path modeling yet because wasnt sure about game rules/mechanics for mission objectives, such as rescue downed pilot, etc.

Update! Now I need to prime and paint.

Very cool!!