Hello,

Has one of you already painted some 3D printed scenery? I usually use inks, washes and drybrushes, but because of the layers/the structure of the printed scenery, I can’t use it.

What do you think? Any advice?

Thanks!

Well if you have a lot of lines due to the printing, a think automotive primer spray can is best to start off with. It will fill in a bit of those lines. Next look at the textured spray paint. If you have buildings that could use a texture some of the fine sandy spray can textures will fix the printer line problem while giving at scale texture to the building. So people will use spackling but it doesn't adhere as well as paint, takes longer to put on and isn't to scale. It is a more visible effect though. From there air brush or spray paint to the color you want. One trick is to paint the lower half a lightly darker color than the top half. This is easiest with an air brush as you can mix your paint at will but doing a solid color in spray paint and then light high lights up top would work too.

As for your inks and washes, try using a piece of sponge or cloth for applying it. You can give some weather looks while not taking forever and a day with a brush. You can of course dry brush, with a bigger brush.

@Ritalbringer Some examples

Thank you @Mep for sharing your experience.

I have only “regular” primers from Army Painter, 3 of them I am gonna use: first black, then fur brown and finish with desert rats. But I am not sure this will really fill the printing lines.

12 minutes ago, Ritalbringer said:

Thank you @Mep for sharing your experience.

I have only “regular” primers from Army Painter, 3 of them I am gonna use: first black, then fur brown and finish with desert rats. But I am not sure this will really fill the printing lines.

It probably won't. Ace hardware has rust-oleum and even the big box home improvement stores may have them. BTW they are cheaper than army painter stuff and will go through the spray paint quickly.

I believe @Mep is correct; your Army Painter primers aren't going to help much, especially if you're applying them with an airbrush. You'll get better coverage with a rattle-can, but... Anything that you spray on to fill in the print lines will also obscure some of the finer details. In my opinion, you'd be better off spreading a filler putty (such as Bondo) on the larger surfaces and gently sanding it once it's dry.

My first piece of 3d printed terrain. I used a few decent coats of duplicolor filler primer as my base. 3 coats later I had a slightly smoother looking set of crates. I used a few different shades of grey with a wash and dry brushing. I didn't focus on perfect just plating it's part.

@The captn For my imperial terrain crates, I use automotive primer, then air brushed on metallic under paint, then put on color layers and finished up with weathering effects. The print lines can be seen on close inspection but are hardly noticeable. A lot of paint is necessary to cover them up, The Imperial Terrain stuff isn't so detailed that you lose any of the detail by doing so at least. Seems I used my one pic allotment here already. Some pictures of them can be seen on the Jodo Cast twitter though.