"Ex Nihilo" - One Year of 3D Printing

Welcome back to The Art of Caesura!

Twenty twenty six! My goodness! What a year it's been! While we'll save the general retrospectives for the blog's TENTH birthday in a couple of weeks time, I would like to spend this time looking back on my 3D printing journey so far over the past year.

I placed my order for my 3D printer as a birthday present to myself in November 2024 - buoyed by the Trench Crusade Kickstarter which was running at that time (which really emphasized 3D printing). It arrived a few weeks later and, just having looked back, I can see that my very first print was on December 19th, 2024. I tried to print both the Elegoo Calibration Rook and the free Trench Crusade Red Brigade Model (with dog) at the same time before dialling in any settings on my printer. Unsurprisingly, the rook totally failed and didn't print at all (in retrospect it was likely too cold), but the soldier and dog printed really well. I was hooked!

From humble beginnings...

I spent the next few months REALLY educating myself about the printer and the  software involved in printing. I spent two weeks just running calibration prints so as to better understand my specific printer and printing environment (temperature, humidity etc) and how to get the most out of it. I watched countless Youtube tutorials and I have read J3DTech's comprehensive guide from start to finish multiple times and still refer back to it from time to time. 

During this time I was printing armies worth of Trench Crusade models. Printing such a quantity of models really helped me get efficient with space in my slicing program. I could fit every model for a whole Trench Crusade faction on less than one and a half build plates. 

With all this work put in, I felt I was ready to start writing about 3D printing here on the blog. And between April and May I did so. I still feel the sense of wonder regarding 3D printing that I tried to express in my Ode to 3d Printing. Through my posts, I tried to cover everything from what 3D printing is and why you would want to do it, to all the of stuff required for it and the digital side of things. 

These posts all culminated in my post of my workflow from start to finish. My intention with this series of posts was that if you were just getting started with 3D printing, these posts would provide a step-by-step process to jettison you months ahead in terms of learning and experience. I wish I'd had these posts when I was getting started. 

It was around that time that things really took off!

Over the course of a month I printed the largest model that I have ever held (not shown here)! I can't say much about it, because it is still a surprise which will crop up much later this year. After printing this massive "mini" I felt fairly confident in my printing abilities. 

Remember this guy? The first mini I printed!

While trying to get other people into Trench Crusade, it got out into the local hobby community that I was into 3D printing. People started approaching me for small printing projects - alternate heads, weapons and other bits; which snowballed into medium printing projects (units of proxies) to large printing projects (super heavy tanks, whole armies). I made business cards, I upped my packaging game - buying shipping boxes and custom made stickers with my logo, I made a form on this very blog (visible from the home page) and I was getting customers from other parts of Ireland (and indeed, one from abroad!) It was a really exciting time, I was the 3D printing guy in my area. My printer was running pretty much constantly from August to November and I was loving it!

But I was only one guy with one printer, and with life and work commitments (3 kids and 3 jobs) I was doing all of my printing outside of active hours (late at night and early in the morning). This had traditionally been my hobby time (to paint, and prepare for my next league game (writing lists, honing rules and strategies), so I was beginning to feel a little stretched. 

I printed these two tracked Repulsor Executioners because I think they look so much better than the hover ones. 

It was only in November that I decided I needed to take a break from 3D printing. I was having an increasing number of print failures due largely to the cold temperatures (despite dramatically upgrading my setup months before), and I didn't have any time for quality control so some models with errors were slipping through to my customers. They were all extremely understanding, and I was able to quickly remedy all issues, but I wasn't happy with the level of service that I was able to provide. So in late November I closed up shop, and I haven't printed since. 

Now, I know that this is all sounding a bit negative and defeatist, but stick with me. 

Reflecting on what I have accomplished in 3D printing over the past year actually fills me with such pride. I have printed literally over one THOUSAND miniatures this past year. Well over a thousand. Perhaps thousands (only a tiny fraction of those are for myself haha)! And there have been some really technically difficult pieces in there, as well as a few minis that people had only dreamed of owning for their collections of which I'm hugely proud. I have been able to print minis to gift to friends and I have even got one of my co-workers' kids into miniature painting by gifting him some 3D printed cowboys. It feels really good.

I have also proved that, when scaled correctly, I can totally fit 3D printing into my life and still have time for other hobbies. I have gone from only having printed 2 models this time last year, to running a 3D printing business and having developed all the new skills involved not only in 3D printing but also running a small business! Plus, as I write this (only a day or two before you'll read it) I'm actually gnawing at the bit to get printing again! As I mentioned in last week's post, I am SO excited about the game Malediction, which involves exclusively 3D printed models. I've already bought all the STLs for the whole game so I can't wait to get printing all of those. 

So, going ahead, I just need to be much more selective with the 3D printing jobs that I take on for other people, taking on much fewer at a time and allowing myself more time between jobs. With the Warhammer league wrapping up, I will have more time to paint things other than Black Templars and I am really looking forward to getting back to painting a variety of things (even if they're just different Trench Crusade armies). This will also help fill my cup. 

The future is looking bright for my 3D printing. I'm re-kindled, and looking forward to new exciting projects in 2026!

Thank you for joining me on my 3D printing journey! I'll see you next week on The Art of Caesura!

Watching: Traitors UK - season 4

Reading: Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi

Next Week:

Happy Birthday Isla!