Of Displays and Disappointment

Now that I have the display cases, I must make haste with improvements. Since some part of the inspiration for this was the finding of a second-hand FDM 3D printer, I am going to be attempting to print my way to a beautiful backdrop scenery and some accessories to give depth. I lack the basic skills that I’m sure they teach school kids these days every day, specifically, 3D modelling software is an enigma. So I had little hope of designing my own at this point.  I decided on printed tiles for the base and set out across the interweb, attempting to find something that could work on my slightly outdated printer. Some failed attempts later, I happened across the work of the Artist Almost Painted, who had done the hard part for me and produced a lovely range of tiles and walls that were already Dark Angels themed and Scifi/Grimdark compatible. Many thanks to them. With some scaling, Cura, TinkerCad and much failure, I printed the first batch.

The tiles came out amazing. I was happy with the first pass and just printed another immediately. It also passed, and I just threw them in to eyeball it, and I was happy with the layout coming together. They are printed with the DA ensignia raised, so I am not worried about the detail getting lost. It should hold up once painted. The middle was another tile designed by Almost Painted that I butchered with Cura, to scale in between the DA two, and it looked passable on the first print as well. PLA+ at 220°C has been treating me well as a newcomer to FDM printing.

Next, I tried some of their wall designs; however, they came scaled at 75mm, and I didn’t notice, printed two before I realised from my perspective that the walls looked underscaled for the scale of the large tiles.

So I decided to take a look at the scale, watch more YouTube tutorials on Cura, and print some in accordance with the proportions of the tiles I had already made. More walls it was, these all changed in colour to white, but the filament remains by the same supplier and is still PLA+, no change to settings. I printed two more wall tiles correctly but poorly scaled, and then another for the middle.  I was pretty pleased with these, and after putting them in alongside the floor tiles, I love the look so far. The misprinted walls inspired me, instead of scraping them, I kept going up the back of the display case to the next level and now, perhaps potentially to the top. With those in place, it has started to creep ever upwards.

My first ever project, so be kind 🙂 Apologies for the multiple posts and update to this one. I had to invoke many machine spirits and some vulgar words. Pray this is the last time I post the first post again. 

I wanted a display case for some of my assorted miniatures, a small collection. Wicked Brick wanted £25.80 extra to send me a very overpriced, officially licensed 40K display case that cost £59.99. All the way from England to Northern Ireland, when they next produce a batch. Supposedly a superhuman effort. Over an Acrylic Box. The Delivery was considered as “Domestic – Channel Islands at £25.80”. The aforementioned Islands are most definitely still just off the coast of France.

Driven mad by the idea of paying this exorbitant fee, I emailed Support, hoping for a quick reassurance…

…and an explanation other than that they could “confirm this is the correct pricing as per our shipping provider’s policy”.

Annoyed, I looked through the usual suspects for a replacement display option and found some very cheap but just as good as, dust and cat hair-preventing, ‘clear’ acrylic boxes from Temu (Two Portrait) and its competitor AliExpress(One Landscape). In total for the 3 I have, I can’t have paid more than £18 total, I’m almost certain, they are from several continents away, and although their composition was flimsy at best, they were at least despairingly cheaper and freely delivered with speed from a vast distance away.

I could not resist. I intend to make up for their lack of backdrop, slightly yellow hint (just the Temu), and structural weakness by adding some 3D printed backdrop terrain. An endeavour to display my motley crew of plastic better ( mostly my sons of the Lion). A chance to get some more experience on a newly acquired vintage FDM printer (Ender 3 S1 Pro) and some action painting some display terrain.

Needless to say, Wicked Brick did not receive my custom, and honestly, after seeing these and getting over the gleam of the officially licensed single backdrop supplied and their potentially superior build, I’m pretty happy to go for quantity over quality, so much more space to display in these than one of their opening tier displays and at nowhere near the cost.

(On TEMU and AliExpress. I don’t support either platform; I’m sure the low prices have dubious consequences, generally mean low quality, and their upsides usually just low cost. I would be sure to avoid both of their apps and definitely don’t give them your main email address, as it’s going to be spam city. But so far, everything I have ordered has been delivered, if somewhat slowly and usually deemed shoddy on arrival.)