So to finish up the undead group I needed to add some Zombies. I did something a little different this time as I couldn’t find an alternate Zombie pose I liked (well rather I found it after I’d already decided to do a comparison). So I found a Zombie resculpt that had been done by fabbio84 that is in the same pose. So what I did was printed two of the scanned Zombies and then printed two of Fabbio84’s Zombies to show a contrast between the quality you get when printing a digital sculpt vs a very high res scan. For those after an alternate sculpt for Zombies try this one from DungeonWorks. I’ve included all the stl files at the end of this post just in case they vanish from Thingiverse.
Thingiverse 3d Render – Left Rescultp, Right Orginal Scanned
From the render above hopefully it is easy to see how much cleaner and crisp the resculpt looks, as I found this does have flow on’s to printing. I did scale both these a little, so the fixed scanned Zombie I scaled down to 90% this makes it a little bigger than the normal zombies but better sized against the rest of the HQ minifigs. The resculpt I scaled down to 91% which made him about the same height as the scaled down normal zombie. In both cases I turned off “preferences>>configure cura>>Automatically drop models to the build plate”. This was so that I could sink the bases below the buildplate and print them baseless. For those intrested that means once scaled for the scanned zombie a position of Z = -2.61 and for the resculpt a Z = -3.15.
Left Resculpt, Right Scan
These were printed on the same printer using the same pla and the same cura profile. So the quality difference is purely in the sculpt vs scan. In the picture above which shows the painted resculpt vs the scanned zombie. It’s pretty clear that:
- Overall the detail on the resculpt is much crisper and not as soft.
- On the resculpt my printer even managed small details like the belt, although teeth are still lost as is the belt buckle.
- The feet on both are pretty much mush, however on the resulpt I can just about make out toes. Don’t know why my printer seems to hate zombie feet…they must smell bad
On the painting front I found painting the resculpt much easier as I wasn’t guessing about detail in a few places and trying to bring it back using different paint colors.
Left – Good Pla, Right Not so Good Pla
I was going to do a comparison as well between cheap pla vs more expensive pla. Unfortunatly once cleaned and painted it’s really hard to tell the difference and even undercoated its tough to spot. I can say even if the photo dosen’t show the quality differences; Straight off the printer the better pla requires less cleaning and is also less temperamental/more reliable when printing. Additionally I also find the better pla seems to show fine detail just a hair better.
4 boys shambling off to a party
So short summary would be use the best quality 3d sculpt you can with the best quality pla for your printer. Even on a FDM printer you can see surprising improvements in quality with a more crisp/detailed sculpt. Next up will be 4 female versions of the HQ hero’s.
| Skin (Less green) 1. Necrotic Flesh (Army P) 2. Green Tone (Army P) 3. Seraphim Sepia (Citadel) 4. Tanned Highlight (Reaper) (Dry Brush) | Hair 1. Ulthuan Grey (Citadel) 2. Nulan Oil 3. Ulthuan Grey (Citadel) Dry Brush |
| Red Shirt 1. Pure Red (Army P) 2. Carroburg Crimson (Citadel) 3. Mars Red (Army P) (Blend Highlight) 4. Wild Rider Red (Citadel) (Blend Highlight | Blue Trousers 1. Altdorf Gaurd Blue (Citadel) 2. Nulan Oil (Citadel) 3. Altdorf Gaurd Blue (Citadel)(Highlight/Dry Brush) |
| Blue Shirt 1. Altdorf Gaurd Blue (Citadel) 2. Nulan Oil (Citadel) 3. Altdorf Gaurd Blue (Citadel) (Blend Highlight) 4. Lothern Blue (Citadel) (Blend Highlight) | Green Trousers 1. Mouldy Clothes (Army P) 2. Nulan oil 1 drop, Angel Green 2 drops – water down to wash 3. Mouldy Clothes (Army P) (Highlight/Dry Brush) |
| Wood 1. Earth brown (Reaper) 2. Nulan Oil 3. Oiled Leather (Reaper) | Metal 1.Leadbelcher (Citadel) 2. Nulan Oil (Citadel) 3. Ironbreaker (Citadel) (Dry brush) 4. Honed Steel sword edge (Citadel) (Dry brush) |
All the below are under the Liscences specified by their creators, check inside the Zip files.
Alternate Zombie pose by DungeonWorks Note: I havent printed this
A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people.”
– Edgar Degas
Sirrob01 