Sirrob01

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.

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

To join my little band of alternate HQ skeletons I dug up some alternate mummies to go along with them on Thingiverse.  I really like this alternate mummy by Mangforge it has a much more shambling moving look to it than the orginal HQ mummy. I guess you would say a much more classic mummy pose. As this is also under a standard cc by 4.0 licence I’ve attached a copy of the mummy stl at the bottom of this post just in case the thingiverse version becomes unavailable.

Thingiverse 3d Render

I printed 4 copies of the above mummy sculpt. I think because of the bandaged nature of mummies in general the layer lines are even less noticable than on the skeletons or the zombies to come. However I did encounter some strange artifacts along the tops of the mummies arms. I’m not sure why but it could still be an overextrusion issue, I’m still contiuing to tweak my cura profile.

3d print PLA+, 0.04mm nozzle, 0.08 layers with tree supports, nil cleanup and undercoated

I decided to upload a picy of the worst print, pre-cleanup and after I’d undercoated it. I love seeing the awesome prints people get from FDM machines but it’s really hard to find questionable prints or prints pre-cleanup and after undercoat. The undercoat really helps show the defects:

• Shoulder layer lines – cause unknown the other 3 didnt recieve that defect and printed from the exact same cura file (it happens) – minor cleanup with a file fixes those in few seconds.
• Little plastic tags hanging off – cause stringing – rub over with super fine sandpaper or scrub with old toothbrush and tooth paste (toothpaste is a very mild abrasive).
• Micro blobs or pieces of plastic – cause suspect stringing – as with above for cleanup.

I did print him seperate from the base and glued him on afterwards. Unfortunatly when I was painting I lost track of which one of the four he was, however Im fairly sure the little picture of the painted mummy at the top of the article is him. So you can see they cleanup and paint to tabletop quality fine even with what appear to be terrible defects.

The awesome shamblesome

Painting I chose a fairly standard and quick scheme, I needed these 4 finished fast as the skeletons took longer than I expected. The Zombies are likewise taking a bit to long as I’m having trouble getting the skin tone correct. I’m resonably happy with how they came out although there skin is a little too green for my liking and they certainly look a bit rougher than the skeletons. Although given I spent less than half the time painting these as the skeletons the roughness is to be expected.

The Bandages

• Bleached Bone (Citadel) base
• Wash Seraphim Sepia (Citadel)
• Dry brush Bleached Bone
• Dry brush 50% Bleached Bone and 50% White

The Skin

• Necrotic Flesh (Army Painter)
• Green Tone (Army Painter)

I’ve also included the simple heroquest base by enfenix which is in this thingiverse file pack, the bases is under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 liscence

STL files: Walking+mummy

STL files base: Simple+HeroQuest+Base

I caved and bought a 3d printer when it was on sale about 6 months ago. It’s one of the ones that makes the best budget lists fairly regularly the ender3 pro (check that link for info). I’ve spent a bit of time trying tune it and improve print qualities and have fairly consistent results using a 0.4mm brass nozzle with a 0.08mm layer height now. Checking over on thingiverse I stumbled on this cool alternate model for the skeleton for Heroquest created by Tezca . As this is under a standard cc by 4.0 licence I’ve attached a copy of the stl at the bottom of this post just in case the thingiverse version becomes unavailable.

Thingiverse 3d Render

As carefully as I could I printed out 4 copies of this model, however as my printer is an FDM 3d printer the quality does suffer. A resin printer would produce a far superior print. However having resin, isopropyl alcohol and UV lamps laying around my living room is not really an option so I do the best I can at the moment with my FDM printer. The quality I’ve managed to get from my printer in 6 months as I’ve been learning how to use it has improved significantly and I know it’s capable of much better quality with further tweaks and improvements.

3d print PLA+, 0.04mm nozzle and 0.08 layers with tree supports increased 8% in size (I recommend going 6% bigger)

The above picture of one of the skeletons is after I have done cleanup on the print. I spent about 5-10mins doing cleanup of stringy bits and odd lumps with sand paper, small file and clippers. Hopefully the above picture is clear enough so anyone intrested can clearly see the quality issues. ie a bit munged up at the bottom of the shield, the sword has a bit of a zigzag pattern and theres quality loss across the face (teeth and nose) to point out a few of the defects. I printed these four attached to there bases when I should have seperated them as the tree supports left a bit of a grid pattern on the base, live and learn.

The four standing skeletons of the…um…..hmmm

Before painting I added the little skull motif to there shields. I did this old school by printing a design I made up to paper, cutting it out and then glueing it on the shields and painting. If your intrested in the skull it is attached at the end (Released into Public Domain). I went with a fairly standard Skeleton painting scheme:

The Boney Bits

• Bleached Bone (Citadel) base (yes I have an antique hex pot thats still good)
• Wash Earth Brown (Reaper)
• Dry brush Bleached Bone
• Dry brush 50% Bleached Bone and 50% White

The Armoury Bits

• Leadbelcher (Citadel)
• Nulan Oil Wash (Citadel)
• Dry brush Leadbelcher (Citadel)
• Dry brush Ironbreaker (Citadel)
• Dry brush Honed Steel sword edge (Citadel)

The Shields

• Vampire Red (Army Painter)
• Skull Ulthuan Grey (Citadel)
• Nulan Oil Wash (Citadel)
• Dry brush skull with Ulthuan Grey

The bases

• Basic black

After all that quick spray with citadel matt clear to protect them and done. I’m pretty happy with how they have come out. They are far from perfect but they dont look out of place next to regular Heroquest Scythe Skeletons when placed side by side.

“If you are losing your leisure, look out! — It may be you are losing your soul.”
 Virginia Woolf

ZIP STL Files:- Heroquest+Skeleton

ZIP SVG Skull:- Skeleton_Skull_Shield