Colour me Curious

I don't often buy painted figures. I have a modest number in my collection, but cost severely limits the possibility of acquiring more. That and the fact that I'm rather choosy about what matches my own painting style. I don't usually buy 3D printed miniatures either. I have my own printer and much prefer to print whatever I want rather than pay someone else to do that.

So, why would I buy pre-painted 3D printed miniatures? Good question. 

I suppose curiosity got the better of me again. It was an advertisement for Only-Games in one of my subscriber emails from MyMiniFactory that piqued my interest. Hmm, "Pre-Colored" 3D printed miniatures? They were running a promotion with a decent discount so I decided to take a punt. All in the name of research you understand.

Only-Games are licenced printers for a number of independent designers, so there's a varied selection to choose from. I deliberately selected two very different miniatures; the 'Vault-Tec Poster Girl' by Modiphius and a 'Kobold Cleric' by Bite The Bullet Studio. 

I chose the Poster Girl miniature as I felt this would be a good test of how well the printing process coped with representing flesh tones and hair texture. Then there's the bane of the shaky brush; the eyes. I do sometimes attempt to paint eyes but my worst failures come out looking like goggle-eyed freaks. Could colour 3D printing do better? I noticed that the miniature also has an integral base with lots of raised detail that would be a joy to paint in the traditional way. How well would the printing process manage this, I wondered?

I was interested in the Kobold miniature because it appeared to have quite a lot of detail and a number of different colours. I was curious to see whether the 3D colour printing process could represent shading, highlights and colour gradations that were similar to traditional painting.

Only-Games state that all their products are made on demand, with a production time of 10 working days for pre-coloured resin miniatures. I think I waited slightly more than a couple of weeks for the miniatures to arrive, so pretty much as Only-Games advertised. The miniatures came very well packaged, each in their own blister pack. They were protected from moving about inside their individual packs by a 'nest' of shredded paper strips (removed in the picture below) which did a good job of protecting the miniatures. Some time after I had unpacked them I did notice that the tip of the Kobold's tail was missing. However, I suspect that may be due to my clumsiness rather than any damage in transit. In any case, it is a very minor issue.

Blister packs (minus their shredded paper inner packaging).

Only-Games' website shows coloured digital renders of both my chosen miniatures, but no photos of the actual 3D colour printed figures. As you can see from the following pictures, what you see on the website and what you actually get are a little different. I wasn't surprised by this, but it would have been nice if there were pictures of the actual miniatures. To be fair to Only-Games, they do show pictures of some printed miniatures in the Pre-Colored range, just not the one's I chose. 

What you see...

... and what you get.

I was pleased to see that the colours on the digital render of the Poster Girl had been reproduced pretty faithfully on the actual printed figure. The blue in particular is a nice strong colour. There is a slight blurriness that is most obvious at the edges of the yellow trim. I guess this is a limitation of the colour print resolution. This seems to produce a slight graininess that you can also see around the edge of the base. On the plus side, I was happy to see that the miniature definitely has some shading and highlights. Had I painted the figure by hand I would have given greater contrast to the skin and hair, but otherwise the effect isn't bad at all. Close-up digital photos are also quite unforgiving and when viewing the figure at arm's length as it would be seen on the tabletop it really looks quite good.

Oh, and the eyes are there too. I doubt I would be able to improve on them if I had to paint them by hand.

I don't think I would have been able to improve on the base either. The details are nice and sharp and the choice of colours really help to make them stand out. Top marks to Only-Games on the base.

I'm not sure what method is used to apply colour to the miniatures. Only-Games don't say on their website, but I suspect it is something similar to the colour-printed option offered by HeroForge where colour is applied using something akin to a 3D colour 'inkjet'. This means the colour is only on the surface, which you can see in the photo below where the base is slightly mis-printed, revealing the underlying resin. Presumably the pigments are fused with the resin at the printing stage, so should be resilient to wear from normal handling.

The branding had me baffled until I realised that Modiphius hold the licence
to produce miniatures based on the Fallout video game by Bethesda Softworks.

Now, on to the Kobold Cleric...

What you see (Only-Games' digital render)...

...and what you get.

I really like this miniature. The colours are more muted than the digital render but I like it better for that, particularly the paler green skin tones. Like the Poster Girl, there are shadows and highlights, particularly noticeable on the hood and loincloth. Again, definition is slightly weak. If this was a hand-painted miniature I would have made the recessed areas darker and added brighter highlights to the raised areas to create greater contrast. I'd probably have used a bit of black lining too, to better define and separate the various parts of the miniature - for example on the straps and buckles of the bag. 

So my verdict? Well, not bad at all. If these were traditional hand-painted miniatures they would probably have sharper lines between the colours and greater contrast but as I said earlier, at arms length they look perfectly fine. I think the main consideration for me is cost. Had they not been offered at a significant discount I think I would have passed over them. At the time of writing, the Kobold is £11.80 which is comparable to the going rate for a 'table-top standard' hand-painted miniature of this level of detail. However, the Poster Girl is £20.00. I guess the base adds to the cost and there is probably a mark-up for the licence Modiphius pays to Bethesda Softworks, but that's a bit steep for what would be a fairly basic paint job by traditional methods.

The other pertinent issue is the miniatures' intended use. I do think they are aimed more at the Role-Playing Games community, rather than table-top wargamers. In that context, they are probably filling a niche but I think that's a long way from breaking into the wargames market. Now, if they ever start 3D colour printing Napoleonic armies, or troops in Tartan kilts, that would be something else!