More Printing! Always More Printing...

I really need to work on the rest of the game stuff but it's so easy to focus on the 3D printers when I've been sitting next to them while I work from home for a while.

These are my printers. They're affectionately known as The 3D Printer and The Other 3D Printer. Or 1 and 2 if I'm using the print servers. They were printing a request for a friend at the time I took the picture. They're not complicated and they don't take long so I wanted to get them finished and to him in a reasonable amount of time. And I'm using up filament in some less-than-useful colors.

When I get a new roll of filament (new being defined as 'new color for a brand') I always do a test print and label it so I know what it looks like. When you start getting multiple colors it makes it much easier to find the color I want. And I can compare them to see which one best suits the project if I'm not painting it.

For the test print I use a low polygon cat. It's scaled down to be 50mm tall and prints in less than an hour. It shows flat surfaces, some curves, and the angles. I then put a label underneath with brand/color/line (if there's more than one line by the brand). I don't put down the plastic type unless it's different than the one I use almost exclusively. That's a waste of space.

You can see where color starts to matter by the two purple cats. They're not as close as the two white cats but they're still ones I can pick up and consider rather than digging out the rolls and not knowing exactly how they'll look when printed. What's on the spool isn't always what is in the finished product when it comes to finish.

I have a small army of these on my windowsill now. I belong to a monthly subscription for 3D printing. I get at least two kilos of filament either in a theme or random. I also get some 3D printing related things and promotional items from the vendor. Overall it's not a bad deal and it's slightly less than buying two rolls individually. This is something for me to think about. The next box is going to help my thinking.

I was doing a LOT of printing to make the dungeon for my game. The convention is next month so I had to push myself. Having one printer down while waiting for a replacement part wasn't helping. But I did get everything printed and a bunch of decor to break up the grey.

That's currently the pile on my desk. I haven't put them away yet nor have I broken out those little tabs in the connection slots. While the printers can technically bridge that gap easily (bridge means just what you think, crossing an empty space while pushing out plastic) if they don't or there's some other issue it's going to be tough to clean up so the clips work. It's better all around to have them there. Even if it means breaking them out. I also want to run a sanding block lightly over the floors and tops of the walls. When the print head lifts it leaves a little point of plastic. Those suckers are sharp. A quick sanding gets rid of the 'ow' factor.

I won't have time to paint it before the convention. I have a lot of other things to do for the game (that hopefully I will be running) but I really want to paint it. I will paint it. After the convention.