Enter the world of small scale: The ultimate guide to 10mm 3D printed miniatures
Forget towering giants and vast landscapes—sometimes the most intense battles and intricate stories unfold on smaller stages. Welcome to the fascinating realm of 10mm miniatures! Scaled approximately between 1:160 and 1:180, these tiny warriors, civilians and creatures pack a huge amount of detail into their tiny frames. Beloved by historical war gamers, fantasy enthusiasts building massive armies, and diorama artists creating detailed vignettes for its ability to recreate large-scale Napoleonic conflicts, 10mm offers a unique combination of manageability and visual impact. With 3D printing technology at your fingertips, creating these miniatures has never been easier. This guide takes an in-depth look at designing, printing, painting, and finishing your own 10mm masterpiece.
Why choose 10mm? Great fight, tiny footprint!
- War on an epic scale: Deploy your entire army without taking up your entire living room. Reenact historical battles or fantasy sieges with hundreds of soldiers maneuvering simultaneously.
- Cost and time efficiency: Each mini requires far less resin or filament than larger scale models, meaning armies can be assembled faster and cheaper.
- Terrain Depth: Detailed buildings, forests and landscapes become manageable projects rather than huge undertakings.
- Focus on playing: The game veers more toward grand tactics and maneuvers than complex individual unit management.
Designed for exquisite scale
The leap to 10mm requires thoughtful design:
- Simplified silhouette: Highly detailed elements, such as facial features, intricate buckles, or intricate textures, lose definition at this scale. Focus on strong, readable shapes, exaggerated armor plates, prominent weapons, unique poses. Cohesive unit poses became critical for Mass Effect.
- Dynamic poses: While complex muscle outlines are gone, dynamic gestures (charging spearmen, archers drawing bows) convey energy. Avoid parts that are too slender and prone to breakage. If well supported during printing, a flowing cape or banner can be used to add character.
- Scale-specific software: Tools such as Blender, ZBrush, DesignSpark Mechanical, ChiTuBox or Lychee Slicer provide control. Specific measuring tools ensure the entire unit is proportioned to the oversized weapons/facial features. Thin parts like spears or bridles can still be challenging!
- Support structure: If you’re modeling your own, integrate thin supports or thicker connection points from the base. The animated base containing the fragments adds visual excitement, enhancing the miniature scale image. For off-the-shelf STL, evaluate the effectiveness of support placement.
Perfect Printing: FDM vs. Resin – Showdown
- Resin (SLA/DLP/LCD): The undisputed king
- solve: The resin’s ability to faithfully capture fussy microscopic details such as chainmail decorative elements at a microscopic level makes it an ideal choice.
- set up: Utilize the height between floors 0.02mm-0.03mm. Exposure times vary by printer/resin – example setup: ~1.8-2.5 seconds for base layer, 50µm/layer exposure, then adjust carefully using the calibration tool. Important functionality thanks to enough support to securely hold miniature brushes, swords, and more.
- direction: Angle miniature (about 30-45 degrees backward) [Fig. Precise Angles Prevent Print Layer Errors Optimize Detail Resolution] Guide the exposure carefully. Position support anchors to strategically activate complex overhang areas and prevent problems that often affect small parts.
- Frequency division multiplexing: A bold choice for a strong army
- Limit idealized details: Success depends on printer calibration (recommended to use >0.2mm nozzle, greatly sacrificing accuracy). The optimal layer height is approximately 0.08 mm, which helps to properly preserve the definition texture. The focus print is protected from external impacts or the thick sole itself, minimizing the risk of fragility.
- Elasticity: PLA/PETG ensures durability and can withstand rough handling – especially cavalry vehicle components, so they last longer and won’t accidentally break!
- patience: The level of detail is quite solid; the operation speed is slower, the accuracy is slightly improved, the outlines smoothly form the final result, which is easy to manage, there are enough infantry blocks, the printing is significantly consumed, and it is ready for battle when completed.
Post-processing: converting prints into models
- clean: Gently soak unpainted surfaces in >90% of isopropyl alcohol, gradually dissolves the residue and removes the resin print; soft brush helps clean problematic ridges, reveals original fidelity under previously UV cured panels, cures evenly, ensuring stability, hardens a solid structure to withstand future treatments, immediately followed by rigorous Primer, achieves tight adhesion, smooth coat, initially eliminates preparation hurdles, frustrating successive stages, willingness to submit textured primer afterwards, tough weather-marked stains, selective application with chopstick flips, removes stains, requires gentle cleaning procedures, effectively accomplishes the goal complete!
- Primer: The spray primer instantly produces a consistent and even coating, introduces suppressed imperfections, solves the problem of advanced weathering, may produce strong staining, obvious haze plot, exceeds the risk of wear and tear, but briefly triggers a precise and objective comfortable coating, optimally bonds the paint, significantly enhances the ancient impression of subsequent applications, achieves effective pigmentation, invisible hidden stains, full of solid prehistoric traces.
