Some more 3D printed terrain today, just for something different. Multiple prints of a single sculpt from the Hextech Free Sample Pack (Battletech Compatable) (also available in a number of other locations). We last visited this free sample pack awhile back with the Trinity City Hab-Blocks and Slums set.
These are pretty straightforward – as the name (and appearance) implies they’re a form of sci-fi industrial liquid storage container, probably containing fuel or milk or lube. Industrial lubricant of course. I don’t know why your mind went elsewhere…
These are nicely detailed with the kind of intertesting panel work and indents and greeblies and whatnot that may not make the most sense from a real-world engineering perspective, but look good and read “sci-fi”. Similarly, I’m not sure what those “caps” are actually supposed to be, but they really stand out, so I painted them a darker grey to lean into it. I still had a bit of an issue with how they looked as they were a bit boring in mostly-white-with-grey before I settled on orange as a spot colour. Why orange? Obviously it draws the eye and stands out from the white/grey/black/metallic that the rest of the models are, and as we all know, it’s also established as an OH&S-related colour and works well with whites and greys in the more generic sci-fi sense.
Early on, I considered adding some decals of some sort but decided against it – mostly because I didn’t have anything appropriate at the time and their shape would make placement a bit awkward to just use one on each instead of like, four per model. Later on when they were fully painted, they got oil washed in the big Oil Wash Weekend, and ended up with a bit of a heavier amount remaining. They actually got “lost” on the table until I found them last night and was able to spray varnish them – sealing in the oil wash and “completing” them properly – and then photographing them about an hour ago.
As I noted last time with the buildings, this free sample set is really quite good, and comes with a lot of sculpts, and most if not all of them come with the option for hex bases or no hex bases. Hextech also sell a variety of buildings and terrain in a collab with Gale Force 9/Battlefield in a Box – and as we all know – prepainted is always nice for that whole “open, drop on table, done – touch up later if/when you feel like” aspect.
As we can see from the preceding few shots, these prints work well in a variety of scales, which is always nice. I really need to get some modern 15mm stuff painted to use with some of these pieces as the WWII stuff looks a bit incongruous at times. Once again, these models are another drop for Dave Stone’s Season of Scenery ’25. Getting stuff photographed has been a bit tricky of late, since the big table has remained covered in printing and the Oil Wash station, so the only things I’ve been able to show are smaller sets like these.
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
You’ve been smashing out the 3D printed stuff! I do like the scale agnostic side of these, I’ve been meddling with things outside 28mm lately and the realisation I’ll need a brand new set of terrain for each is a little bit daunting!
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Thanks mate – I’ve got a pile more to photograph and print yet – the table has been clogged up with printing stuff, and my new idea of using an outdoor table as an alt option got scuppered by terrible weather hitting us here. 😮
I was buying a bunch of Battlefield in a Box terrain for the 15mm stuff – only because I already had the painted DAK force and started building the 8th Army, but no way I’d have gotten into 6/8mm Battletech/Titanicus scale if not for the printer!
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Yeah printers have been so good for terrain. Most of my terrain is printed these days, barring the bits and bobs I make myself. I’ve been experimenting with printing models the last week or so and I’m impressed with the results I’ve gotten for some 12mm WW2 vehicles. Should have them painted up at some stage!
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Oh that’s cool. Which printer do you have? It will be cool to see the results. 👍
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I used to have an Ender 3 but I picked up a Bambu A1 last year and that’s been very impressive – much easier to use and does a great job for detail. For the minis I tried out a 0.2 nozzle rather than the 0.4 I use for terrain and that’s don’t a good job of detail. I don’t think I’d do organic shapes with it, but for vehicles (at this small scale at least) it seems pretty good
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Ah yeah. I’m using a Bambulab A1 as well. I also use the 0.2 for models. I’ve been using the FDG settings as well as Sunlu Meta PLA (and just the smallest layer lines – I’ve got plenty of models so it’s not exactly the end of the world if they take longer!) I’m also not happy with how it does organic shapes (outside of terrain that you can spray filler primer pretty thickly). I think I’d have to go resin for that, but I’m not ready to turn the air in there into a toxic mire.
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Excellent again mate – I’m always amazed by the quality and quantity of 3D prints available for wargamers these days – how long before the big GW starts flogging files?
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Thanks Alex. I think they’d have to hot critical mass of sales dropping before they do that. Their boiling of the frog isn’t quite there yet apparently… 😶
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Hit*
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The colours really work well together. The oil wash looks great, giving them a used look. “Scale” potential on those looks better than many of the buildings you’ve done.
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Thanks! Yeah the cross-scale thing doesn’t really work on the more traditional buildings, but it comes out strongly on more oddly and mechanically shaped pieces.
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These are some more excellent pieces of terrain. I think they’d look great on a Rebel base (considering Snowspeeders have that color scheme or pretty close to it) but they’re versatile enough they could be used in many settings. After all, everyone needs some milk storage containers!
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Thsnks mate and good spot on the Snowspeeder connection. I might need to buy in on Legion 2.0 with new figures in decent plastic now!
….and for some reason I feel like I should perhaps paint my Homelander figure soon.
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Love that colour scheme. Really effective.
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Thanks mate – I wanted something that looked kind of “old, classic sci-fi” but wasn’t directly thinking Star Wars, though I guess it’s not far from that in some ways as Kuribo pointed out!
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They’ve come out really well! 🙂 They work in all scales nicely. A quick glance at the heading photo and I thought they were paint dropper bottles!
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Haha thanks John – that’s just what we need right now, right? Another boutique hobby paint line!
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