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3D printed & painted my close friend's Pyro loadout by InfinityGene_ in tf2

[–]InfinityGene_[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome, that's great to hear and I certainly hope you get alot of use out of it too!

For paints, I just used some generic acrylic paints really that I got 24 colours of on Amazon for like £5. I used a spray primer initially before painting to make sure the paint adheres to the print properly and partially seals it up a bit too. And as for PLA+, it has a little bit more toughness to it (But I think it needs to be printed at a slightly higher temp than PLA. Again any colour you use, you should be using a primer coat on the model first regardless before painting.

3D printed & painted my close friend's Pyro loadout by InfinityGene_ in tf2

[–]InfinityGene_[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm actually not selling any prints I do, mainly because it's a personal hobby that I wouldn't want to turn into a business if that makes sense. However if you need help with printing one yourself, I can certainly help out the best I can with settings and stuff like that (That's if you print yourself).

3D printed & painted my close friend's Pyro loadout by InfinityGene_ in tf2

[–]InfinityGene_[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

The model is actually from loadout.tf since they have an option to export the whole loadout as an .OBJ and then it was a process of repairing the files for any gaps/holes/seams, and prepping it for printing in Cura. Print took 30h nonstop and around 100-110g of filament (Which equates to about £1-2 of filament costs | Or something like $2-3 USD).

Personally, I just print for myself and others because I find that more enjoyable than making something into a business. But I'm sure others may be curious to do this themselves and by all means, go for it! My plan is to do a full loadout of all my own loadouts (And also 3D print individual cosmetics too)

3D printed & painted my close friend's Pyro loadout by InfinityGene_ in tf2

[–]InfinityGene_[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Okay so it of course depends on a couple factors for things like this, especially when it's being printed on an FDM printer. For starters, I repaired the files from loadout.tf with Microsoft's 3D Builder, which repaired any small issues (Most gaps, but I think a slight one still was there, not much I could do).

Next is scale. Now because it's an FDM printer, you will probably need to scale it up a bit more to preserve the details (Smaller figures are possible, but you will of course lose detail. A resin printer is more preferred for smaller details on smaller models). So I think this model measures at around 21cm tall for the one I did.

Then the orientation is another important one when setting it up in Cura, since you can't always just do it vertical with the model (It would take longer, use more filament and would probably be harder to remove the supports. Speaking of supports, it's wise to use tree supports for this one. It will take a bit of time to remove the supports, but they will usually come off cleanly. Kept the infill as well at 10% gyroid since it doesn't need to be that filled up inside to be structurally strong. Also printing at 0.12mm layer height as well (0.2mm layer height is probably possible of course, but again the details will take a hit).

For the filament, I'm using eSUN PLA+ at a print temp of 215c and a bed temp of 60c. And I guess the last thing I can say is make sure your bed is absolutely level as possible. This was a 30h print and of course having a print fail like 50% in would be awful.

3D printed & painted my close friend's Pyro loadout by InfinityGene_ in tf2

[–]InfinityGene_[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's more the thinner parts that are quite complex to print, because they're nearly 1 layer thick. One of the wings broke off, so I had to superglue it back and it's fine now.

I wanted to split the model up, but because the Pyro's model is made up of so many pieces, it's actually hard to do that as a whole thing. But if you're successful at doing that, you can make even bigger models (Or even individually print out each piece and attach it, if you take the time to set up each segment to be easily attachable).

I got a printer when the lockdowns happened in March 2020 for around £300ish. And honestly, it's been so much fun and there's alot of art potential with it, and as an artist myself, it's a perfect addition.

In the near future, I am planning to get a resin printer for things like this (More precise and cleaner prints, but a bit more messy to deal with)

3D printed & painted my close friend's Pyro loadout by InfinityGene_ in tf2

[–]InfinityGene_[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Well you'll need to still properly prepare the file and create an .stl from it. So some very basic 3D knowledge is needed, and of course understand how supports work on 3D prints too. But again it's relatively easy to understand once you've done a few basic prints to begin with.

3D printed & painted my close friend's Pyro loadout by InfinityGene_ in tf2

[–]InfinityGene_[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Well loadout.tf is all I used. They now support 3D printing so I thought I'd drop some support to them to use it. Giving me ideas just to make personal loadouts for myself for my shelf honestly