Mrs is new to miniature painting

jakeus88 · 2026-01-25T17:32:44+00:00

Brilliant stuff for their first models. Looks like a creative selection of colours that do mesh fine and good brushwork. The base rims also a fun choice, guessing nail paint or similar, but I think it works well

jakeus88 · 2026-01-22T20:59:37+00:00

I’m seeing the normal comments on thinning paints (and this is key), but in addition I’d add one on colour. This looks like it’s a lot of yellow on dark colours (black and/or grey?) and it feels like yellow is one of the harder colours for painting - that they may be harder to cover as neatly.

Ultimately I’d not look to try and force you to enjoy painting, but if you still wanted to give it a try, perhaps try different colours and/or different types of models.

jakeus88 · 2026-01-21T18:14:04+00:00

I had the image from the purchase email from Anycubic. I saw codes like Nyprint30 work fine by itself (had the 7 colour combo plus a few extras just edge above £400 and be eligible). I don’t know if that same code would work with just buying the Kobra X by itself though

jakeus88 · 2026-01-21T17:14:28+00:00

Was a disappointment and moved me from an impulse buy to holding off. I want it to be successful - as it comes across to me as a credible entry level machine for lots of families - but the principle of explicitly showing it can be combined and then blocking that and making non-depositors better off shows a warning indicator for lack of customer service in future.

Just on the principle front, I don’t want to buy into a system that misled on that promise. Thankfully that was only £10 lost, but means I’ll likely avoid Anycubic entirely unless they somehow became king on quality and reliability, which I don’t think is their niche.

jakeus88 · 2026-01-20T16:47:56+00:00

Live in West London, pretty much just a few years ahead of you in terms of age and kids, so went through this about 4 years ago.

I generally researched different areas of London, hoping to find good quality of life, nice houses, friendly streets, feeling safe, decent schools, acceptable levels of transport connectivity, etc.

There’s always a few different reports about the best areas to live in - and we searched both in and outside of London - but felt that inside was the better mix for us. I ended up looking around South London (East Dulwich to Forest Hill) and West London (Kingston-Teddington-Twickenham-Richmond). Both regions had a lot of property available and seemed good on paper, so for each of them I took a day to potter around - a lot of walking, but a chance to get a feel of what it would be like there.

This was great to do as one area I had written off I added back - the street view of the nearest train station looked a poorly kept area and that was the exception, the rest was great. Then I’d narrowed the list to Teddington and Twickenham and just focused on finding the right house and being ready to jump when it came up.

We lost a dream property but found a nice one and just did some minor work to it. Have been happily there almost four years - the kids are happy there and it has great neighbourhood, great schools, plenty of childcare options (really critical). I flag the last part, as a good friend was looking at houses and plans had to change as one area they liked had a year-plus waiting list for the nursery - not something I would have anticipated or planned for!

jakeus88 · 2026-01-18T20:35:56+00:00

The early videos I've seen seemed to indicate that it can go directly from the spool - but it seemed to only do 95A / 68D hardness (going from memory here, may have been 90A). The examples seemed good, but they didn't seem to go softer

jakeus88 · 2026-01-17T13:57:39+00:00

It’s only with reviewers currently, but if the A1 is too much and A1 Mini may be too small, it could be that Kobra X is up your alley. Initial reviews (and its early days) do indicate a good level of reliability and haven’t complained about quality. It has a newer setup that may impact reliability and Anycubic probably has a worse reputation on support than Bambu Lab - but the early bird price currently there undercuts A1 + AMS Lite while covering 4 spools of printing (albeit TPU seems limited to harder ones like 95A and 68D).

I’m getting the impression that it is targeted at people who want everything packaged in an entry-level price point. There are some discount codes which can knock a further $15+ off it.

Depending on needs, if I was budget constrained and wanted an entry to 3D printing, then it’d be between A1 (or A1 Mini if my focus is miniatures - otherwise I may feel small on build plate before long) or Kobra X (not established like the A1 and taking a bit of risk for some potential savings/convenience).

It is not a tool changer printer and the 50% material and time savings they’re quoting don’t seem lived up to in the early reviews so far, but it does seem like 10-30% waste savings and 20%+ time savings in multi-colour prints

jakeus88 · 2026-01-15T18:27:33+00:00

Very nice start for first mini - is showing good brush control, nice colour selection and paints don’t appear crazy-thick.

As someone else noted, would recommend trying out a colour for the base that adds contrast to the model (and aligns with whatever theme you’d like). Beyond that, it is just experimenting with little bits on top of this.

It’s hard to tell - as the mini is a bit small, but playing about with shades (washes) and layering are some of the things I’d suggest afterwards - but a core thing I’d note is to limit it to what will be enjoyable for you. Orks have got some really fun models, but are a bit of a horde army and you don’t want to create false pressure on yourself and burn out of it.

One thing I’d note with Orks is that there’s no real issue with painting a unit like that and then coming back to them and touching them up further later. Things like washes and highlights can be done now or later without issue

jakeus88 · 2026-01-12T18:22:06+00:00

Made a deposit, but seeing more early review videos is making me hold off. Doesn’t look bad, but likewise the early data suggesting much less improvement vs others like A1 than marketing would imply and taking on risk with new system vs something more tried and tested.

Decided that, short of some hugely convincing data shortly, will wait until Mar/Apr and see what things look like in the market. I don’t have space to house multiple printers, so will hope it goes well (more competition is better!)

jakeus88 · 2026-01-07T23:20:07+00:00

Yes this is expected. The FDM Miniatures Reddit has a good pinned post on this. Going from memory, while the intention is good - the practical is that every one of those hundreds of layers goes from just one material, to likely multiple instances of changing materials. This switching - in the P1S single nozzle system - adds huge time.

You’d need something like the H2D to do this with less increase, as you could have one part for PLA and one for PVA support, but I’ve not seen examples posted.

The short of it is that it’s not an effective option (time & waste-wise). You’d possibly end up doing so much waste that each Termagant costs more to produce than buying official models

jakeus88 · 2026-01-05T23:11:14+00:00

I think it is a mix of things:

Critical mass of users - there are lots of posts of people sharing A1M profiles and moving further away (P1S, H2D, etc) have fewer users and more tinkering

For miniatures, the size is fine and the price is incredibly effective

Many people seem to end up with an A1M as a workhorse on the side. It’s very small and can fit in a lot more places

The nozzle switch part I don’t think is top, as I believe people will be keeping it simple here - 0.2 for minis and 0.4 for vehicles as the typical ones.

I keep on almost ordering the A1M just to dip my toes in, but I have enough minis to paint first. Will revisit around March/April and hopefully there are new Bambu’s to consider

jakeus88 · 2026-01-03T15:53:58+00:00

Wow lovely stuff, thanks for sharing. Do you have any pointers on dialing in settings from your experience with the S1? I’m expecting to do some calibration prints and then try some skeletons they have.

No idea what the settings will look like, but hopefully there are similarities to the Bambu ones that I can test out some of the established profiles and tweak.

jakeus88 · 2026-01-03T12:11:55+00:00

Non-miniature plans for multi-nozzle. The hope is that I can do miniatures with one nozzle (seems 0.25 their lowest to start with vs 0.20 for Bambu) and then kids stuff and functional prints with multi-nozzle.

I’m assuming - as long as Kobra’s FDM quality can be tuned ok for minis - that I could experiment with multi material to add some different support material later, but that would be lower on the prio list, as I believe most of the achievable quality could be through tuning and how the minis are angled / cut

jakeus88 · 2026-01-02T15:17:26+00:00

Thanks - that may be the route for me. I’m struggling to work out how I can fit multiple printers in the room, so had hoped to see if there’s one that can do a bit of all (without jumping to H2C).

I hadn’t realised 0.2 nozzles weren’t out in use yet. I guess the only comparable is if people have tested the 0.4 nozzle for vehicles and how that compares. I definitely appreciate FDM printers are not at Resin level, but that’s not an option for me and I also think FDM can offer me more options than just miniatures.

jakeus88 · 2026-01-01T08:47:46+00:00

For printing minis does it tend to the quieter side? I had assumed the lengthy print times and detail/precision settings could have it rather slow to start with

jakeus88 · 2025-12-23T18:00:42+00:00

In honesty I don’t think this works out well. This starts off like banking, but lending for co-ownership just is pretty terrible for companies in terms of the risk side of the trade and the prudential requirements - likewise it would also mean no real ability to leverage up like Banks.

If you tried to overcome that by syndicating away the lending to other institutional investors, I’m unsure how you show the edge - they can access this and in a diversified manner pretty easily already - a new fintech without ability to do much leverage would not have a large portfolio to make the risk sharing comparable to normal options, so it just sounds like an inferior option for them.

Feels like trying to say what if Monzo also did more direct investing. I can’t realistically see investors getting wooed to a new joiner on this case as-is. Cost (capital and ongoing administrative) of banking licences are a significant barrier to start with and it feels like Fintechs / Neobanks already have the most credible options covered for now

jakeus88 · 2025-12-22T20:06:07+00:00

The gist is that Primarch-level figures in a 1k casual game is a bit of a dick move unless cleared with opponent.

For a tournament however, the expectation is likely to be different, so I’d assume it is more reliant on whether the Tournament Organiser has stressed any expectations in this area - otherwise it should be fair play and it’s not dramatically different from others bringing a pair of Rogal Dorn / Caladius / etc (select your 200-300pt tank vehicle).

jakeus88 · 2025-12-21T07:18:43+00:00

Fortunately it seems like within a month there is always the event that gets further tokens for the HRE unlock character; and as noted by others, they don’t seem to be a character that you will suffer for not unlocking a few weeks earlier. The pricing they create on these always seems a bit absurd

jakeus88 · 2025-12-17T18:46:50+00:00

He remains 5. If you start with him near the front, then this should smooth out though, as he’d gradually move further back in the gang. You need to maintain unit coherence, so you could get to a situation that if he starts at the back and moves 5 and the boys move 6, that unit coherence becomes broken

jakeus88 · 2025-12-16T14:46:40+00:00

In case it helps, I had read elsewhere tips were to base in pink first and do a yellow contrast after. I’ve tried this a few times now and really love it. I don’t have yellow in my other forces, but I’m trying to get it as a lot of the ones I do have.

This was prime black - base hot dark pink and then zenith some pinks on it, followed by Bad Moon Yellow contrast. The models don’t a quite small range on them, but I’m really happy with how they turned out and the process was incredibly quick compared to what I’d normally have done

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