Bulleidboy Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 I have started separating people from sprues - I have a large number of both standing, seated and loco crew that need painting. They have come from Modelu, Hardy's Hobbies (sadly now closed down) and a colleague who regularly posts on the forum who prints his own - he is patreon of Modelu, who for a monthly subscription send you 3d files which allows you to print your own figures or whatever. I am not sure what will be more fun, painting the figures or opening up the carriages to put the seated figures in place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveM6 Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 I should just explain that the figures were gifted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulleidboy Posted January 7 Author Share Posted January 7 I should just explain that the figures were gifted. For which I am very gratefulblush Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brew Man Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 This Christmas Santa brought me a 3D printer sunglasses, so I'm looking for suitable STL files too. I've had a look at Modelu and it looks interesting. I'm generally finding figures, train crews etc. quite difficult up to now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atom3624 Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 Hi BM, just do your own thing, and enjoy!!Figures - seated and standing - is a good idea.Al. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brew Man Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 Eventually I intend having a bash at FreeCad, but in the meantime I'm just looking for ready to print files, but as I said, I'm not finding figures easy to come by, at least not UK ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveM6 Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 Eventually I intend having a bash at FreeCad, but in the meantime I'm just looking for ready to print files, but as I said, I'm not finding figures easy to come by, at least not UK ones. I had exactly the same issue when I started 3D printing a year ago. Plenty of files available for everything apart from people!Modelu launched their Patreon scheme in the middle of the year. In a nutshell the monthly subscription of about £11 gives you access to around half a dozen .stl files. They are themed, so for example, one month we got a batch of seated passengers, the next was a set of lineside figures.You can print as many as you want and when painted differently, you won’t see that some figures on your layout have the same pose.This is particularly useful when it came to the seated passengers. With a couple of other seated figures from other released files, I had eight different figures and printed them in multiple batches to give me over two hundred figures that just needed painting in different colours - it took a few days!!The point is that I populated 20+ coaches for an outlay of about £25 (materials and files). The savings on this batch alone virtually covered the cost of my printer.How much would preprinted figures cost to achieve the same result?The only condition that Modelu impose, quite correctly, is that figures printed from their files cannot be sold but may be given to friends. I’ve been a member of their scheme from the outset and have found it to be a very cost effective way of populating a layout.Highly recommended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ntpntpntp Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 There are definitely useful free .STL files of figures out there, I've used a few from Thingiverse and other sources, and scaled them down to European N 1:160 to add variety to the usual Preiser etc. figures.The latest ones I've made use of came from Tramfabriek (narrow gauge and motor upgrade specialist)Figurines Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brew Man Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 @SteveM6Yes I'm considering joining Modelu's Patreon scheme. I didn't know what the cost was but at £11/month it certainly sounds worth it. Thanks for the added info.@ntpx3Thanks for the pointer to Tramfabriek, I'll have a look at them later. Thingieverse I've looked at extensively. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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