I’d say it pretty much is there. Resin printing will be the highest quality off the printer, but even FDM printers are providing excellent results nowadays. Hit it with some filler primer, a quick sand, and you’re ready to paint
If you’re satisfied with the finish you’re getting from your FDM printer, thats awesome! But it’s orders of magnitude (literally) off from the finish you get with an injection molded part, and while resin printing is impressive, reasonably affordable resin machines aren’t large enough to print a funko off (at least it won’t fit on my Saturn). Resin also isn’t easily accessible to the vast majority of users, and even then it requies some very careful design and post-processing to produce prints that aren’t immediately visibly identifiable as resin prints.
If thats what you’re willing to put up with for cheap(ish) Funkos, more power to you! But no, to my eye it’s just unreasonable to present it as an alternative that will easily (or at all) produce prints of similar quality to the mass produced product.
Resin has a great finish without post processing, and filament can look great by doing a little post processing such as acetone baths, primer, sanding.
Sure, but resin printing really isn’t (safely) accessible to the vast majority of the internet (and idk, tossing the first funko model I found on yaggi into chitubox would use ~$11 worth of resin). Same general issue with acetone baths, that’s really not something the average consumer can safely do (and ABS is awful to print) (And that’s not even mentioning how incredibly dangerous vapor-polishing PLA is - holy shit am I glad people stopped advocating that one). Even stuff like polyfused MJF prints, while beautifully finished, have some serious design considerations and stark geometric limitations if you want to maintain any distinct surface features. And while I love my printed, primed and sanded props, I do have to design for sanding in mind otherwise you still wind up with wonky internal corners and rounded edges on the more complex geometry.
I love 3D printing, but it’s really not at the point where we can be smug and act like it’s a drop-in solution for commercially manufactured products, especially injection molded ones.
If you’re happy with the quality you get printing your own Funkos, I absolutely applaud you! I just wouldn’t be happy with the finish compared to the commercial ones (though I personally wouldn’t be caught dead printing out one of those hideous little things when there’s so many MANY cooler maquettes out there…)
TBF, that resin cost can be dropped dramatically by judicious hollowing, in my experience. Also, the quality of the end product is largely dependent on user skill, but I completely agree with you re: the vast amounts of higher quality models available. These things are, and have always been, stupid AF in every way. 🤓
That was hollowed, but chitubox’s hollow tool is notoriously terrible and I admit I wasn’t using the absolute cheapest amazon resin. The funko geometry is just awful for resin conservation, and if you’re printing a whole one at once you’re using up an absolutely insane amount of resin on supports (and a lot of those are going to be internal I guess, damn those heads are awful).
But yeah like… why would you even want to do that. The only appealing part of Funkos is the collectablity, if you’re gonna make obvious fakes why not spend the same effort to make something infinitely cooler (and where it being 3D printed doesn’t run counter to it’s whole design ethos)???
I know it’s a bit of a strawman to rail against thay bcz that’s what nearly everyone is doing but uuuuugh
Finish on 3D prints still really isn’t there, unfortunately…
I’d say it pretty much is there. Resin printing will be the highest quality off the printer, but even FDM printers are providing excellent results nowadays. Hit it with some filler primer, a quick sand, and you’re ready to paint
If you’re satisfied with the finish you’re getting from your FDM printer, thats awesome! But it’s orders of magnitude (literally) off from the finish you get with an injection molded part, and while resin printing is impressive, reasonably affordable resin machines aren’t large enough to print a funko off (at least it won’t fit on my Saturn). Resin also isn’t easily accessible to the vast majority of users, and even then it requies some very careful design and post-processing to produce prints that aren’t immediately visibly identifiable as resin prints.
If thats what you’re willing to put up with for cheap(ish) Funkos, more power to you! But no, to my eye it’s just unreasonable to present it as an alternative that will easily (or at all) produce prints of similar quality to the mass produced product.
Acetone smoothing FTW. 🤌🏼
Resin has a great finish without post processing, and filament can look great by doing a little post processing such as acetone baths, primer, sanding.
Sure, but resin printing really isn’t (safely) accessible to the vast majority of the internet (and idk, tossing the first funko model I found on yaggi into chitubox would use ~$11 worth of resin). Same general issue with acetone baths, that’s really not something the average consumer can safely do (and ABS is awful to print) (And that’s not even mentioning how incredibly dangerous vapor-polishing PLA is - holy shit am I glad people stopped advocating that one). Even stuff like polyfused MJF prints, while beautifully finished, have some serious design considerations and stark geometric limitations if you want to maintain any distinct surface features. And while I love my printed, primed and sanded props, I do have to design for sanding in mind otherwise you still wind up with wonky internal corners and rounded edges on the more complex geometry.
I love 3D printing, but it’s really not at the point where we can be smug and act like it’s a drop-in solution for commercially manufactured products, especially injection molded ones.
If you’re happy with the quality you get printing your own Funkos, I absolutely applaud you! I just wouldn’t be happy with the finish compared to the commercial ones (though I personally wouldn’t be caught dead printing out one of those hideous little things when there’s so many MANY cooler maquettes out there…)
TBF, that resin cost can be dropped dramatically by judicious hollowing, in my experience. Also, the quality of the end product is largely dependent on user skill, but I completely agree with you re: the vast amounts of higher quality models available. These things are, and have always been, stupid AF in every way. 🤓
That was hollowed, but chitubox’s hollow tool is notoriously terrible and I admit I wasn’t using the absolute cheapest amazon resin. The funko geometry is just awful for resin conservation, and if you’re printing a whole one at once you’re using up an absolutely insane amount of resin on supports (and a lot of those are going to be internal I guess, damn those heads are awful).
But yeah like… why would you even want to do that. The only appealing part of Funkos is the collectablity, if you’re gonna make obvious fakes why not spend the same effort to make something infinitely cooler (and where it being 3D printed doesn’t run counter to it’s whole design ethos)???
I know it’s a bit of a strawman to rail against thay bcz that’s what nearly everyone is doing but uuuuugh
Agreed, yep. FWIW, Lychee’s pretty alright w/ hollowing (even if a number of its other aspects are infuriating at times). 🖖🏼