Patreons Supports: Whose got the Best/Worst?

[JoeGKushner]

If you're planning to support a patreon, do you look and see whose doing the supports? Look for re views? Or just figure "ah, it says it's supported, it'll be fine."

[Auberon]

I only download the unsupported files, so don't care.

[haldir]

While I'm not a fan of 3dPrinting Pro (whatever his name Greg K) I know he does good work. Thou if I do use pre-supported stuff I could care less who does the supports. Most of the time, the piece will print out fine.

[Illithar]

The vast majority of Patreons are either supported in house or by Atlas Supports these days. Atlas Supports are... inconsistent for me. They're a company or group of people not a single person, which is how they are able to cover so many patreons, and it shows. The style of supports feels very different for say Titan Forge than they do for Archvillain. Honestly, I've seen some awful support work on some of the Titan Forge stuff. Artisan Guild started doing their support work in house. At first they were fine, but their latest Thieves Guild release is, in a word, awful. And not for the usual 'too light' supports that failed, they are horribly over-supported. I pretty much destroyed one print trying to get the supports off. To my knowledge, 3DprintingPro only does RN Estudio's supports these days.

 

But at the end of the day, who does the supports doesn't really matter to me. At this point I've taken to doing my own supports for most stuff. If nothing else this has slowed down my accumulation of unpainted mini's. There are a few that I still use their pre-supported files as starting point and just add some helper's to it (Lord of the Print, Archvillain). This is mostly due to the complexity of some of their sculpts. At the end of the day, pre-supported files are a crap shoot. No matter who does them, they can't test for every printer/resin combo or take into account all of the various environmental factors that may affect your printing, only you can really do that.

[TheAuldGrump]

Some of the Epic Miniatures have been kinda dodgy for supports, while others work just fine. (I think I had to print three of the Catoblepas.) They do not do them in house - they have two people that do two different sets of supports.

 

For us, STL Miniatures has printed perfectly, but I seem to recall pictures of some rather nasty artifacts on another thread in this forum.

 

Artisan Guild has been consistently good.

 

Black Scrolls has been good - and mostly don't HAVE supports! (Designed to print without them.)

 

The Titan Forge Vampire Hunters printed fine. I needed it for Mordheim reasons.

 

The Auld Grump

[haldir]

4 hours ago, TheAuldGrump said:

Some of the Epic Miniatures have been kinda dodgy for supports, while others work just fine. (I think I had to print three of the Catoblepas.) They do not do them in house - they have two people that do two different sets of supports.

 

For us, STL Miniatures has printed perfectly, but I seem to recall pictures of some rather nasty artifacts on another thread in this forum.

 

Artisan Guild has been consistently good.

 

Black Scrolls has been good - and mostly don't HAVE supports! (Designed to print without them.)

 

The Titan Forge Vampire Hunters printed fine. I needed it for Mordheim reasons.

 

The Auld Grump

 

You are not alone on this one. I ended up printing 2 of this brand. I ended up supporting my own & I tilted it on it side (not completely flat, more or less 45 degrees. Of course I got a print & I recieved my Bones 5 box.......sigh.

[TaleSpinner]

I never use presupported figures.  They are usually supported to achieve goals that are different than mine.  It only take a few minutes to support a mini and I need to setup the plate anyway.

[Ratmaster2000]

Well, we shall see how Mia Kay's and Clay cyanide's supports go:) The adventure begins with my Mars 2 pro in a temp location in the garage (with the wash and cure sitting next to it)

[Ratmaster2000]

So, clay cyanide seems to be really good. Mia Kay's support the models well, however I have a hell of time getting them off the build plate. Broke several of the bases 😫 trying to add rafts to existing presupports to see if that helps or makes the print worse. I'll know sometime this afternoon. Having a blast though.

[Ratmaster2000]

So, my resupport was a bad idea:(

Trying original supports from mia and just go slow taking them off.

[Glitterwolf]

I never use rafts.

 

I do support all myself.

Like it's mentioned before, no one can create a presupported file that works for all printers/resin.

 

 

[Rahz]

I have had solid luck with Loot busts.  Drag them into Chitu, slice, print, and done. 

Other Patreons, I usually support everything myself.  I have gotten lazy lately with a couple that I got lucky on and they worked, but often, even from the same Patreon, as usually there is a team doing the supports, I'd say I'm usually 50-50 success rate if I use the presupported stuff.  

 

I usually put throw up a movie I've seen 100 times already to keep my brain from melting or some good tunes and just do the supports myself.  I'm pretty sure I go overboard with them, but the prints are, more often than not, ok.  

[Ratmaster2000]

See, these ones from clay cyanide came out better  (maybe I am getting them off too soon, these sat in the wash for about an hour)

 

So, my resupport was a bad idea:(

Trying original supports from mia and just go slow taking them off.

[Illithar]

I will say, supporting stuff that is already attached to the base has it's benefits but it also brings it's own issues. I printed a bunch of stuff from Hero Forge for a friend and, while the underside of the base lets you anchor down the print with as many medium/heavy supports you would ever want, it makes it more difficult to properly support any overhangs or small bits of the character itself. 

[Ratmaster2000]

Well, supports auto created by Chitubox 8.1 (any reason I shouldn't update to 9.1?) seemed to hold and nothing looks dropped. Will know more after their 15 minute bath in the wash and cure.