How To Paint 3D Prints with Acrylic Paint
How To Paint 3D Prints With Acrylic Paint
In this post, i’m going to show you my first experiments with painting 3D PLA plastic prints made with the Ultimaker2 3D printer with acrylic paint and how you can do the same thing your creations and start to learn how to paint 3D prints…
how to paint 3d prints
Intro – Let’s See How This Goes…
3D printing is perhaps the best thing ever since everything.
However, at the moment prints are usually one colour. Unless you change the print material mid print or send off your fully 3D textured mesh to a company such as Shapeways to get a full coloured 3D print in sandstone. However, it takes a long time to texture on the computer, and also you have to send off for your lovely 3D print in full color and wait.
You can get a quicker/cheaper results using an Ultimaker2 or similar PLA layer 3D printer. These can be found at your local FabLab/Makerspace. You also have more control as to what the end result will be. If you don’t like the colour, you can paint over it or sandpaper it off and start again!
Last weekend, I showed you how I made my 3D printed spaceship pod image for my latest imaginary city link “Arctic City”.
Now I am going to try to paint it!
This is one of my first attempts at painting a 3D print you will see if this one is a success or not!
Let’s see how it goes! Here, I have limited paint resources as I am in a remote part of Iceland without model paints/airbrush etc. Only artists acrylic paints.
Think a bit before painting…
Firstly, learn from others and that includes me. I may be an expert at 3D graphics and 3D printing but not painting 3D models (yet) so here I found a really useful page by Ultimaker with someone called Jacky Wan who gets amazing results by painting his 3D prints. Check it out and be inspired!
Meanwhile back in James Abell Art world, I started to make a few tests and prints. And just came up with a muddy mess that looks “ok”.
paint 3d pr int first try a bit !”muddy”
Like all work processes playing can be great but sometimes playing can take too long, I have a deadline for this! To finish this imaginary city as a product and photo for my site by the middle of mid June 2016!
Sometimes, one needs strategy and like all things I create and show to you the world, I want it to really “sing”. I came up with this approach and I will use it in the future when I paint new 3D prints…
Break It Down
Research your textures. I’m lucky enough at the moment to be in North West Iceland. Here machinery left outside looks really “gnarly”. For example, look at this great texture from a digger while walking here in Ísafjörður, northwest Iceland. I can only imagine the extreme winter weather…
digger Iceland
Look at the layers. The original paint layers, then dents scratches, rust eating into the metal in the real world things get based around. Then you have mud caked in layers over the metal. Another photo I took in Ísafjörður, interesting textures for your 3D art is everywhere…
Ísafjörð urtextures
Look how the paint finishes on the materials have aged due to the icy blasts of wind, snow and rain through this fjord. In real life, paint finishes are rarely even and perfect, even on the newest of things.
So I want this “orbiter” ship that is part of my latest city of the imagination . I want it to look like it has been weathered a bit in a cold wintry arctic environment. Snowy, blasted, gritty. I want all the models in this Arctic city to show a history and not look like a glinting piece of newly produced industrial futurology!
Materials I Used
how to paint 3d prints
I used acrylics, brushes, pencils, shellac paint as varnish. I only had limited resources as there is no model shop here with an airbrush etc in this part of Iceland 🙁 However, these limited resources show you what can be done with little.
In the future, I will experiment with airbrushes etc so watch this space for more of that!
Of course with a 3D print, unless you want them to be heavy you want to use the basic Ultimaker PLA prints. For example, don’t paint your latest high-grade metal print from Shapeways!
The main thing with the Ultimaker2 type PLA print, you will get a detailed shape if you print with high settings.
The paint process should make it “sing”. A cheap, quick and fairly easy process once you know how…
How To Paint 3D Prints? Let’s find out…
My Process
One way to do it is to rush in and just kind of paint. I often do this “rushing in process”!
This time, I decided to step back and look at what made up a texture in real life for example, the photo of the digger, see above.
I then sketched out ideas as to what a weathered arctic pod would looke like. I sketched out the “layers” of the texture of this Spacepod. The pod is in an arctic cold environment, snow, mud, gnarly sea salt that will attack the surface of gleaming new space pods…
texture layers
I then took the nice clean PLA 3D print and put it into a gripper thing, actually I don’t know the correct name but you can see what I mean from the photo…
painting a 3d print
Using the sketch I drew out above, I started off with a colour wash, then the “base” colour and started to add gnarly dirt elements and also some “decals” using black paint. I also applied some washes to make all the cracks and crevices look used and a bit dirty…
how to paint 3d prints
Finally, I added white acrylic mixed with a bit of blue for the icy snow that would cling to vehicles in the cold winters…
paint 3d prints
I only have shellac here as a varnish, I will paint some on tonight and will let you know if it strips the paint off!
Check Out The Accompanying Video
Going further…
So you can push your 3d print painting as much as you want. I am going to do much more of this so watch this space, I will look into buying an airbrush to push things towards a more polished result. However, at the moment here in the Northwest of Iceland, it isn’t possible to pop to my local model shop!
Painting this pod also made me think about this Imaginary Arctic city. I will not spend a long time painting my models for the photo shoot that I will be making. I will rely on washes, a few textures and also decals. The models will also be lit with LEDS so really detailed textures will not necessarily show in the final photos.
Sometimes, you have to step back and think of the end result, don’t be too precious. Some things will not show in the final images!
The Arctic city will also be a boxed model kit that can be bought. This will allow you the buyer to paint it how you want too! Wow, we really do live in interesting times.
Watch this space for the big Arctic city that is coming up very soon!
For now, if you want to try to paint this Spacepod yourself, or to show your support for my blog, you can purchase the plain white (or a different colour) from my online shop here.
how to paint a 3d print
Thanks for reading this blog post and checking out the accompanying Youtube Video. Did you like this post “How To Paint 3D Prints”?
Let me know if you like this post by making a comment below or email me at info@jamesabellart.com for your suggestions or if you would like a private Skype lesson.
Take the first steps today to make your own city of the imagination, look out for more posts. Exciting times ahead!
If you are interested in taking your Cities Of The Imagination, you can take it to the next level, you can buy my Kindle book here about making an imaginary city using Blender, the free 3D graphics application –
cities of the imagination
If you feel that this blog post or my site helps you, consider making a donation so I can continue with in-depth blogs full of useful resources and inspiration for you.
You can donate with bitcoins or on the website Patreon.
Alternatively, you can collect and purchase the spaceship pod model on my online shop.
or donate with bitcoin…
As said above, you can also buy the model in this blog here on my online shop .
I look forward to talking with you again soon and keep making! 🙂
