TimeShift, an FPS from the Xbox360/PS3 era. It was my first PS3 game played on an HDTV. The time mechanics were fantastic, the graphics were amazing to me at the time, and it was a surprisingly fun time. I would be so happy with a remake/spiritual successor.

I won’t lie, usually Christmas is my favorite time of year. Something about the music, getting to see all my family, and trying to find inventive ways to make friends and family happy through gifts always cheers me up. Never really had the money to go all out, but the spirit was there.

This year I just do not care. Usually I listen to dozens of hours of Christmas music and this year it is less than 2 hours so far. I’m not looking forward to giving or receiving gifts; it just feels so formulaic and rabidly consumerist. My usual comfort movies hold no interest for me. I’d skip it if I could. And all of that was before my grandmother died this past Saturday.

Most of what I have printed with it the 0.2 mm nozzle is filament swatches with detailed info “engraved” into them. I tried to do a larger detailed piece with it, but the model wasn’t print-ready and I made thin spaghetti instead.

That’s exactly what I got, and it has worked really well so far. I haven’t tried printing any minis yet (although I was thinking of trying one of FatDragon’s next weekend), so thank you for the link.

I went with the A1 mini while it was (actually still is) $200 on their website. That’s about as much as we spent on our sewing machine gathering dust, a bit more than our vinyl cutter doing the same, and around the same as I’ve invested so far in mini painting.

To be fair to me, I have so far kept up with the miniature painting.

I have a tendency to get into hobbies for a month or so and then drop them, too, so it being easy to set up and use should help me stick with it a bit more. The relatively low initial investment should soften the blow if I do drop it, too.

Just downloaded all of his sample models and bought another 5 on top of that. I wish that sand worm came with assembly instructions, but he’s getting built one way or another.

I actually just found his channel a couple days ago. I haven’t looked too much more into him, but his designs look great. Thank you for the recommendation!

They did. The nozzle actually arrived days before the printer, which was somewhat funny. I plan on trying it out a bit tomorrow.

That’s exactly what I decided to go with. Looking forward to learning

Do you think a cigar shop would be a good local way to find at least the desiccant? Thank you for the advice.

My space to work is not extremely well ventilated, and my cats could get in if a door is properly closed, so I’m leaning heavily against resin. I understand 3D printing is not without its risks no matter what material or type you use, but resin seems to be more than I can handle in my current setup. In several years, potentially in a new house with a garage, I may reconsider.

Its good to hear another recommendation for this one. It sounds like a good one.

Bambu Studio does appear to be open source and available on Linux, though, which were my first concerns. I’m not sure I would need to switch to Klipper or something similar in that case even if I could.

The results from resin printers look fantastic. My only work area is inside with cats, so I’m concerned about ventilation and contamination (especially since shutting them out of the room will reduce ventilation further). Also, miniatures are just one of the things I wanted to make. Planters, cross stitch hoops and tools, and those neat sectional fidget toys are all things I plan to make, and it seems resin isn’t ideal for those. I don’t mind sanding the result to make it smoother, and I understand the results won’t be as high detail as a purchased miniature when I do make them.

I have not yet learned much about stepper motors vs other options, but otherwise it sounds like the main thing that has changed in this price range is an increased number of valid options in it.

Yep, right there. Missed it entirely. Haha.

That model appears to be the most frequently recommended one for beginners, from my couple hours of research. Is it just the ease of use, or is the quality there, too?

I looked into resin briefly, but I don’t think my work area would be able to be ventilated enough for it to be safe from what I have seen.

I don’t mind tinkering, as long as I can find the info to help do so somewhere.

That does appear to exceed my budget by $100 even on sale, though. Unless I’m missing something.

I am seeing that suggestion a lot elsewhere, too.

Yeah, it didn’t seem like it could handle detail at a very small scale. However, making something in the 5-6 cm range would still be wonderful for painting. How do you have to keep it happy?

Making friends on sites like this can sometimes yield invites. There are also usually communities specifically dedicated to giving out invites. And if all else fails, some trackers have open invitations (either time-limited or with some kind of interview).

A common method is to get your feet wet with an easier to get into private tracker and use the invitation threads in it to get into the ones you want.

The organization and typical submission requirements are what really put them over public trackers for me.

Public tracker: It’s this big and this many files. Figure it out.*
Private tracker: All the metadata

* Experience may vary. Post is overly dramatic for comedic effect