FDM vs Resin? Maybe Not Anymore

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As recent blog posts will attest, I've spent a lot of my hobby time experimenting with FDM-printed miniatures using standard PLA filament. Most of my projects so far have involved resizing models from MakerWorld, but that raised an interesting question: how well would my printer handle figures originally designed for resin printing?

Anyone researching FDM miniatures will quickly discover a hobby full of conflicting advice. Settings that produce excellent results for one person can fail completely for another. While FDM still can't quite match the ultra-fine detail of a good resin printer, the gap is far smaller than many people realise. For me, the lower costs, simpler workflow and lack of resin-related mess more than make up for the compromise.

After plenty of trial and error, I invested in the Fat Dragon Games miniature printing profiles for my Bambu Lab A1 Mini. Combined with a low-temperature build plate, they transformed the experience, providing a solid foundation from which to make small, informed adjustments rather than relying on guesswork.

Lately, I've been printing a number of Star Trek figures designed by RavenX. Since these models were created with resin printing in mind, they seemed the perfect test of just how far FDM miniature printing has come. The results were surprisingly encouraging.

Stargrave, FDM & Resin

As this picture illustrates, the old assumption that FDM miniatures are instantly recognisable no longer really holds true. At tabletop distance, distinguishing between FDM prints, resin prints and commercial plastic figures is far from easy.


These two figures served as my initial test subjects. I scaled them to 32mm to see just how much detail would survive the transition from a resin-focused design to an FDM printer. To be honest, I wasn't especially worried about the bodies or equipment. My main concern was the Andorian's antennae, which looked exactly like the sort of delicate feature that might fail during printing. Thankfully, the printer proved more capable than I'd expected, and both models emerged with far more detail intact than I thought possible.


Having proved that the models printed successfully at 32mm scale, it was time to move down to my preferred gaming scale of 28mm. Ignoring my decidedly average paint jobs, I think the results speak for themselves. The figures printed cleanly, retained a surprising amount of detail, and look every bit as good on the tabletop as many resin-printed equivalents.



In fact, unless you knew what you were looking for, I suspect most gamers would struggle to tell these FDM prints apart from resin prints during a game. That's a remarkable achievement considering they're printed in standard PLA on an entry-level FDM machine.

Overall, I'd have to count this experiment as a success. It has given me the confidence to look beyond files specifically designed for FDM printing and start exploring STL ranges created with resin printers in mind. While not every model will be suitable, the results so far suggest that modern FDM printers are more than capable of producing tabletop-quality miniatures from resin-designed sculpts.



Location: Southampton, UK

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