Just Dipping Your Toes Into 3D Printing? It All Starts With the Files.
If you’re just hopping into the 3D printing scene, one of the first things you’ll need to do before you start cranking out stunning printable miniatures and epic terrain pieces is to… actually find the 3D printable files for those miniatures and terrain pieces in the first place.
Now, if you’re reading this article and in need of said printable models, I’d encourage you to hit the menu item labeled Marketplace up at the top of this window. There you will find thousands of choices to satisfy just about every gamer’s fancy. And this brings us to our second problem. Printing miniatures and terrain is a lot like opening a can of Pringles. Once you pop, you can’t stop.
But what to do with all of those files? Once you get going, it can feel like they multiply faster than rabbits. Unless you want to spend your nights looking for “Intimidating Orc #57”, planning ahead is key. Fortunately for us, our friends at Slice Print Roleplay recently made a video that addresses both the problems of where to find printable files, as well as what to do with them once you start to amass a small hoard.
Organizing Your 3D Printable Files is Key
Now you might be thinking to yourself, “What’s the big deal? I’ve been messing with files since I could reach a keyboard!” Now, that is probably true and you might be one of the few savants out there that can actually remember every file you’ve ever cut, copied, or pasted. If that’s true, this might not be for you.
However, keep in mind that once you get rolling, it’s not uncommon for individuals to end up collecting terabytes worth of files. While some models can get pretty heavy in the size department, I’m looking at you massive and incredibly detailed epic bosses, that is still thousands and thousands of files. Not to mention that you’ll likely have them coming in from different sources and by different artists over months, and possibly (hopefully!) years.
The organizational scheme outlined by Print Slice Roleplay in the video above is a great way to stay on top of your collection.
Level Up Your Organization with MiniHoarder
Now, if you see yourself with thousands of files wishing for a better way to track, organize, and store your 3d printable files, our cloud storage and organizational tools might be the ale to quench your dwarven thirst. Not only do we provide a cloud based storage solution to keep your files safe no matter what happens to your hard drive, we also provide a way to tag them, search them, view them in the browser, and add detailed notes, such as the artist or where you go the model.
Just in case you missed it, Slice Print Roleplay also shared a coupon code near the beginning of the video for a free month of the storage service. Give it a shot and let us know what you think!
Wrapping Up
Getting started with 3D printing miniatures and terrain is a fantastic hobby, but can also be a bit difficult to break into. Figuring out the best place to get your models, and then knowing what to do with them once you have them is all part of the fun. For more tips and information on getting started with 3D printing, we can’t recommend Slice Print Roleplay’s videos enough. We’ll certainly be doing more posts on them, but if you can’t wait (and we couldn’t blame you!), you can find more at their YouTube channel.