3D AI Generators for Miniatures.

 Review of 3d Figure AI generators.

I buy a lot of 3d files to print, and love the manufacturers that I purchase from.  At times though, I can't find what I am looking for.  So, from time to time I use an AI 3d generator to create some of the figures I can't get on my own.

I tried my hand at digital sculpting, but don't have the time to master it, so this is a good option...

I have tried 4 different generators, and here is a brief review of them.

MeshyAI  Link

HunyuanAI (A website in Chinese)  Link

Hitem3d   Link

Tripo3d  Link

A few notes about the generators.

Meshy AI - Has a paid version which gives multiple generations per month.  It costs about 20 points to generate.  Their Version 6 is still in test, but is quite good.

Hunyuan - This one is completely free, but you don't have a license on the figures.  It is good for personal use.

Hitem3d - No free version, and can be the most expensive.

Tripo3d - You get some free credits to start with, but you need the pro to do anything good.

Some Images.  

I used this same image to create figures in all of these.

This is the base image that I used.  Note that the image doesn't show the entirety of the feet.  That comes to play in a couple of these.

This first image is a group shot of all of them.  The first is Hitem.  Second is Hunyuan.  Third is Meshy, and fourth is Tripo.  

I think the first three all did a good job of generting a figure.  The last one is the Tripo, and I have tried it a few times and never gotten a great result.  

Hitem.

Here is a front shot of the Hitem.  It does a nice job on faces and has smooth textures where it needs them and sharp features where they are needed.  It did a great job.

The face is good, but not great.

However, it doesn't have a lot of creativity.  The image didn't have the full feet, and this figure was done in exactly the same way.

The lack of creativity comes to play in the back area.  here it did well with the hair, but the bottom of the cloting is just flat.

Hunyuan

Hunyuan did a great job on the details of the face, and smooth textures.  It did a great job of creating the rivets or buttons for the armor.

Once again, it didn't create the feet.

The back was very similar to the Hitem. Decent hair texture, but lack of detail on the clothing.

Meshy

Meshy did a great job on the front.  It had smooth details.  It is more creative than the others, so it added the entirety of the feet.  

It doesn't always catch all of the fine details, such as the buttons on the armor, but it is still quite good.

Meshy did the best on the back.  It used a bit of creativity and modivied the clothing and has good looking hair.  It will print well and be able to paint well.

Tripo

I did a slight close up of this one.  The face was horrible.  The textures not right anywhere.  It looks like a horribly deformed person.

It did an ok job on the hair, and clothing, but still looks bad.  

Overall, I haven't gotten a single useful figure out of Tripo.  I can't recomend it in the least!

Conclusion

For a free product, Hunyuan does a great job.  Hunyuan and Hitem have one feature that Meshy doesn't have yet.  The ability to do images from different angles.  You can do sides, front and back.  That way you can get the results you want, which would have helped on the backsides of the miniatures that I created with them.

Hitem did good, but not great.  The face wasn't quite right, but the armor and everything else looked good.  However, its price is rather high.  

Overall, Meshy is probably the best working product right now, because the AI does a good job of filling in the missing parts.  

Heroforge vs Titan Craft

Design your own miniatures! 

If you do 3d print for miniatures, eventually, you will probably want the chance to design and print your own miniatures.

Well, there are two basic ways to go about this.  You can learn to do 3d sculpting and work at creating miniatures or modifying existing miniatures that way.  There are several apps to do that with, but two free options are Meshmixer and Blender.  Blender is an incredibly powerful 3d tool, but has a pretty steep learning curve.  Meshmixer has a lot less options, but is somewhat easier to learn.  I have used that a lot to modify existing 3d models.

https://meshmixer.com/

https://www.blender.org/

There are also commercial ones available that can get expensive quick.

Whichever you use, it can be a time consuming process.  I regularly use Meshmixer to change weapons, or add attachments, or preassemble miniatures for printing.  Sculpting on the other hand becomes a lot more tedious.  In Blender you can modify and shape not just by sculpting, but you can go to the individual points or pixels and move them around.  Much more fine control, but even more time consuming and a lot of learning.

Option #2

There are a few 3d modeling applications that are available online.  They have everything that you need to rapidly create characters, though you are somewhat limited to the items that they have available to create those characters.

Hero Forge

The most established software is probably Hero Forge.

https://www.heroforge.com/

Hero Forge has a very easy interface to use and a lot of great features.  As you can see, you can even color your miniatures and order it printed if you would like.  You can do a lot with posing of the figure and changing outfits, weapons and a lot of other things.

This lets you make the character of your dreams, and it isn't just for fantasy, they have modern and sci fi gear available also.

The downside of this is that you have to pay for each miniature, and it is often more expensive than buying a pre created miniature from the store or online.  There are options to buy bulk credits which help drop that cost a lot.

You are also somewhat limited by the gear, and features that they have, which is pretty impressive, but still might not have exactly what you are looking for.

Some people also find the figures to be a bit cartoonish at times.

Titan Craft

https://titancraft.com 

Titancraft is another great option, and I actually like this one even more than Hero Forge.  With Titancraft, you can create individual figures and buy them like you can with Hero Forge.  However, Titancraft also allows you to buy "Digital Packs".  You buy a pack of items or assets and then you can use them to make as many figures as you want within that area.  For instance, they have a Fantasy Pack, that has over 180 items such as clothing or armor, and weapons.  That currently costs about $31, and with that you can create and download as many figures as you want!

I currently have a small army of soldiers that I have made as well as many characters.

The greatest thing about Titancraft is that you have the greatest possibility of poses that I have seen.  You can manipulate almost every little detail down to the fingers.

One of the problems that I have with Hero Forge is that you can't move the feet or legs, but here there is no limit to what you can do.  You can even combine multiple characters.  (you can do this and make some naughty poses. 😉

Now, the downside of Titancraft...  They don't have the same volume of assets that Hero Forge does, so you are somewhat limited.  For instance, for bows, they only have 3 different variants.  

TitanCraft Bows

Hero Forge on the other hand has about 15 available.  If you want a more "Historical"  looking bow, you are currently out of luck with Titancraft.

(I don't have a picture of Hero Forge's offerings because it won't fit on one screen!)

However, Titancraft is constantly expanding what they offer and you can make suggestions, so hopefully they will be adding more items.

Which is better?

It doesn't matter what you can create if the  print quality isn't good.  I have downloaded the free figures from Hero Forge, and have created some of my own figures from Titancraft.  I print on a Anycubic Photon Mono X.  The figures that I printed from Titancraft look quite good.  The ones from Hero Forge are also quite good.  In fact, I would put the quality of the prints up with figures that I have from a few different creators.  I have some from Medburry Miniatures and from The Printing Goes Ever On.

https://www.myminifactory.com/users/Medbury%20Miniatures

https://www.theprintinggoeseveron.com/shop/

I would say that the quality of print/design is just as good, however, since you are using pre done assets, you won't be able to get the same level of originality as you can with someone who crafts their own miniatures, but you will be quite happy with using them together on the game table.

Printed Results

Sorry, my painting skills aren't great, and my photography doesn't do these justice, but here are some examples.

Hero Forge                                  Titan Craft

The figures below are primed but not painted.  I didn't want my somewhat poor painting skills to influence the image.  A bad painter can make a good miniature look bad while a good painter can make a poor miniature look fairly good.

They have an ink wash to bring out their detail.  

Titan Craft dwarf to show detail of chain mail

Heroforge Paladin

Hero Forge Titancraft Heroforge

You can see the detail on the Heroforge

One of the reasons I like Titan Craft is the ability to pose figures together!

Battle Valor Helions Reviewed

I have recently purchased some of the Battle Valor Hellian miniatures.  When I first saw them they reminded me of some of the old "B" fantasy movies from the 70s and 80s.  Movies such as Beastmaster, The Sword and the Sorcerer, Red Sonja, and Conan. 

I have painted up the first four of these, and have a bunch on the workbench, but wanted to give my first impressions...

The miniatures are well sculpted with good details.  There are 5 or 6 variations in each pack.  The sculpts are clean.

One of the most important questions though is how do the fit with other ranges.  Well, they are a bit on the large size, though not too big.  They are even larger than some of their own ranges.  For instance in the picture below, on the far right is one of BV Frigian miniatures.  There is a slight difference in height and bulk.  In the middle I have an Old Glory 15mm Norman Archer, and on the left is a Barbarian from Copplestone Castings.  The Copplestone Casting is smaller, but the picture is a bit deceptive because the spearman has a pretty large helmet!

Overall I would say that these would be a good addition to your 15mm collection.  Battle Valor Games is constantly adding new figs, and is one of the better manufacturers of 15mm fantasy!

Here is the link to Heillians range at Battle Valor Games if you want to do some shopping!  Battle Valor Games

Recent Painting Flurry

I've been a bit quiet because I just don't have enough time recently to game or paint, however, over the last few weeks I have had a little time here and there, so here are my latest results!

How do you know when you have to many different eras going on?  This is getting close!

15mm  US 57mm ATG

Captain America and the Human Torch for 15mm Weird War II

Goblins from Battle Valor Games.  My favorite 15mm Goblins yet!

A couple of Battle Valor orcs.  These are also great!

Battle Valor Dwarf Hero

Battle Valor Rangers - Some of the best I have seen.  I love the fact that they have a lot of variants!

15mm ACW from Blue Moon.  This one frustrated me.  I had about 30 of these painted and when I was going to seal them with Dull Coat, I dropped them, thus there are a lot of places where the paint was chipped.  Didn't feel like touching up now!

Battle Valor Dwarves

Battle Valor Games - 15mm Goblins

Battle Valor Games is a relatively new company, but they are rolling out a lot of figures.  I have already compared the Orcians, Dwarians, and Legian Rangers.  Now I have some goblins from them.

Basic review.

I love the quality of these guys.  My pictures (and painting) doesn't do them justice.  The sculpting detail is very good.  The faces have a lot of character for 15mm.  That is pretty rare.

The only thing I'm not excited about is the number of variants.  The ones that I have are from the swordsmen pack and there are 6 variants in that pack.  That is quite good, but all of the other ones have 3 or 4 variants.  If you order the 35 pack you will end up with about 10 of each pose.  The only reason that I complain is that many of the other packs have as many as 10 variants.

Still, they are great figures, and I will get more.

With an orc from Khurasan Miniatures.  These are some great figures also!

One of the Orcians from BVG

One of the Legian Rangers - My favorite figs to date from them!

This is with a Splintered Light Miniatures - Splintered Land Goblin

This is one of the Dwarians from BVG.

Well, I hope that helps!  I am hoping to get a little better camera to get some better looking pictures.

Battle Valor Games - Rangers reviewed

I just got my last batch of Battle Valor Games miniatures.

These are from their Legian range of figures.  They make some great looking rangers.  They will be perfect for Faramir and his rangers.

I have ben very impressed with the BVR range so far, and I have fallen in love with these guys.  The details are very good (which you can't tell from my painting or my pics).  There is a large variety of poses which I very much am happy for!  Most of their ranges have several poses, though there are some that only have 3 or 4 different variants.  Their website has good pictures of the figures available in the packs, so you can see which ones have only limited poses.

The faces are clearly detailed with hair and beards on some.  There are even a couple of bald guys.  I had very little casting problems.  There was a little stub on the bottom of most bases, and most of the guys had the little stubs from the air holes in a few places.  A quick scrape with an Exacto Knife took care of those.

Here is a link to the range
http://www.battlevalorgames.com/thelegian.aspx

The big question though is how do they mix with other figures.  Here are some comparison shots.

Left - Copplestone, center Splintered Light, right - Old Glory and Black Raven Foundry

Black Raven Foundry looks like they mix well, but I don't think they look quite as good together on the battlefield.

Copplestone Castings.  Some of the best detailed 15mm figs I have ever seen!  The BVG figs are slightly larger, but not bad.

 Old Glory 15s.  Old Glory has a great range of 15mm medieval and dark age figures.  They mix well.  Old Glory isn't quite as detailed though.

Splintered Light has a great range of adventurers.  Possibly one of the largest in 15mm.  They are constantly growing.  The BVG figs are a bit larger, and have a little better detail, but they still work well together.

 Demonworld has a great range of figures (Now produced by Ral Partha Europe)  This is a witch from one of their ranges.  They mix very well together in style and size. 

 This is another historical range.  It is Legio Heroica range.  They make good figs.  I didn't pose this well because his spear is blocking his face.  However you can still see that they mix pretty well.

 Another Copplestone fig.  Still smaller...

This is a figure from the old TSR Battlesystem range.  Unfortunately OOP and almost impossible to get hold of.  Still, if you do, it is a good fit!

New 15mm Fantasy Range

There is a new range of 15mm fantasy figs that are being released. From what I can tell, it looks like it will be a very extensive range. I have recently ordered one pack of their Orcian (orcs) range. The swordsmen. I have some pics of these and wanted to do some comparison shots.

I like what I see so far.  The orcs are very detailed and there are many variants in the pack.  Some of the variations are very subtle - Just a head swap or something similar, but still an incredible amount of variants!

The figs are fairly large and bulky.  I would say that they are 1-2mm taller than most other orcs I have, and are slightly broader, but the quality of the sculpts are amazingly good.  I believe that the large size is intentional. They are meant to be the large burly orcs that are common in games now.  I like the fact that the faces aren't that cartoony GW look.

Anyway, you can look at the shots below to make some of your own conclusions.  I don't think that the size difference stands out that much.

Sorry for the poor picture quality.  I couldn't get the lighting quite right for these

Here are the first 4 I have painted

Grenadier, Demonworld, Khurasan, BVG, Eureka Man Orc, BVG, Black Raven Foundry

Same pic

Now for humans.  Splintered Light, Black Raven Foundry Ranger, FVG, Old Glory, BVG, Armies of Arcana(Now Lone Gunman)

More figs.  Copplestone Barbarian, BVG, Old Glory, BVG, Eureka Orc

Now for some big guys!  Demonworld Ogre, BVG, Splintered Light Ogre, BVG, Demonworld Troll