If you've ever held a beautifully painted tabletop miniature and wondered how every tiny scale, every strand of hair, every rune etched into a pauldron came out so crisp, the answer is almost always the same: resin printing. It's the technology that changed what's possible for small-scale figures, and it's the reason miniatures today can look genuinely cinematic even at 32mm tall. But if you're new to the world of 3D printed miniatures, the terminology can feel like a wall. Resin, FDM, curing, layer lines — what does any of it actually mean, and why should you care?
This post cuts through the jargon. By the end, you'll understand exactly what resin printing is, how it differs from other methods, and why it matters so much when you're buying or painting a miniature.
What Resin Printing Actually Is
At its core, resin printing is a form of 3D printing that works with liquid rather than solid material. Instead of feeding a spool of plastic filament through a hot nozzle, a resin printer starts with a vat of liquid photopolymer resin — a light-sensitive material that hardens when exposed to UV light.
The printer builds the model one thin layer at a time, curing each cross-section of the design with a precise UV light source before moving on to the next. Because the light can harden the resin with exceptional accuracy, the resulting layers are extremely thin and the edges between them are very sharp. The model that emerges from the vat looks almost finished straight off the build plate.
The Post-Processing Step
After printing, resin models go through a wash-and-cure process. The print is washed in isopropyl alcohol to remove any uncured resin still clinging to the surface, then placed under a UV lamp to fully harden. This final cure step locks in the material's strength and stability. It adds a little time to production, but it's what gives resin prints their smooth, solid finish.
At Mythos Aether Forge, every resin miniature goes through this process before it leaves the studio. The wash and cure stage is part of the reason our prints arrive ready to prime — not gummy, not fragile, just clean and prepared for paint.
How Resin Printing Compares to FDM
The other major type of 3D printing you'll encounter is FDM — Fused Deposition Modelling. FDM printers work by melting a plastic filament and extruding it in layers to build up a shape. It's a fantastic technology for larger objects: terrain pieces, display bases, structural parts, or anything where size and material strength matter more than ultra-fine surface detail.
For miniatures, however, FDM has a significant limitation. The nozzle that deposits molten plastic has a physical minimum diameter, which means there's a point at which features simply can't be reproduced accurately. Fine chainmail, delicate facial expressions, thin weapon blades, and small runes can all come out softer than the original design intended — or disappear entirely into the layer structure.
Where the Layer Lines Show
Even at high quality settings, FDM prints have visible layer lines — slight ridges across the surface where each pass of the nozzle sits slightly above the last. On a large terrain piece, those lines can add texture that looks intentional. On a 32mm figure, they can obscure the very detail that makes the model interesting to paint.
Resin printing sidesteps this entirely. Because the layers are cured rather than extruded, they bond seamlessly. The resolution is measured in microns, not millimetres. What you get is a surface that's genuinely smooth to the touch, with crisp edges that hold up under magnification — the kind of detail that rewards careful brushwork and makes washes and highlights pop the way they're supposed to.
Why It Matters So Much for Tabletop Miniatures
The scale most tabletop miniatures are designed for — 28mm to 32mm — puts extreme demands on a print process. At that size, a human face is just a few millimetres tall. Armour textures, runes, and panel lines exist in fractions of a millimetre. If the printing process can't reproduce those features cleanly, the model loses something essential: the illusion that it's a real, detailed thing rather than a smooth approximation of one.
Resin printing matters for miniatures because it's one of the few processes that can consistently meet those demands. The detail it captures is close to what injection-moulded plastic achieves in commercial miniature production — which is why, when you compare a well-printed resin model to a commercial equivalent, they're often difficult to tell apart before the paint goes on.
What This Means for Painters
For anyone who paints miniatures, surface quality is everything. A smooth, detailed surface takes primer evenly, responds correctly to thin washes pooling in recesses, and shows highlights cleanly on raised edges. A rough or soft surface fights back — primer sits unevenly, washes bleed unpredictably, and highlights can't find a clean edge to sit on.
Resin prints are genuinely paint-friendly in a way that other methods struggle to match at miniature scale. The surface is fine enough that even novice painters get satisfying results, and experienced painters find they can push into more advanced techniques — glazing, non-metallic metal, wet blending — with confidence because the model's surface is doing its job properly.
What This Means for Collectors
Not everyone who buys a miniature intends to paint it. If you're building a display collection, the finish on an unpainted resin model is striking in its own right. The crisp silhouette, the readable surface texture, and the clean lines make resin prints genuinely presentable even straight off the build plate. Displayed under good light, an unpainted resin miniature has a sculptural quality that's hard to achieve with other printing methods.
The Trade-Off: Brittleness
It would be dishonest not to mention this. Resin is harder and more brittle than FDM plastic. Very thin elements — a long spear shaft, an outstretched finger, a particularly delicate wing membrane — can be vulnerable to snapping if handled roughly. This is a real characteristic of the material, not a flaw in production.
The practical impact is minimal for most models. The figures we produce are designed with printability in mind, which means we pay attention to structural risk points during the selection process. Models with fragile unsupported elements are assessed carefully, and where a part is genuinely better dispatched separately for protection, we do that — which is why some orders arrive in two or three pieces for simple assembly.
For tabletop use, the brittleness rarely causes problems once the model is painted and based. Resin handles the regular handling of gaming well enough at standard miniature scales. It's really only extreme projecting elements — the kind that would be fragile in any material at this size — that need any care.
What to Expect When Your Miniature Arrives
All Mythos Aether Forge resin miniatures arrive washed, cured, and ready for your paint station. You won't need any additional chemical processing. In most cases the model will come in one or two pieces — the main figure and a separately packed base or accessory — to protect it in transit. Assembly, where needed, is straightforward and involves only basic hobby glue.
From there, a light spray of hobby primer is all that stands between you and paint. We recommend a neutral grey or black primer for most detail work, though the choice ultimately depends on your painting style. The surface will take primer cleanly and give you the grip you need for whatever approach you favour.
Our miniatures are designed for tabletop use, display, and diorama building. Browse the current collection to see what's available — each listing includes scale information, base size, and notes on any assembly required.
Have a question about resin printing or our production process? Drop it in the comments — we're always happy to talk shop.