3D printing and sprucing up your board games

By Meeple Lady | July 22, 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

I’ve been spending some time at my local library recently. A friend of mine has introduced my board-game group to the awesome world of 3D printing! If you follow me on Snapchat (@MeepleLady), I snapped a little bit of the process last week. After taking a training class and signing a waiver, I now have access to reserve printer time and print out ALL THE THINGS!

Well, I’ve only printed two things so far. 3D printing is not quick by any means, and I’ve popped in there for an hour or two in between work. I found designs that I liked on Thingiverse, uploaded them into library computers and printed them out on its Makerbots. Printing is super cheap (about 0.05 cents per gram). I already have a list of things I want to print out. In the meantime, here are a few things that my friends have printed out for our games.

Here’s a photo of balconies from Council of Four that I mentioned in my previous post.

My friend also 3D printed and designed these balconies for Council of Four. They even have little steps coming up from the left side.

My friend’s Lords of Waterdeep game is completely tricked out, complete with individual building tokens and meeples. He thought it was hard to see who owned which building so he printed out larger markers where the color is more defined. These he designed himself and uploaded it into thingiverse. Fancy!

So now, you can clearly see who owns which building while playing Lords of Waterdeep.

He also printed out a much cooler first-player token to use for Waterdeep. He found a castle dice tower and shrunk its dimensions to use instead. These sit at about 3 inches tall.

Aren't these the cutest? They're miniaturized dice towers that we're planning to use as the first-player marker. — Aren’t these the cutest? They’re miniaturized dice towers to use as the first-player marker.

When I purchased Battlestar Galactica, one of my top 9 favorites ever, a while back, I was surprised to see that its Basestars were cardboard. I hadn’t realized that the plastic figurines only came in expansion games. I’m a purist with the game and enjoy playing base game only, so my friend ended up making me these plastic basestars instead. And a little centurion head we use as a first-player marker.

That centurion bust is pretty menacing! We use it as a first player marker for BSG.

So what I did I actually print out at the library? The first thing was a coffee stencil. But not just any ordinary coffee stencil … a meeple stencil! I’m actually planning to use this on baked goods in the future. I’m so excited to use this!

The meeple stencil is on the right, while the raft, which is that base used while printing, is on the left. — The meeple stencil is on the right, while the raft, the base used while printing, is on the left.

Lastly, I tried making this crest from Lord of the Rings. At original size, the design would’ve taken 6 hours to print, which I totally did not have time for. So I shrunk its dimension by 50%, which then printed out in about an hour. Sadly, when I was taking the crest off its raft, the wolf broke in half. Womp womp. In 3D printing, rafts are created beneath structures in order to stabilize the print job, and when it’s done, you snap the raft off. Next time, I’ll have a better sense of how small to make delicate details and have them survive.

My sad attempt to print Winter is Coming! Oh well, next time! This is about 2 inches wide, while the original was about 7 inches wide.

Anyway, I’ll be slowly plugging away at my list to upgrade some of my board games. And big props to the library to giving us cardholders access to such cool equipment!

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