Man 3D Prints and Paints Incredible Replicas of Star Wars’ X-Wing & TIE Fighter

Earlier this month we covered what was probably the most detailed 3D printed Star Trek model I have ever seen. YouTube user ‘Printing the Revolution‘ printed and painted an intricate model of Star Trek’s Starship Enterprise, and then went through the extra work of creating a rather tantalizing video of the ship floating through space. The model looked so realistic that for a second I thought I was watching a clip from the actual show.

As a fan of anything space related, I personally was enthralled by the detail that the designer was able to achieve via his Ultimaker 2 3D printer. There is no doubt that the finishing work, mainly the paint job, played a major role in how realistic the model turned out, but with that said, the detail that the Ultimaker 2 achieved was a feat in and of itself.

Here we are several weeks later and to my surprise, ‘Printing the Revolution’ is back at it again. This time, he decided to print and paint two popular ships from Star Wars: the X-Wing and TIE-Fighter.

Once again he used his Ultimaker 2 3D printer and turned to Thingiverse for the actual printable models. For the TIE-Fighter, a design which was posted by a man named David Hanwell was used. Hanwell derived the model which he had modified from an extremely detailed 3D model created by Al Meerow on SciFi3D. He simplified it and split it into two pieces to work with most 3D printers on the market today.

The model for the X-Wing was also posted on Thingiverse by Hanwell, which he revised as well from a previous work to add further detail, while removing the non-manifold edges, making G-Code generation much easier.

‘Printing the Revolution’ printed out both of these models, using a gray-colored PLA filament and an extrusion temperature of 215 degrees Celsius. He used a heated print bed, setting its temperature to 60 degrees Celsius. The prints all turned out quite well, but it was his finishing work which made these models stand out. Using skills which would make even some of the best artists envious, along with an airbrush kit, he methodically painted each model prior to creating yet another pretty awesome video of them both, which you can watch below in its entirety.

Let us know your thoughts on these two additional 3D printed space ships coming from ‘Printing the Revolution’. Have you tried printing and painting your own models from Star Wars or Star Trek? Share them with us in the 3D Printed X-Wing and TIE-Fighter forum thread on 3DPB.com.