US Badger Turret from Battlezone

3dprinting videogames airbrushing painting wip bzpgen3

The latest rendition of the M173 Badger to match the 'gen 3' range of Battlezone figures. As always, printing has come such a long way since I started. I'm on an Elegoo Mars 3 now and wanted to take another go at seeing what kind of detail I could get if I spent some time sprucing up the original meshes. I've been slowly adding to the mesh and filling in the details over the years.

Here's my third revision:

ThumbnailI've yet to paint it, but I'll post an update once I've given it some love. I had fun painting the smaller version of this unit, so this one should be fun with the extra detail. I really managed to get some intricate details on the small panels and things. It's not quite up there with the Grizzyly and Rocket tank, but this was the first one I 'high-def'd and I'm slowly getting better.

As with the Grizzly, it was an experiment in modularness and the parts were printed separately and assembled. I'm pretty happy with the scale of these now. I think I've found a good balance between print stability, speed and detail level.

If you're interested in how the versions I printed/painted over the years looked:

Thumbnail Thumbnail

Quite a difference between the first one I printed (actually one of my first ever prints) and this latest one.

Ingredients

For my future reference, and in case you're interested, here's the Ingredients used for the parts and paints of this build:

  • Printer: Elegoo Mars 3
  • Resin: Phrozen 3D Printer Water-Washable Rapid 405nm Black Resin,
  • 3D model: Modified in-game model from Battlezone Redux with quite a lot of physical detail added manually.
Print it yourself

An STL of the 'Badger' has been added to my MyMiniFactory page. You can grab the STL from here.

Updates to this entry

Early May '23

An STL of the 'Badger' has been added to my MyMiniFactory page. You can grab the STL from here.

Recommended articles

Here's a few articles I recommend if you're looking for things similar to this one.

US Gun Tower from Battlezone
Battlezone - Eagle's Nest 1

Who I am

I'm Blake and I like to tinker with things and make stuff. When I'm not programming or developing random systems, I'm playing with electronics, doodling bits of art, 3D modelling or sculpting and painting things or nerding out watching sci-fi or horror TV.

From 2001 I worked in the games industry, eventually specialising in tools to aid in the development of video games and their engines. In 2011 I left the industry and teamed up with a few other talented composers to utilise my knowledge to help build the company 'Spitfire Audio'.

I also periodically compose soundtracks for video-games and have worked on titles such as The Stanley Parable and Portal Knights. You've probably also heard my music in random TV commercials at some point.

What I'm using to create

I use various bits and bobs to craft my shiz.

  • Elegoo Mars 4 Ultra, Mars 3 Pro & Saturn 2 8k
  • Phrozen Sonic Mighty 4k & Mini 4k
  • Anycubic Photon LCD resin printer,
  • Phrozen Aqua Resin Grey 4k
  • Elegoo Resin Space Grey 8k
  • Phrozen Luna curing station
  • Vallejo Model Color, Game Air, various sets,
  • Iwata Eclipse HP-CS & Studio Smart Jet Pro Compressor,
  • Random cheapo airbrushes for base coats,
  • 3D Studio Max, ZBrush and Chitubox Pro.