>>10128577Here's how the varnish test turned out (right). I don't have another red eye / mouth piece yet so I did not assemble it. These pieces are designed to snap together and then they don't come apart, which is why it's not assembled.
The varnish definitely did the trick to stop the plastic from getting stained darker. It had some effect on filling in the layer lines but not much., because you can still see them. I kind of like how it looks, but I also kind of like how the bare plastic looks too. At some point I will have to make a decision, but I have plenty of time. It's going to take days to print up the rest of the silver pieces, and if I do end up varnishing and weathering all of them, I'd rather do as much of it was once as possible. I'd also prefer to use my airbrush with acrylic floor polish for the rest of the parts rather than the rattle can due to the sheer number of parts.
>>10128592Again though, expense is something to consider. Printing 12" tall Mechagodzilla with all those parts is going to be a lot of resin, and resin is not cheap. You'd probably be looking at at least $100 just on resin, and that's if you are getting the cheapest you can find. I'm not saying it's not worth it but it all depends on what your goals with the project are. And heat is not the problem I would be concerned with in terms of the resin becoming deformed, but weight. I am not sure how structurally different optically cured resins are from two part epoxy resins, but I know that with very large resin casts, like the replica screen-accurate Star Destroyer, it needs to be stored vertically or else over time it will warp and sag in on itself.
I'm not saying this is a major problem with printed resin, but it's a problem that does not affect plastic prints at all. I would absolutely love to see someone tackle the Mechagodzilla / Atomic Dragon print in resin and do it fully painted but that is a bit to ambitious for me, at least at this time.
