“I’m a cosplayer. Which 3dprinter should I get?”
I get this question a lot in my inbox. This page tells you about my personal experience with dozens of 3d printers over the last decade and hopefully gives you some insight on what I think are good qualities to look for when picking a 3dprinter.
I started 3dprinting in 2017 using an Anet A8 3dprinter! I’ve owned over 30 or 40 machines since then and usually cycle through a lot of different machines, some of them get used a lot and some of them end up not being a great worker and get discarded or sold. For me a good 3dprinter needs to do the job without too much fuss, with little or less tinkering, decent size/quality/price value, easily available documentation or replacement parts, and little downtime.
Find my favorite picks below, and lots of my 3dprinting knowledge at the second half of the page!
This page does not contain any sponsored recommendations or affiliate links to my benefit.
Best 3dprinter to pick in 2026 if you’re a cosplayer (according to Willow Creative, at least)
| Machine name | Price | Size | Notes | |
| Beginner choice | Bambulab A1 | 299usd | 256 mm³ | Bambulab gives you presets and well-calibrated machine. Do not get the combo/AMS. |
| Cheapest of the cheap | Creality Ender 3 V3 SE | 199usd | 220 mm³ and a bit | If you don’t want to spend a single cent more than necessary. |
| Best value | Elegoo Centauri Carbon | 269usd | 256 mm³ | Decent size, speedy, cheap, enclosed. Slightly noisy. Wait for a deal on the price. |
| Studio/apartment pick | Bambulab P1S (P2S) | 399usd | 256 mm³ | Speedy, well-calibrated enclosed machine with bambu presets. Do not get the combo/AMS |
| Value large volume | Sovol SV08 | 529usd | 350 mm³ | Cheap and big. Becoming slightly dated but allows for mods/upgrades for advanced users. Wait for a deal. |
| Premium large volume | Bambulab H2S | 1249usd | ~340 mm³ | Big, fast, quiet-ish, extremely high quality machine. My top tier pick for serious cosplayers. Don’t get the Combo/AMS |
| Massive volume pick | Sovol SV08 Max | 1099usd | 500mm³ | Massive. Much improved over the Sovol SV08. Requires space and is noisy. Dont get the enclosure, it isn’t recommended to print abs/asa on it anyway |
| Resin | Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra + Mercury XS | 530usd | ~220 x 120mm Height: 220mm | Resin. Value for size, speed and quality. Put it in a garage or spare room. Get a wash-cure machine, it is not worth to DIY that part. |
Alternative picks that didn’t make my list but are still really solid options below. Usually they’re just not the first pick because of the price value vs competitors, or the size/available options.
Prusa Core One+ / Prusa Core One L: Great alternative to Bambulab. Just pricier for the same/less benefits.
Bambulab H2D: You’re paying more for an additional nozzle and smaller size. If you REALLY want multimaterial option for some reason (see below for more information). H2C same deal but even more.
Creality K series: Bambulab clones if you want a meager discount and a lot more problems.
Elegoo Neptune series: Decent and cheap bedslingers in a lot of sizes. If you want cheaper size but slightly dated machine.
Flashforge 5 series: Lovely starter machine and the 5M Pro is super quiet, detailed and fast. Used these for years on foam TPU. Great for a small office pick. Smaller volume for the same price as other machines, slightly dated. But you can flash root klipper firmware on it for advanced users and make it a really comfortable core frame tailored to your needs. Can find amazing deals on refurbed machines.
Flsun: Started focusing on delta 3dprinters primarily with root klipper. Really underrated machines, but delta printers still take up a lot more space and money than other available machine choices. Advanced user pick.
3D printer accessories recommendations
Filament dryer: If you print PETG (my recommended cosplay filament) and don’t go through rolls very quickly, a filament dryer is recommended.
I’m very happy with my EIBOS dryer. Other options include Sunlu or Sovol (i have no personal experience with these)
3Dprinter adhesion, highly recommend 3DLAC: Allows for lower bed temps (no heating bed for PLA needed), for energy saving, less failures and faster print starts. Never fails on me and only needs a light spray every 5 to 10 prints.
Extra nozzle: Always get an extra spare nozzle/hotend set for each 3dprinter you order. Maybe nozzle cooling fan too. For resin printers: get additional FEP plastic films and check the price of a replacement screen.
Need a sturdy stand/table for your new 3dprinter? I love these planer stands.
Don’t forget to get filament. Amazon often has insane deals at around 10usd per spool and free shipping. Direct link to current amazon spool deals here. Sunlu also has cheap filament deals.
A sample of my 3dprinter knowledge over the last decade as a professional cosplayer/fabricator below!
Types of 3d printers
You can divide most common 3dprinters for home fabrication in 2 different categories with a few choices: FDM (FFF) or filament 3dprinters, that use a plastic coil to melt and deposit into a specific shape (like a computerized glue gun) or MSLA (resin 3dprinters), that use an UV screen image to burn into liquid uv resin, stacking the hardened resin shapes into multiple layers.
For most cosplayers and fabricators I recommend filament printers. They’re less smelly, less messy, make for bigger and lighter 3dprinted results with more available materials, and filament prints can’t shatter as easily. The downside is that they’re a bit less detailed, so you need to do more sanding to get a smooth result and get rid of the 3dprinted line look.
Resin printers require liquid resin, which can get all over the place, generally unsafe to have the liquid resin in the open for fumes. They’re great if you’re a cosplayer that wants to focus on small prints and shiny stuff, like custom jewelry and translucent gems, and if you have a garage or ventilated spare room available.
Filament 3dprinter differences
Most common filament 3dprinters are available in 3 different machine types: bedslinger, coreXY (cube style) and delta.
Bedslinger is considered kinda dated, where the print bed rocks back and forth. New style 3dprinters are most often a coreXY, in which the bed stays in place (or moves up and down sometimes) while the printhead moves. It allows for a faster, compact cubed machine that can be fully enclosed if necessary.
Delta printers are triangular shaped 3dprinters that requires a lot of space, but offers a very sturdy and stable frame that can reach incredible speeds and sizes. They’re less common, take up a lot of space for print volume and can be tricky to find proper documentation, parts and information for when solving issues.
Recommended materials for cosplayer/fabricators:
The beginner material is PLA! It is a very simple filament that can be printed on every 3dprinter. No need for special heated beds or enclosures. The downside is that PLA is a low temperature filament, which means that 3dprints made with PLA can warp badly in a hot car ride on your way to a convention, melt if you leave it out in the sun while you’re painting it, and it sucks to smooth and sand. This is because sanding is friction, and friction generates heat. The heat makes sanding much more difficult.
Modern PETG filaments are in my opinion the top filament choice for cosplayers. It prints almost as easily as PLA on modern 3dprinters, with relatively low bed temperature and printing temperature, can be printed in open 3dprinters, have a higher temperature resistance and are easier to sand. PETG rolls are cheap and easy to find, have lots of colors and transparent options. You also print with lower cooling fan speeds, which means less noise. It is also kinda bendy, not as stiff, which means fragile designs won’t shatter or snap easily.
Do not get Silk PLA. It looks fancy but is much worse for strength, prints slowly and shatters easily. You’re gonna be painting it anyway.
Advanced filament choices for cosplayers/fabricators are ASA/ABS (higher temp, gives off fumes, requires enclosed printer), flexibles such as TPU and foam TPU, and lightweight foaming options such as LW-PLA. These all require special individual settings usually indicated on the roll or sale page.
Should I get an enclosed 3dprinter?
As cosplayer/fabricator you’re often a hobbyist or semi-pro with a value 3dprinter at your own home with easily accessible materials. If you want the best bang for your buck, print in PETG on a regular, open 3dprinter. Other accessible materials such as PLA and TPU do better in an open 3dprinter because of available cooling.
Get an enclosed 3dprinter if you want to reduce the noise (because you live in a studio or apartment), or if you want to venture into more advanced/high temperature materials such as ASA/ABS. Check if your enclosed 3dprinter choice offers filtration for such filaments if you work and live in the same room as your 3dprinter.
Should I get a multicolor/multimaterial 3dprinter?
No. As a cosplayer/fabricator you’ll be painting your 3dprints 90% of the time, so multicolor is absolutely unnecessary. I have multimaterial 3dprinters and I almost never use them, even though I’ve been 3dprinting for a decade and make my own advanced designs, there’s almost no situation where it’s applicable for me. Some minor applications include:
– Transparent/Opaque combination designs (but usually it’s faster and easier to print these separate, then assemble, especially if you need to paint it anyway)
– Hard/soft material prints that cannot somehow be printed in separate designs, which is almost never.
– PETG/PLA/TPU supported prints, for easy removal. Only necessary for extremely complex supports, and with just a tiny tweak of settings you can usually do fine without this. Most 3dprinters struggle to compete for speed and success rate using these combination supported 3dprints vs a single material print.
Keep in mind that for each multimaterial/multicolor idea you also need the appropriate design for it. Which means making it yourself, or finding the right design for your project online, which is pretty much never for multimaterial.
I never had a multi use 3dprinter that could also do laser engraving for example, but I can’t imagine it’s very useful and it mostly introduces extra danger and ashes inside the 3dprinter you don’t really want. If you really need a laser for your work you’ll probably be getting an independent machine.
My tips for cheapskates
Looking for the best deals? Printer brands like Creality/Elegoo/Flashforge/Sovol often run a ton of sales on their 3dprinters and their prices often vary greatly. Keep in mind the discount sale price on their websites is the ‘base price’ on average. They never sell their machines at the crossed out full price listed on the website, even pre-orders are already discounted before they go live. Look at their price history to learn how often these go on sale and what the average real discounted prices are.
You can find a lot of open box returns or refurbished 3dprinters sold by the real brands on eBay for a pretty hefty discount as well. If they don’t work (well), you can just as easily return them for free via eBay.
If you’re new to 3dprinting I don’t recommend this but you can find a lot of pre-owned 3dprinters on marketplaces as well. Do not get an old machine. Always get a model that is a part of a modern lineup and doublecheck the current pricing versus a new one. 3Dprinting has evolved so much that older models get dated, slow, and poor quality very quickly. And often inexperienced people try to sell off their 3dprinters that have hidden issues that you may find difficult to troubleshoot if you’re a beginner, or they’re selling at outdated price points. If you know 3dprinters really well however, you can get a steal with maybe a small issue that ends up an easy fix.
Do not pay extra to get multicolor/enclosure options. They provide very little value. Most of the times they sneak the multicolor choice in front of the bare machine sale options and you can pick the bare machine for the best price option. Multicolor machines can mean loading issues especially if you don’t buy the expensive filament spools from the machine brand.
Looking for cheap filament? Amazon often has huge deals on filament rolls, with options of 10usd per spool or less. Sunlu also has massive rolls available for insane prices. Make sure you buy or make a filament roller that can handle big rolls.
I often check this website for cheap filament roll deals.
Make sure you tune your speed and temperature to be slower (15^mm3/s max volumetric speed is a good pointer) and sometimes higher temp to make sure you don’t get shitty results with cheap filament. Default presets are often too fast on a modern machine.
Getting started
Most 3dprinters nowadays need a few screws for assembly and it’s a simple plug and play after that.
All 3dprinters need software to print a 3d model design. This software is a slicer. All 3dprinters will have some sort of instruction on how to install a slicer or have an usb included with the slicer installation.
You load the desired 3d design (usually in STL file format) into the slicer software preview, set some typical settings such as temperature, material, and then send it to the 3dprinter over wifi, or an usb to plug into the 3dprinter.
When your looking for a 3d design, you can find many free STL designs, occasionally paid STL or you can choose to make your own by learning a software such as Blender, Nomad sculpt or AutoCAD. Learning a software can take a very long time to master, so premade designs are usually better to start out.
Modern slicer apps have tons of options to modify, fix, cut and drill designs digitally before you 3dprint them too now, so experiment with those to get an idea.
You can also hire a 3d artist to make the design for you if you’re working on something specific that nobody has made designs for yet!
There’s a very large variation in quality of STL 3d designs online. Some are cleverly designed for 3dprinters to be optimal for 3dprinting, and others may be tricky or not designed with 3dprinting in mind at all.
Advanced 3dprinting cosplay tips:
Want to print foam TPU parts that feel and look just like EVA foam cosplay parts? Read my post on that here.