Cosplay 3D printing in the UK — full-size helmets, armour and props.
Getting a cosplay prop 3D printed usually means messaging a maker and waiting days for a price. Not here: upload your STL, OBJ, 3MF or STEP file and see the full cost in seconds. And when a helmet or chest piece is bigger than our build plate, we split it into sections along cuts you place yourself — the full how-and-price is on our large 3D printing page.
From file to convention floor
Upload your model
STL, OBJ, 3MF, STEP or STP, up to 100 MB. The full price appears in seconds and is locked in at checkout — no message-and-wait, no commission queue.
Place the seams
Bigger than 325 × 320 × 325 mm? The quote page splits it into up to twelve sections, and you drag the cuts and set the seam angle and tilt in a live 3D preview.
Pick material and finish
PLA in 22 colours for shells, TPU for flexible pieces, PETG for hard wear. Layer heights from 0.12 mm fine to 0.24 mm draft, plus your choice of join on split parts.
We print, check and post
Inspected by hand and posted with tracking from our UK workshop — failed or damaged prints are reprinted and reshipped free.
Cosplay helmets and armour that outgrow desktop printers
Our printer builds up to 325 × 320 × 325 mm in a single piece, which covers a lot of helmets, pauldrons and gauntlets without a single seam — and Split & Join handles the chest plates and full-length props beyond that, in up to twelve sections spanning well over half a metre.
Here's the part prop makers care about: you place the cuts. Drag the positions, set the seam angle and tilt in a live 3D preview, and run each join along a panel line, under a brim or behind a crest — the places a seam disappears. No algorithm decides for you.
- Unassembled — free. Sections with clean, matched faces, ready for you to glue and finish at home.
- Alignment pins — £2.95 per joint. Printed pin-and-socket joints so everything lines up first time when you glue it yourself.
- Bonded & finished — £11.95 per joint. We epoxy-bond, fill and sand every seam. Near-seamless, though we'll be honest: never quite identical to a single print.
One prop, three materials
A good build is rarely one material. Hard shells want stiffness and crisp detail, grips and dangly bits want to flex, and anything that gets knocked about all weekend wants toughness. Pricing is per gram and shown up front:
- PLA — £0.06/g, 22 colours. The default for props: crisp detail and vivid colour for helmets, armour shells, hilts and blasters. Just don't leave it in a hot car.
- TPU 95A — £0.13/g, 9 colours. Rubber-like and tough: handle grips, padding, and whip or tentacle props that need to swing without snapping.
- PETG — £0.07/g, 13 colours. Strong, slightly flexible and weather resistant, for buckles, clips and any part that takes real abuse.
You can compare all ten materials we run, but those three cover almost every cosplay build we can think of.
Hero piece or under-paint? Pay for the finish you'll actually see
Layer height decides how smooth the surface comes out and how much the print costs. For a hero piece displayed straight off the printer, choose 0.12 mm Fine, the smoothest we offer. For anything you're going to fill, prime and sand before painting, 0.24 mm Draft is the honest choice: the layer lines you'd pay to avoid are about to disappear under filler anyway. 0.20 mm Standard sits in between and is the default.
We'll be straight about where our job ends: parts ship print-finish, or with bonded, filled and sanded seams if you pick that join option. We don't offer painting or prop finishing — the priming, the metallics and the battle damage are yours.
Printing repeated pieces like armour scales? Extra copies of the same part get 5% off from five copies, rising to 20% off at fifty — applied automatically in the quote.
What FDM props are brilliant at — and what they're not
Helmets, armour, full-size weapons and staffs, gaming terrain, dice towers, scenery: FDM eats this stuff. Bigger catalogue pieces stay affordable too — a print-tested 241 g Twisted Spiral Vase is £28.95, to give you a feel for larger-part pricing.
What we won't take your money for: 28–32 mm miniatures. A filament nozzle can't hit the facial detail resin manages at that scale, and we're an FDM workshop with no resin machines. For crisp miniature figures use a resin service; for the terrain they fight over, we're your people.
Everything is printed on our Bambu Lab H2D and checked by hand before it ships. Racing a convention deadline? The quote page shows an estimated dispatch date before you pay, so you know whether the timing works before spending a penny. And with an account, you can watch your own piece being printed live on the workshop camera from your order page.
Your questions, answered
Can you 3D print a full-size wearable helmet?
Yes. Up to 325 × 320 × 325 mm prints as a single piece, and anything larger is split into up to twelve sections that we print separately and join. You position the seams yourself in a live 3D preview, so they can follow the helmet's own panel lines. We print your file at the size it's uploaded, so scale the model to your own head measurements before uploading — the quote updates with the size. Pick bonded & finished (£11.95 per joint) and we epoxy, fill and sand each seam — near-seamless, though a joined part is honestly never 100% identical to a single print.
Do you paint 3D printed cosplay props?
No — and we'd rather say so now than have you find out after ordering. Parts arrive print-finish, or with seams bonded, filled and sanded if you chose that join option. Priming, painting and weathering are yours. If the piece is heading straight under filler and paint, order it in 0.24 mm draft and put the savings towards your paint budget.
Can you print 28 mm miniatures for D&D or wargaming?
Honestly, no. At 28–32 mm the detail you want comes from resin printers, and we run FDM only, so recommending ourselves for miniatures would be doing you a disservice. What we print well is everything around the figures: terrain, buildings, dice towers and scenery, all printed to order.
How much does a 3D printed helmet cost in the UK?
It depends on size, material and layer height, so we won't invent a number — but every figure behind the quote is public in our 3D printing cost guide, and PLA, the usual prop material, is our lowest rate at £0.06 per gram. Upload your file and the exact price appears before you pay, with an estimated dispatch date alongside.
Got a build on the bench?
Upload it now — you'll see the sections, the seams and the full price up front, with an estimated dispatch date before you pay.
Get my instant quote