MSLA vs SLA for Resin Figure Kits: What Actually Changes
MSLA vs SLA for Resin Figure Kits: What Actually Changes
MSLA and SLA are two ways of turning liquid photopolymer into a solid object with ultraviolet light. Both cure resin one layer at a time, both build upside down on a rising plate, and both are capable of holding a 0.2mm eyelash on a face the size of a fingernail. The difference between them is what shapes the light. That single difference decides what the machine costs, how long a plate takes, and which part wears out first. It decides far less than most buying guides suggest about how the finished figure looks.
This page is written for people printing or buying display scale figure kits rather than production parts. Three facts about that use case change the calculation. The parts are small and the plate is usually full, so throughput is measured in figures per night rather than in millimetres per hour. The detail that matters is on curved organic surfaces, faces, fabric folds and hair, which behave differently from the flat machined geometry most spec sheets are written around. And the object gets sanded, primed and painted afterwards, which quietly erases a category of difference that the spec sheet treats as decisive.
Remerlinds is a Dutch studio that prints licensed figure kits to order and ships them unpainted. Everything described below as work you do after a print comes off the plate is work we do before a kit is boxed, at the finish level you choose. We do not sell printers. There is a section further down on why that is worth saying out loud, and a section near the end with the kits that show what the technology can hold.
A screen versus a laser: what actually differs
SLA uses a laser. A galvanometer steers a focused ultraviolet beam across the resin surface and traces the cross section of the layer, point by point, like a pen drawing a filled shape. The beam has a spot size, typically around 85 microns on a desktop machine, and the printer draws with it.
MSLA replaces the laser with two parts: a flat array of ultraviolet LEDs underneath, and a monochrome LCD panel in front of them acting as a mask. The panel goes black everywhere except the cross section of the current layer, the LEDs fire, and the whole layer cures in one exposure. There is no drawing. There is a stencil and a flash. The M stands for masked, and the mask is a screen with a fixed pixel grid, which is where the pixel pitch figures on every listing come from.
Everything else follows from that. The laser is a moving point, so its cost is time. The screen is a fixed grid, so its cost is a consumable that degrades under ultraviolet light. Neither is a compromise on the other. They are different answers to the same problem, and for a plate full of 1/10 scale torsos they behave very differently.
| SLA | MSLA | |
|---|---|---|
| Light source | Steered UV laser | LED array behind an LCD mask |
| How a layer is formed | Traced point by point | Whole layer exposed at once |
| Layer time depends on | Path length, so on part count and complexity | Resin and layer height only |
| Smallest feature in XY | Set by laser spot, around 85 microns typical | Set by pixel pitch, commonly 19 to 50 microns |
| Main wear item | Optics and galvanometer | LCD panel, replaced periodically |
| Edge quality in XY | Smooth curves, laser path artefacts possible | Grid aligned, very fine stair pattern on shallow diagonals |
Why MSLA is faster, and when that stops mattering
The consequence of one-shot exposure is worth stating plainly, because it is the single thing most people miss. On an MSLA machine, a layer containing one figure and a layer containing twelve figures take exactly the same time. Exposure is typically 1 to 10 seconds depending on the resin, plus the lift and settle movement, and none of that scales with how much of the plate is occupied. Filling the plate is free.
On an SLA machine the laser has to visit every point. Twelve figures means roughly twelve times the path, so a full plate costs close to twelve times the layer time. The machine is not slower in any absolute sense. It is slower in exactly the situation figure printing puts it in, which is a plate packed edge to edge with parts.
This matters less than it sounds if you print one figure at a time for yourself, and it matters enormously if you are filling plates to order. It is the reason essentially every studio printing figure kits commercially at desktop scale runs MSLA, ours included. It is a workflow argument, not a quality argument, and it should not be dressed up as one.
There is a second effect that is easy to miss. Because MSLA layer time is fixed, the way to print faster is to make layers thinner without paying for it in wall-clock time in the way you would on a laser machine. That is a real advantage on organic surfaces, where layer height does more for perceived quality than XY pitch does.
Key takeaways
- MSLA layer time is independent of how many parts are on the plate.
- SLA layer time scales with path length, so a full plate is a slow plate.
- For batch figure printing the throughput gap is large. For a single figure it is small.
What resolution numbers do and do not tell you
Every MSLA listing leads with a K number. The number is the horizontal pixel count of the masking panel, and on its own it tells you almost nothing, because it is one of three terms in the thing you actually care about. The figure that matters is pixel pitch, which is panel width divided by pixel count. A wide panel with a big pixel count and a small panel with a modest one can land on the same pitch, and a printer marketed with a larger K number can have coarser pixels than one marketed with a smaller one simply because its build area is bigger.
Real desktop MSLA pitches sit roughly between 19 and 50 microns. Compare that to a typical desktop SLA laser spot around 85 microns and MSLA looks decisively finer, and in the narrow sense of smallest addressable feature in XY, it is. That comparison is also where most buying guides stop, which is a mistake, because below a certain pitch the limiting factor stops being the machine.
What limits fine detail on a figure kit, once pixel pitch is small enough, is the sculpt, the resin, the exposure calibration and the layer height. A 19 micron pitch printing an over-cured layer will lose a fabric crease that a 50 micron pitch printing a properly calibrated one holds cleanly. Light bleeds sideways in resin. Push exposure and thin raised detail fattens and soft recessed detail fills. This is why two people with identical printers get visibly different results from the same file, and why a resolution figure is a ceiling rather than a promise.
Treat the K number the way you would treat the megapixel count on a camera. It sets an upper bound and it is not the reason one photograph looks better than another.
Key takeaways
- K number is pixel count. Pixel pitch is pixel count divided by panel width, and pitch is what matters.
- MSLA pitch beats desktop SLA laser spot size, which is a genuine advantage in XY.
- Past a certain pitch, calibration and layer height decide what the surface actually holds.
Surface finish comes from settings and orientation, not from the technology
The most common claim in this comparison is that SLA gives a smoother surface. It is not wrong so much as misattributed. What you see on a finished figure comes from four things, and the choice of light engine is the weakest of them.
Layer height sets vertical stepping, and vertical stepping is the artefact people actually notice. It shows on shallow slopes, the top of a shoulder, the curve of a cheek, the long taper of a cloak, and it shows equally on both technologies at the same layer height. Orientation on the plate decides where those shallow slopes fall. Tilt a bust so no large surface is nearly horizontal and the stepping moves into geometry that hides it. Exposure decides whether crisp detail stays crisp. And support strategy decides where the marks land, which is the one artefact that genuinely cannot be settings-tuned away.
A support mark on a well-set-up print is a small circular witness point, commonly 0.3 to 0.6mm across. At normal viewing distance it is invisible. Under a loupe or a macro lens it is there, on any resin print, from any machine, because something had to hold the part up while it cured. That is the real artefact of resin printing, and the fix is a moment with fine abrasive rather than a different printer.
It is also worth naming what is not on a resin printed part. There are no mould lines, no flash, no casting seams, no vents and no mould release residue, because a printed part has never touched a mould. Guides that carry that vocabulary across from cast garage kits are describing a different manufacturing process.
| What you see on the figure | Decided by the light engine? | Actually decided by |
|---|---|---|
| Layer stepping on shallow curves | No | Layer height and plate orientation |
| Crispness of raised and recessed detail | Barely | Exposure calibration and resin |
| Smallest feature the machine can address | Yes | Pixel pitch or laser spot size |
| Support marks | No | Support strategy and cleanup |
| Warping and dimensional drift | No | Cure schedule, geometry and resin |
Running costs, consumables and what wears out
Both technologies drink the same resin at the same rate, so consumable cost per figure is close to identical. The difference is in what the machine itself consumes.
MSLA wears out its masking panel. Monochrome LCD panels are typically rated around 2000 hours of exposure, against roughly 500 hours for the older RGB panels they replaced, and the switch to monochrome also cut exposure times dramatically, from around 16 seconds per layer to around 2 seconds for a standard rigid resin at 0.1mm. The panel is a scheduled replacement, cheap relative to the printer, and it does not fail suddenly. It fades, prints start losing fine detail in the corners first, and you change it.
MSLA also uses a film in the bottom of the vat that clouds and needs periodic replacement on both technologies, and an LED array that dims very slowly. SLA has no panel to replace, but it does have optics and a galvanometer, which are precision components that are not a routine consumer swap. On a hobby budget the MSLA maintenance model is easier to live with: everything you touch is cheap and replaceable, and nothing needs realignment.
Neither machine is hands-off. Both need ventilation, both need gloves, both need a wash and cure step, and both produce waste resin that goes to chemical disposal rather than down a drain. That workload is identical and it is the part people underestimate.
Key takeaways
- Resin cost per figure is effectively the same on both.
- MSLA has one scheduled consumable, the LCD panel, rated around 2000 hours.
- The handling, curing and waste workload is identical, and it is the real time cost of owning either.
We print on MSLA, and we do not sell printers
It is worth being direct about where this page is coming from, because most comparisons of this kind are published by someone selling one of the two machines.
Remerlinds runs MSLA. Every kit we ship comes off a masked stereolithography machine, which means our practical experience is one sided and we should say so. We also have no printer to sell you and no affiliate arrangement with anyone who does, which means the recommendation below costs us nothing either way. If you buy an SLA machine tomorrow it makes no difference to us. If you buy an MSLA machine it makes no difference to us either.
What we do sell is the output. If the reason you are researching printers is that you want a particular figure on a shelf, rather than that you want the process, that is a distinction worth sitting with for a moment before spending several hundred euro. Owning a resin printer is a hobby of its own, with its own calibration curve, its own failed plates and its own ventilation problem. It is a good hobby. It is not the same hobby as painting figures, and plenty of people discover that after buying the machine rather than before.
So which should you buy?
For display scale figure kits, MSLA, and the decision is not close. It gives finer XY addressing than a desktop laser, it fills plates for free, its consumables are cheap and swappable, and the entire hobby ecosystem of profiles, settings and shared print advice is built around it. If you are printing figures at home, that ecosystem is worth more than any single spec on the box.
SLA earns its place where the laser's characteristics are the point: large single parts where a masked panel would have to be enormous, engineering resins and applications where certified material behaviour matters more than throughput, and environments where a supported industrial workflow beats a tinkerable one. Those are real cases. They are mostly not figure cases.
If you are choosing a specific MSLA machine, ignore the K number on the front of the box and work out the pixel pitch instead. Then check the build volume against the tallest thing you want to print in one piece, check what a replacement panel costs and whether it is easy to get, and budget for a wash and cure station, gloves, a ventilated corner and a way to dispose of waste resin legally where you live. The printer is not the expensive part of starting.
If you would rather not run a printer at all
Our kits arrive unpainted. They are printed to order on MSLA, supports removed, washed and fully UV cured, test fitted, checked and bagged part by part, then packed in recycled paper and bubble wrap. There is no foam in the box, because foam is close to impossible to recycle at home. The sculpts are licensed from the digital sculptors who made them.
You choose how much of the finishing work stays yours. Bronze, our DIY Ready level, comes with supports removed and the rest of the cleanup left to you, in 2 to 5 business days. Silver, Detail Ready and the one most people pick, adds sanded support marks and filled drainage holes, in 4 to 8 business days. Gold, Paint Ready, adds pre-filled and smoothed seams and a coat of primer in black, white or grey, in 6 to 14 business days. The full breakdown of the three finish levels covers what each one leaves for you to do.
Three kits that show different things about what the process holds:
- Frodo Baggins, Lord of the Rings, 75mm. A small figure is the harder test, not the easier one, because the face and the hands are a few millimetres across and there is nowhere for a soft edge to hide. Sculpted by NomNom Figures. Bronze from 22,99 euro.
- Gimli and Legolas, 1/10 scale. Two figures on one base, around 24,8cm, with chainmail, braided hair and beard texture running across both. Sculpted by NomNom Figures. Bronze from 70,99 euro.
- Urbased, Breathe the Wilderness, 1/9 scale. At roughly 34cm this is a multi-part build, which is where orientation and part splitting matter most. Sculpted by NomNom Figures. Bronze from 49,99 euro.
The rest of the range, around 619 kits at the time of writing, is in the complete catalogue, filterable by sculptor, series and scale. If you are not sure what suits you, our guide to choosing a kit for your collection works through subject, size and skill level. Whichever route you take, printed or bought, cool, dark storage matters more than most people expect: cured resin is stable, but sustained ultraviolet light and heat are not kind to it.
