Using a good layer of of spray undercoat and basecoat will reduce the problem somewhat, but even then the pitting/patterning tends to show up when you use techniques like washes and drybrushing. It is particularly annoying on large flat surfaces.
It happens in all 3d print, but the problem can be reduced significantly by polishing the printed master (or master copies) before creating the moulds. NinjaMagic (Who did the early Exodus Wars stuff and a lot of stuff from the Otterforges) were very good at polishing the bronze masters for a very nice and smooth finish. But obviously such a proces is both time consuming and thus expensive.
For the past couple of years, there's been a trend of skipping the bronze stange and even though print quality continues to improve, there's no doubt in my mind that quality suffers because of this.
In my opinion Shapeways is particularly bad - even at their finest resolution. And essentially this is why a lot of EW releases have been delayed for the past year-and-a-half. When I recieved the production cast Hoplon MkIIs more than a year ago I simply refused to paint them. GW and FW have had significant quality issues with their casts in the past, but that's really nothing compared to the poor surface quality of some of the 3d printed stuff that people seem to have grown accustomed to nowadays.
Even an accomplished painter is going to have a very hard time getting some of the worst models I've seen to look good. In my book good quality miniature doesn't require a lot of skill to paint to a good result. Simple techniques like washes and drybrushing work so well in 6mm, that even a novice painter can get excellent results, provided that the miniature is well designed and with a good surface quality. Using these techniques on a poor model, and the results can in my opinion be quite disasterous.
For example I recently had the pleasure of painting up some finely detailed hand sculpted 6mm infantry, and there's simply no comparison between the smoothness of these, and the grittiness of 3d printed infantry. These miniatures practically painted themselves, while I've had to struggle considerably to get even a mediocre result from some 3d stuff.
While I am very pleased to see the ammount of great new designs for 6mm stuff that is available on the market, from a painter's perspective I do wish that a little more attention was given to quality.
Ultimately though, I suppose it boils down to the classic question of quantity vs quality, and I think only larger players liker Spartan or GHQ have the economic muscle to deliver both at an affordable price.
Anyway: Just my two cents from a grumpy old man
(I hope this doesn't come across as a rant aimed at Troublemaker in particular. It is merely my personal observations regarding miniature quality in general for the past couple of years
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