This week, I are mostly been printing... A Colossal Chromatic Dragon!!
Tiamat - Printables 41937
Tiamat was a regular recurring character in the Dungeons and Dragons Cartoon back in the 80s and I have to admit that she never really did it for me. The rendering of her was always a bit pudgy and more like Pete's Dragon (1977) than a fearsome multi headed monstrosity.
It's another Multi-part Model
A model of a dragon of this size and stature can only be executed in a large scale multi part model, 13 parts in total. The great thing is that the designer Miguel Zavala (aka MZ4250) has supplied multiple variants of the model ensuring that it will fit on most smaller resin printer build plates like my Anycubic Photon Mono 4K.
However, there's only so much a designer can do and I still needed to split both the tail and wings in half and I also hollowed out Tiamat's body so I could save on resin.
All told (including the odd failure and reprint) this model was spread across a total of 7 build plates. Total printing time over a number of days clocked in at 29 Hours 47minutes... However, it still took less than a whole 1kg bottle of resin, meaning that this print cost less than £15. The official WotC Aspect of Tiamat miniature is currently going for ten times that price. If you don't have a 3D Printer a licensed version of this print will set you back about £70.
Hollowing out the Parts.
Some of the parts, like the body, were pretty substantial so I elected to save resin and hollow these out using meshmixer. I was most concerned about the wings and the necks as these would be the parts with the most angle of dangle and, as I experienced with my Demon Prince B'lakor model, the highest likelihood of not staying where I want them.
Pinning and gluing the meshmixed halves back together was essential. I managed a much better job of matching the two parts than on the previous wings I tackled. I sliced the tail at an odd angle a bit wonky but you can only tell if you look real hard.
Puttying the gaps in the seams was always going to be required and as they say "Milliput and paint make me the modeller I ain't"
It's Magnet Time Baby
Painting
I always use a zenithal prime of matt white over a black base. I opt to go cheap and cheerful with some auto paint I found in Poundland at only £2.50 for a large 400ml can. They also do matt silver, gold, grey and white and black gloss. Honestly, I can't see why anyone would use anything more expensive unless they were entering a Golden Demon painting competition.
The zenithal on this model I did with all the necks and wings connected this would produce reasonably realistic shadows where one neck blocks the light from another. Similarly you want a nice zenithal gradient going down the wing as the model is posed with wings outstretched.
In the cartoon Tiamat's heads were ordered from left to right; White, Green, Red, Blue, Black but in MZ2450s model they are Black, Green, Red, White and then Blue. Being slavishly canonical has never been my thing, but making sure that I know which head is which is fairly critical when it comes to painting each one.
A Colossal Base
Colouring A Colossal Chromatic Dragon
Wash a Disaster!!
Big Miniatures can Become Boring
A Patreon Worth Joining
None of this would have been possible without the awesome modelling skills of MZ4250.
Miguel has a free Patreon subscription which I encourage you all to join. He offers some pretty cool free minis and the sheer volume of his minis is frightening. His work ethic is fantastic and he has some very cool little minis gems you will find nowhere else.
In fact this is not the first time I have printed an MZ4250 dragon. I printed a version of the Chardalyn Dragon from the D&D Rime of the Frost Maiden campaign on my FDM printer. I have also used Miguel's files in the past printing an Ancient Colossal Red Dragon and the famous Statue of Moloch from the cover of the AD&D PHB