Finally got round to seeing this and OMG I loved it!
I remember seeing a short CGI clip, many moons ago, of Godzilla rampaging through a 1940s Tokyo complete with a flying tram and I was blown away.
Godzilla Minus One is so much more.
Finally got round to seeing this and OMG I loved it!
I remember seeing a short CGI clip, many moons ago, of Godzilla rampaging through a 1940s Tokyo complete with a flying tram and I was blown away.
Godzilla Minus One is so much more.
This week, I are mostly been printing... A Giant Keeper of Secrets!!
Well this is another commissioned print by me and an amazing paintjob from Sam, my fellow founder at Dragons Keep Roleplay Club. I'll let the pictures do the talking but suffice to say that a few short years ago all of this was impossible...
This week, I are mostly been printing... A Colossal Chromatic Dragon!!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
This week, I are mostly been printing... Big Booby Spider Lady
OK, I lied... I printed this off a few weeks ago for my clubmate Sam and had to wait till he painted it.
This is one of a series of minis that Sam asked me to print for him. An amazing paint job and an amazing bit of basing makes this really pop as a mini.
and a side view...
I understand that she is some sort of Warhammer Slaaneshi demon but it's a cool mini nonetheless.
More minis to come from Sam in the very near future.
I saw this trailed last year and, as a big fan of the art of the great french comic book illustrator Moebius aka Jean Giraud, I was gobsmacked with how similar in style it looked to many of his amazing strips.
It immediately brought back memories of watching Les Maîtres du temps (The Masters of Time) and I knew I would have to give it a watch.
The story revolves around the lives of three groups of survivors who landed their escape pods on a lush and verdant planet in very different circumstances. Many of their shipmates have not been so lucky and did not survive to reach the surface, although it is not long before you start to realise that maybe its the dead who are lucky.
The 12 episodes are a busmans guide on how to create a planet full of interesting and diverse flaura and fauna which spends all of its time trying to eat you. Wrapped around this core survival trope are evolving backstories which explore why each of the very differnt characters chose to thrust themselves out into the great void.
Beautifully animated and biologically complex, the writers have crafted a world which has so much natural diversity and complexity in their life cycles and symbiotic relationships with each other. This goes well beyond the simple and makes Gieger's Xenomorph look like a children's story book.
In the same way, the individual backstories of each character are explored in detail from the venal and pathetic Kamen to the strange relationship between Azi and her robot companion Levi. These are as complex and interesting as their surroundings. However, sometimes I feel this is designed to lull you into a false sense of security. Needless to say in these more tender moments their next brush with the disaster is only around the corner.
This is exactly how I remember early Traveller scenarios going back in the day. Every scenario was an exercise in exploration and discovering new and deadly lifeforms. I remember playing those classic double adventures like Shadows or the Chamax Plague and loving them.
Justifiers - Out of The Mists | Traveller - Shadows |
If you enjoy carefully crafted and beautiful landscapes filled with interesting biology then yes, absolutely. If you want fast paced action then this is not the animation for you. If you can imagine watching a 6 hour long Studio Ghibli masterpiece where your own mortality is repeatedly rammed down your throat in the most violent but interesting ways. Only then are you getting somewhere close to the gorgeous grotesqueness of this show.
It is rare for a show like this to ever get greenlit or make it past a 30 minute long short so we have to reward the creative geniuses behind the scenes and watch their show.
This week, I are mostly been tasting... Middle Eastern Delights
Regular readers will know that my favourite D&D setting is Al-Qadim but it was never well supported in terms of minis. Time has been kind to the genre though and there are plenty of neat minis that can be downloaded all over the internet including.
As soon as I saw this guy I new I had to print him my other two Djinn are a bit too weapony and this guy is all about giving out wishes. I'm really pleased with the paint job on this guy and his muscles benefitted from the zenithal highlighting that I've been doing lately.
This week, I are mostly been printing... Stuff for Friends
My current DM Mark is a bit of a metalhead and in honour of his awesome DMing I printed him this equally awesome spell effect for the famous D&D spell Bigby's Hand. I hope I get to see it in play in the not too distant future.
Printing a Lithophane has been high on my agenda for some time and as I was due to meet my 3 old work pals from the Ministry of Defence what better way to celebrate our reunion after Pandemic.
This has been my biggest resin print to date and I really wanted to push the printer to see what it could do. I am blown away by the mid bending properties of Lithophanes and how, on a budget resin printer, I can make photorealistic 3D art.
Amazing and definitely fits into "optical Illusion" territory.
Fellow Dragons Keep member Kat told me that her DM had recently gifted her a Displacer Kitten as a moving-in gift so I quickly sourced this super cute mini and an equally awesome displacer beast to represent the kitten when fully grown.
Of course no birthday gift can come without a presentation gift box and my old 3D Printer sacrificed some of it's foam packaging for a custom box.
This week, I are mostly been enjoying printing some characters I found on the interweb.
People of a certain age will instantly recognise this little fellow. He looks harmless enough but back in the 80s he kidnapped a bunch of American kids and put them through all manner of trials and fights against dragons and monsters. Today's generation would have none of his nonsense I am sure.
If Hollywood is listening, someone please make a live action remake of the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. It will be a guaranteed hit.
There are a lot of Futurama models out there (I do want to print a cosplay brain slug and a Planet Express) but having a Bender miniature means I can keep those anoying meat bags at bay. I needed to scale this one down and poor Benders antenna was just too fragile at that scale.
Destroy all humans!!
In a previous episode I printed the mad scientist Dr. Frankenstein and his able assistant Igor. It would be churlish of me not to include his two most famous creations, the monster and Frankenstein's Bride.
Both these sculpts are by GloomyKid on Thingiverse who seems to push all my buttons when it comes to the models he chooses to sculpt. Awesome work dude.
I stumbled across this fan made trailer the other day and was gripped. Watch it right to the end and see if you agree with me. This needs to be made into a feature length movie.
At my regular Friday night roleplay club Dragons Keep we often have at least one Dungeons & Dragons game running and at the moment this is Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden.
SPOILER ALERT: One of the big bad beasties you are probably going to encounter is the Chardalyn Dragon, a monstrous metallic magical construct which Wizkids have made available as an Icons of the Realm miniature.
Wizkids Chardalyn Dragon - Buy one here |
However, if your pockets aren't deep enough to afford that one, 3D miniature modelling guru Miguel Zavala (aka MZ4250 on Thingiverse) has made his own for those of us who are lucky owners of 3D Printers. You can download this for free on Shapeways.
This comes as a two piece model, a dragon with outstretched wings and a seperate flying base. Great if you have a huge FDM printer. However, if you are like me and restricted to a 200mm square build plate or a resin SLA printer you are going to need to cut this model up into smaller parts using meshmixer.
With the model cut into 4 parts, body, flying stand and two wings, I printed these in two batches at a fine 0.1mm layer height. That's about 16 hours worth of printing. I arranged the body on the bed with the legs pointing down. From the players perspective they will be looking down on this miniature so having a metric ton of support lines hidden under the dragon was the way to go. The wings were arranged vertically to minimise the need for support material.
I don't know what it is with support material on my printer, it just seems to fuse itself to the model. I don't know if this is a temperature thing, the filament I use always seems to want to print at the upper ends of the PLA temp range (200 to 220).
I know that there is probably a setting in Cura that I can tweak, but if you have any advice please pop it in the comments below.
I pinned the wings and glued them using 2 part epoxy. Not my glue of choice for plastic miniatures but I had used up all my superglue on an exciting super secret mega project which I will reveal in due course when it is complete. I also opted to leave the flying base unglued so the DM can simulate a flying or landed version, the pose is a bit dual purpose unlike the wizkids version which is strictly ground based.
Note to self: when printing spindly objects with horizontal layer lines. Remember they are fragile.
The Kraken for King of Tokyo was exactly the same it had this bunch of octopus like leg tentacles. They were an absolute nightmare to print and kept snapping. Cura should invent a way to change the infill density for parts which are inherently week. Something like and infill change at z-height or allow you to draw boxes round sections of an STL and change the infill.
Anyway, the long and the short of it was that I broke the flying stand!!
Chardalyn Dragon in it's hot off the printer shade of brown |
"Don't Panic" I thought "it was a bit short anyway" and so 10 minutes later it was sitting atop its new coat hanger wire stand. This is a lot thinner and helps to give it that flying look which we were after in the first place.
This miniature was super easy to paint, "barely an inconvenience" a matt black primer coat and then a hit with a rattle can of "Wheel Silver". This thing is supposed to be mechanical so I used a failed print of my 3D Printer control board cover to give it a subtle hexagonal pattern like mechanical scales. I must invest in some fruit bags which would better conform to the shape and give a smaller pattern.
My attempt at a hexagonal wing pattern - too subtle? |
The flying base was shot in matt black as I have no idea what terrain the encounter will be using.
Chardalyn Dragon - Dungeons & Dragons - Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden |
More scaley monstrosities on Miniature Monday.
I confess, when painting my lizardmen last week I had the green pot of paint open and I just went for it. The added bonus is that my lizardmen have at least two bad guys that they could be working for.
From left to right we have:
Vandorendra, Snakeman Warrior and Medusa |
Julie Guthrie knocks it out of the park again with theis crazy looking sculpt which will fit right into my Al-Quadim campaigns. A truly frightening six bladed whirling dervish of a boss monster which looks like it just jumped out of Ray Harryhausen's sketchbook.
In Forgotten Realms these are also known as the Marilith, Type V demons who are apparently master tacticians to the Abyssal Hordes (which is nice) so all you D&Ders have a ready to use stat block thanks to the the D&D Wiki. Apparently they made their first appearance back in 1e so they have been a feature of Dungeons & Dragons for as long as I have been a player and I have never encountered one. A situation I must remedy immediately.
The thing that has always puzzled me about snakemen is how do they move around. I mean they don't have the body length to form the S shape typically associated with snake locomotion. Never mind this guy comes with two really big swords meaning he can still reach you.
Of course no mythical fantasy monster collector would be seen dead without at least one medusa in their miniature collection. Bobby Jackson nails it with this sculpt which is only made better by me stringing that naked bow with a bit of sewing thread and superglue.
1. Find your model on a 3D model warehouse site like Thingiverse.
2. Download the STL files.
3. Open up the STL files in your slicer, I use Cura. Plan your print by arranging the models on the bed and fine tuning your settings like supports, brim size and infill. Save the gcode file to a removable SD Card.
4. Pop the SD card into your printer, select your file and start the print.
Cross your fingers and a few hours later (depending on the model) you will have a plastic model. This print took 4 hours at 0.1mm layer heights (the finest detail I can get without changing out my hot end nozzle from a 0.4 to something finer like a 0.2).
Usually you only have to watch the first layer go down and any issues can be nipped in the bud early to save on plastic. This print had small parts which wouldn't stay put on the bed so I added an 8mm brim around each part which did the trick.
Chimera - This model had 9 parts |
Chimera - Parts Assembled but this model has big old gaps which need filling |
Chimera Primed with a Zenithal Highlight |
Something a bit different for this week's miniature monday with Lizardmen.
Reaper Miniatures seem to have a large selection of lizardfolk across a number of ranges including Bones / Dark Haven and their Warlord line. In my opinion lizardmen get a fairly rough deal from mini companies, usually you get a couple of sculpts and that's it. I have 3 from the original Bones kickstarter.
Lizard Men or Lizard Folk - they all taste like chicken |
I enjoyed painting these so much I am tempted to buy the others in the range to flesh out my lizardman warband. These include:
LtoR: Bat, Hawk, Dragonnewt, Weasel and Cat |
LtoR: Fairy, Coatl, Red Hood, Fire Sprite, Ragdoll and Tree Sprite |