I am a very lazy person. I’d rather hurt myself carrying four bags of groceries than to walk two times, or I can spend an afternoon calculating what way would cost me the least effort when it could have been finished so much earlier if I just picked either way. This searching for the path of least resistance still haunts me, even with 3d printing. What is more work (and as a second criteria; wat looks better)? Printing a multiple part sculpt or printing it as one whole?

As a long time follower of Danny Herrero’s YouTube channel and a very satisfied backer of his first Kickstarter campaign, I didn’t hesitate to pledge his second campaign: The Lost Adventures. I was especially interested in the extra bosses that came available and could be voted in. I had my mind set on this one boss that I liked above all the others. The Hill Giant by David Whitaker. I like to use Giants, but since most monster art depicts Hill Giants as dumb hillbillies (yes, I blame the pun), they never felt very attractive to use as a threatening monster. Que David, with his excellent sculpt, who made me fall in love with Hill Giants again. So, when the sculpt was released around the time that I was looking for this project, I knew which miniature I would pick.

The Process





I like the Plant-based resin for two reasons; 1.) It is made from soybeans and as a vegan (yep, couldn’t not mention it) I can’t resist soy. But more importantly 2.) I am convinced that the odour during printing is far less pungent. Even though my printers have their own room in the house, it’s still IN the house, so less smell is better. The 0.05mm layer height is something I would normally not choose for miniatures I want to paint, but as I needed to print three buildplates (two for the multi-part print and one for the whole print) between my orders, I chose to do it as quickly as possible. It still took 29 hours, but the result was great.





As expected from the start, I could keep the supports of the multi-part to a minimum, and the whole part was covered in them. So now the tedious work of removing the supports, sanding, gluing, assembling, etc. started. Even though the clean-up of the multi-part sculpt was easy, the assembly was a lot more work. Small imperfections that can form when various parts are differently oriented, supports that have merged with the sculpt inside the connector holes made it so that a lot of sanding was still necessary. The brittleness from this resin also made it difficult to connect the parts without breaking the more vulnerable sections. Gaps, some more visible than others, were unpreventable. The whole sculpt needed a lot of sanding and it was more difficult to remove certain supports that were used in small, covered, areas. It took some time, but I felt less likely to damage the sculpt.

I used the Anycubic Photon S with the Anycubic Plant-based UV Pink Resin, and for the sake of speed, I kept the layers at 0.05mm. The Photon S is my go-to printer when I want high detail, and as you can see in the pictures: there are almost no lines. I think this is especially important for miniatures used for painting, as layers can catch paint and disrupt techniques like drybrushing, glazing, or washes.