What’s a Mega Project?
At the beginning of the year, I wrote up a very lengthy list of 2021 Hobby Goals for myself. While this list has been very ambitious there is one category that I have been working diligently on, my “Mega Projects”. I designated 6 mega projects that I wanted to work towards in my 3D printing hobby. The focus of most is to print 100% of the files from a Kickstarter I’ve previously backed.
There are a few exceptions to this rule such as props and such that come along with 3D printable Kickstarters. I only desire to grow my miniature collection, terrain, and buildings and not larger objects. I will perhaps consider going back to those once my kids are interested so they actually “find” an object or one such thing or another. Maybe they would drink real “potion” bottles to heal. Bring role playing into a bit of reality as they grow their understanding of tabletop games and inspire imagination. However, I believe I still have a few more years before we get to that point.
Why start these mega projects? Why is there a need to print these Kickstarters? I have two main reasons.
Goals
- There is nothing worse than buying a bunch of games, models, and terrain but never actually getting it on your table. The primary focus of these mega projects is to have a larger reexamination of my 3D printing model collection. For many 3D printing enthusiasts collecting digital files of sculpts is very similar to a wargamers pile of shame, pile of potential, or pile of opportunity depending on your preferred name. The goal was to convert these digital dreams into reality and therefore represent physical reminders for things to paint. Or turning this digital vault into “Piles of Opportunity”. Absolute worst case scenario I can still play with physical miniatures instead of digital files even if they aren’t painted.
- This is the first time in my hobby experience where I am crafting without having a current gaming group. Previously my hobby time was motivated by what I needed for the next session with my hobby group. Now I have free reign to make what ever I desire and potentially craft my sessions around these builds and miniatures instead. I’m excited about the inspiration and creativity that is driving my Dungeon Master mind to come up with new and exciting stories.
This hobby project idea and goal has brought me a ton of joy and excitement in my hobby time and i’ve been falling in love with models and figures I never would have otherwise. I do end up in spurts of mass production which can definitely chew through my hobby budget but I find that it’s worth it.
Since the year is half over it is time to evaluate my progress on one of these projects.
Lost Adventures Volume 1 Kickstarter
Lost Adventures Volume 1 is the second Kickstarter from the now titled company Lost Adventures Co. which focused on almost the perfect essentials kit for starting to 3D print and desire to add models to your table. With a healthy mixture of common monsters, bosses, scatter terrain, buildings, and scenery it is probably my number one recommendation for buying files. As a Kickstarter from 2019 FDM filament printing was the predominate style of printing miniatures so many sculpts and ALL the terrain and scatter prints absolutely supportless which also makes it useful for any starting 3D printing enthusiast. Also, out of any project I’ve ever backed these are most likely going to be the most used monsters and terrain I’d ever need for my tabletop.
This Kickstarter comes with 47 sets of miniatures and 37 sets of builds, terrain, and scatter (sets meaning individual purchasable sets such as “bandits” or “trees’ etc). Lost Adventures Volume 1 is my largest Kickstarter ambition of the year. I have decided to not print the supplemental props that could go with the encounters that come as well. The goal is 100% printing for functional tabletop pieces.
This Kickstarter I’ve been working tirelessly on for most of the year so far. I have printed several of the terrain and scatter pieces in the past as a test printer for the Lost Adventures Co. but I have yet to print the models in my own time. I have always known that I wanted the complete set for this Kickstarter but have set it aside for one reason or another. Now it is time to dust off the cob webs and knock it out of the park.
My Current Progress
I started to dive into this project at the Beginning of March full throttle. My primary focus was to work on tackling the miniature portion of this collection and then slowly add the scatter terrain and buildings.
So far in this project I have printed 75% of all the miniature sets, and 13.5% of the terrain and scatter. Combined making it approximately 47% of all individual bundles in the Kickstarter. I don’t think I truly realized how incredibly large this Kickstarter truly is and how much of a deal it was.
The Statistics:
Total Number of Models: approximately 108
Total Print Time: 14 days 18 hours 15 minutes
Total Resin Used: 1808 grams
Total Cost of Resin: $73.49
Original Kickstarter Price: $50.00 (Purchase now for $80.00)
Total Cost to Date: $123.49
Special Note: This calculation only includes the time for “Successful” prints. Failed prints are currently not counted and number provided above is ideal scenario. Total time and Resin usage is actually higher but exact value cannot be calculated at this time.
Total number of different sculptors & creators for models: 28
Note this does not include concept art & other members of the Lost Adventure Co time, only creators who produced a digital sculpt for printing.
Favorite Models to Date
Graveyard Golem- Khaldoth the Corpse Keeper
My absolute favorite model to date is the Graveyard Golem. What makes this sculpt really unique is that this stone golem has risen into creation in the middle of the graveyard. There is so much story packed into this model. On the model you can see coffins, chains, religious symbols, and so much more which was buried directly underneath the tombstones that are above the head of the golem.
Sculpted by James Dorrington this is now an absolute must have in my collection. However I am actually really incredibly nervous about painting and doing this model the justice it deserves.
Hydra Horror – Malgáthez the Devourer
The Hydra Horror will also always have a special place in my heart as it is the first miniature I have successfully magnetized. As a hydra this model has 5 necks with swappable necks to go from a 5 headed beast to a 10 headed monster and any variant inbetween.
Check it out if you want to read more about magnetization.
Sculpted by Artem Bespalov & Deryck Pelligrini.
Honorable Mention
Some of my other favorites in the collection so far are the Fire Giant, Commoners Pack 1, Watcher, Eye Horror and Lizardfolk
Not so Favorite Models
There are a few models that I have made that due to their design either just doing match my personal art style or I just don’t think they are modeled well for tabletop gameplay. With all good things and especially large scale things like this there is bound to be a few.
Lord of Liches Niru the Everlasting
This model would definitely fall in the “Love Hate” category. While I absolutely love the artistic style the design of the model and its super thin joints along with massively heavy spell effect make it absolutely non-ideal for gameplay. I would absolutely recommend that you NOT print the spell effect if you desire this model in tabletop play as it is prone to toppling over and breaking. Which is of course what happened to my figure not even a day after I took the picture.
Sculpted by James Dorrington, which is incredibly interesting because my favorite model the Graveyard Golem is also sculpted by him.
wolves
Also in the category of least favorite models. I do not know why but the fur texture on these wolves is not my ideal sculpting decision. While absolutely functional for tabletop play I admit that it is just not my art style. However that is one of the beautiful things about this Kickstarter because you can see so much variety of what is available in the tabletop space. I definitely think i’ll still paint these guys and practice on different types and colors of fur. Maybe with some color i’ll fall in love with the models.
Sculpted by: Eder Lindorfe
I am also not a big fan of the Storm Giant Seer due to her immense size which is much larger than my other giants from this collection and the hobgoblins. I think the hobgoblins are just too “bearman” like instead of a goblinoid but again personal preference.
What Next?
Well considering I have so much still to print especially in the terrain and scatter categories I am going to start working on that and writing the print logs for models printed before the site existed. At the moment I am taking a break from printing the miniatures but still plan on knocking the collection out before the end of the year.
I intend to work on updating and improving upon some of my other mega projects set aside for the year and will be writing status updates for those in the weeks to come.
If you want to see more of what I made and printed check out the complete list of the 108 miniatures below. Each photograph and Description will take you to their corresponding print logs which talk about my experiences, troubles, print settings, and more pictures of that collection.
Also feel free to check out the Lost Adventures Volume 1 Project Page for an entire list of all the models in the collection.
Complete List of Prints to Date
