Alkmaar, Nederland. May 2021. It was going so well.
May started where April finished. Printing out more of the offerings from RN Estudio's Against the Shadows range. The remaining 9 models and the remaining bases were all printed in one day without any failures.
Bilbo, Sam and Frodo with Aragorn at the back.
Legolas, Thranduil, Galadriel, Tauriel and The Witch King.
Next, I printed some of the Investigators from another Kickstarter I'd backed, Innsmouth Investigators by Adaevy Creations. Six investigators and 3 bases printed out perfectly, although I did break the flashbulb off the journalist's camera when cleaning the model.
Back row: Gangster, Secret Agent, Journalist. Front row: Archeologist, Detective and Artist.
The following day I began my most ambitious project yet. The massive Bai Longma Dragon from another Kickstarter, Wu Kong Journey to the West by Bloody Sword Miniatures, with the supports done by 3DPrintingPro. This would need 4 different print runs to get the dragon completed. The bases were a bit too big for the printer, but it doesn't matter as I'll be doing my own. Over the course of the next 4 days, I printed the beast and a couple of other nice models from the same Kickstarter.
Fortunately, the dragon printed perfectly. Unlike the two busts I tried to print along with a couple of Wu Kong figures. Wu Kong is probably better known as Monkey, from the ancient Chinese legends. The bust models were both missing pieces or layers. A model of Wu Kong riding a cloud had a very flat cloak. Another model of Wu Kong had a missing foot and a Plague Doctor model I put on the build plate was missing the lantern, rope and part of his axe. These can't have been support failures. Time to clean the resin tank and once more level the build plate.
Bai Longma in Dragon form. Absolutely stunning model.
Bai Longma bust and Wu Kong bust. Both prints failed due to the cloaks being too flat.
Wu Kong failures: cloak too flat, foot missing and cloak too flat. The only good print was Bai Longma, 2nd from left.
Plague Doctor from Rocket Pig Games with no lantern and half of his axe missing.
Quetzalcoatl and base from Loot Studios May release printed fine from the same print as the Plague Doctor.
After levelling the build plate, I printed off the validation print and the calibration town from Amerlabs. Both of these came out without issues, although I did snap the validation print by mistake.
The calibration town from Amerlabs at the back and the Validation print in front.
Then I printed some more Ancient Egyptian type of stuff. A nice Anubis bust from 3IP Studios and Horus guards, Anubis guards and a couple of other interesting models from RN Estudio's Sands of Time release for May. All the models came pre-supported and I experienced no print failures. So, looks like levelling the build plate may have helped. Of course, I'll need to reprint those failures just to be sure.
Anubis bust from Fantasy Bust Kickstarter by 3IP Studios.
Anubis guards at the back, Horus guards at the front and some sort of queen in the middle.
What's not to like about this really big genie coming out of the lamp.
Finally, I decided to attempt to reprint the failed Wu Kong models. Chitubox tells me a 5 hours print but the printer is telling me it will be over 6 hours. Still haven't figured out why the two don't agree on the time to print. Anyway, the Cloudrider version of Wu Kong printed perfectly this time. Yet I still managed to break his tail when removing the supports. The cloud base had some layer splitting on the tail, no idea why that happened. It's easy to repair but will need investigation in any case. Wu Kong on the polearm printed without a problem and nothing was broken removing the supports.
Monkey pole dancing, with bits of kitchen roll still stuck to him.
Cloudrider Wu Kong, you can't see his missing tail (have to glue it back on) but you can see where the tail of the cloud is a little flat. This is where the layers split.
For this month I printed on 12 occasions for a total of 66 models with 6 failures. The printer was busy for 60 hours and 28 minutes. The longest print being 8 hours and 6 minutes for the dragon body (the middle bit).
Against the Shadows - RN Estudio
Innsmouth Investigators - Adaevy Creations
Wu Kong Journey to the West - Bloody Sword Miniatures