3D printed Hill Giant

Introduction

With the advent of our new DnD campaign: Storm King's Thunder, I was looking into ways of getting my hands on cheap giants. The campaign features all kinds of giants. I first tried paper minis, as before, but they don't fare well when built to be too tall. There is always the last resort proxying, and I have a few proper miniatures, but nothing in the required numbers. However, when I found out someone had a 3D printer, I jumped on the occasion. Enter the prototype: a Hill Giant.

The miniature

I can't detail the 3D printing process much, as I didn't do it myself. I just know that it's cheaper than any miniature we can buy. It also takes a couple of hours to produce something this size (8 cm height), hence the need for prototyping - I need to see what we get before "ordering" more.

All in all, the giant is of better quality than I first imagined. In unpainted shiny white plastic, the horizontal lines are barely visible. The club features spikes, the face is blunt but distinguishable - so are the hands and feet.

Preparation

Glue to a 60mm round base (approximating a huge creature on a 1" grid) and prime in black.

Painting

I decided to do some prototyping when it came to painting as well. My point was to paint this giant with the lowest possible investment of time, effort and paints.

Paints: a $4 set of cheap acrylics, not intended for miniatures.

Time and effort: The entire painting took around 2 hours, although it was fairly inefficient, waiting for previous layers to dry. Had I been assembly-line painting several giants, the average time spent on each would have been lower by 30-50%.

Basecoat in 3 colors: a yellowish skintone, brown for the wood and leather/hides, and black for the hair.

Created a black wash by diluting the black paint from the acrylic set with water. Generous coat on the entire mini to pop out details such as the eyes and hands, grooves on the club, folds in the clothing. I decided to have the clothing more distinguishable from the wood by washing it a second time.
Unfortunately, this also popped out the horizontal lines a bit.

Highlight with the original colors, exclusively by drybrushing to save time. Then paint the base in green. Aaaaand done.

Basing

I decided to allocate a bit more time to the giant to base it, placing it in a grassy area. A hill, perhaps. 

Result of the experiment

While not as detailed as an actual miniature, I am happy with the print itself. It is perfect for something this size that would otherwise be expensive, but barely used.

The paintjob, while not my greatest masterpiece, was also a successful experiment. I got the giant from 0 to done in 3 days (1 for priming, one evening spent painting, and another day basing - the primer and PVA glue took more time to dry).

I am now looking forward to get a host of giants for my players to face!