These are some gnomess miniatures that I made, which you would not be embarrassed to give your daughter for her D&D character. There is no shortage of female character minis out there, but many of them have a “pinup” aesthetic… I’m not against that, but I wanted to make my figures attractive rather than sexy.
The Gnomess Cleric was my first girl gnome,created to go with my other Guardin’ Gnomes.
This Gnomess Warrior has scalemail armor, helm and shield. She also has a Scarlet Johannson smile!
The Gnomess Ranger has studded leather armor, short sword and bow. She is super cute–but I may think so because she looks like my granddaughter!
All of these girl gnomes are available on my Etsy shop. Scales are 28mm D&D, 32mm Heroic, 54mm, 75mm, and 100mm.
My newest theme for my 3Dprintable miniatures is Trolls. I’ve been researching a lot of artists and Scandinavian folk and fairy tales for inspiration. I think the biggest influence that I have is the fairy tale artwork of John Bauer.
I see them as big and shaggy, somewhat beastly in form… As I read some of the stories, I thought about our cousins the Neanderthals, and how they were displaced by our ancestors. The trolls seem to have retreated from the noisy humans and younger races in the same way, and I wondered if that might be a possible origin of their stories, (as well as yetis and jotun and even bigfoot!)
I started with a drawing in Procreate, and then a ZSphere armature in ZBrush for the basic form.
After sculpting the basic Troll body, I brought in some other 28mm scale objects as a reference, so that I could be sure my finished miniature would look good on the table after printing.
Using my drawing as a reference, I detailed the fur and the Trolls accessories. The John Bauer troll illustrations were influenced by the dress of the Sami people of Norway. So I decided that I would also draw from that, as well as relics from bronze age Scandinavia, such as the Troll’s sword:
Illustration from “The Troll Mother seeks a Wife” by John Bauer
I really liked Bauer’s big noses, so I decided to use that in my interpretation. Another artist that I love, Paul Bonner, also gives his trolls big noses and cites John Bauer as an influence!
This is the finished model, rendered in ZBrush. I exported this as an .STL file for 3Dprinting for my Patreon.
3dprinted on a SparkmakerFHD
The finished miniature printed in resin
I was very happy with how these Troll turned out, so I am planning to sculpt a few more trolls for my Patreon. If you like it, and would like to print your own, they are available exclusively at www.patreon.com/Zandoria
I know that there is a market for mass-produced collectible statues, and I know that there is a market for resin-cast “garage kit” sculptures. As I have been 3D printing the past few years, the quality of those prints has increased to a point where they are as good or better than what can be reproduced through casting. So, is there a market for 3D printed statues?
I hand-painted this print of “Tusk” to showcase the model, because I have the .stl file available for sale on Cults3D for $5.
But what if you don’t want to print and paint the model? You would just like a cool statue, hand-painted by the artist who sculpted it! That seems like an work of art, right?
I put this Statue of “Tusk” on eBay for auction, to get an idea of how it might sell. It had 15 people bid on it and sold for $60.
So that makes me think there might be a market. What I will need to do is print out about 10, so that I can paint them as a group. Then sell as a limited edition!
Zandoria Studios 