3D Printing and Painting Drogon for a Song of Ice and Fire

As the title implies, I decided to print myself a Drogon for the CMON Song of Ice and Fire Miniatures Game! I absolutely love the game, but as of yet, there are no dragons. I got a hankering to rectify that situation and took to the interwebs to find a 3D model. I was not disappointed! gambody.com had an exquisite 3D model, sculpted by Xander3D. I bit the bullet, and purchased the stl files, despite being a total and complete 3D printing noob. This was going to be a challenge of epic proportions. 

​It took TWELVE DAYS to print all of the pieces. 12. Bloody. Days. 
The original model was cut into approximately 35 pieces (not including claws). The wings were originally 3 pieces each, but given the print times required, and that fact that I only run the printer while I'm awake, I opted to further cut each piece in half. This dramatically sped up the print time, although created some additional flaws which would have to be repaired. Pictured right is one of the wings in it's 6 pieces, being test fit prior to gluing. 

​My lack of experience with 3D printing REALLY showed when it came time to put everything together. My settings weren't 100% perfect (especially the supports), which led to some unfortunate gaps. These are not the fault of the sculptor, these are entirely my own doing. Fortunately I was prepared to deal with them! 
I glued the pieces with both 2 Part Epoxy and superglue, which took for-freaking-ever. 

I wish I had taken a photo of all 41 pieces before gluing, but I was entirely too eager to get to work. The yellow lines pictured on the right are Milliput, which is a 2-part epoxy putty that is perfect for filling gaps. It's one of my favourite tools for both work and hobby. I filled the gaps, and sculpted them to match the surrounding textures as closely as possible.

Here is Drogon, with his wings in place! I noticed that the sculptor had made a tear in his wing, which did give him some character, but since he was sculpted to be Viserion, and I wanted to paint him as Drogon, I opted to fill this space. I carefully cut a piece of thin cardboard to fit the gap, and thoroughly glued it in place. I then covered both sides with Milliput and sculpted the texture to match the surrounding wing. You can see in the completed photos that this little tear in his wing is completely gone :)

I gave him a base coat of black, and the brought out the air brush. Using several layers of increasingly brighter shades of red, I built up the colour slowly. The reds were really confined to the wings and the sails along his neck, back, and tail, since Drogon is mostly black. I also darkened the wing "fingers", although took the photo (right) prior to doing so. 

Once the sails were painted red, I had to go back in with a brush and make the spines along the sails black. This was incredibly tedious. It took several days of hobby time to get it done, and I thought I would lose my mind. But it got done! 
​
A note on claws: Being a complete novice, I failed utterly to print his claws. They were tiny and I couldn't get sufficient bed adhesion even with a raft. So I opted to sculpt the claws out of Milliput and glue them on after the fact. 

Here is a photo of his back and wings after spending hours picking out the spines on his sails. And this was before I got into most of the details! Yikes!

The rocky outcropping pictured was an additional part that came with the 3D printed model. It was going to take 2 days to print at good resolution (48 hours!), so I opted to lower the resolution DRAMATICALLY and deal with the layer lines afterwards. The layer lines were rather noticeable, so I mixed up a bunch of thick paint, with glue and sand, and sloshed it all over the rocks. It concealed the lines well enough. 
The model did not come with the black base. I modified a 3D model of a base for ASoIaF and 3D printed that separately so that it could be used in game. It is 6" x 6".

To wrap it all up, I built up the base further with some stones and rocks. I then drybrushed it with different shades of grey, and then added some sand in assorted colours to break it up. I covered the remaining exposed surface of the base in the same sand I use to base my armies. I glued Drogon to his base, and then gave the whole thing a good coat of Testos Dullcote, my favourite varnish for all hobby needs. I finished the base with some small tufts of grass. I would have added some flock as well, but didn't want to commit this theming to either warm or cold climates (since in the show he was in both environments). 
I included Roose Bolton in one of the photos to give you a sense of scale with the other models. 
His finished size is 15" tall, a whopping 24" from wing to wing, and around 11" from front to back. 

​Drogon, pictured above taking on some Lannister Halberdiers! 

Because I'm crazy, just building this model was not good enough. I wanted to play with it! So I set out to make in-game rules for him. In consultation with my wonderful boyfriend/arch-nemesis (he's a Lannister player... enough said lol), I wrote up a set of stats and special rules. He is 40 points, the cost of an average army. Seems fair lol... He hasn't been fully play-tested yet, I hope to do so in the days to come. I expect his rule set to change and evolve as he gets play, the goal being as balanced a profile as possible. To further demonstrate my obsession with this game, I built a custom Unit Card Template and formatted his rules properly. I even hunted down the same font used on the real cards. Had to play a little fast and loose with the spacing of the text because his rules required so much explanation. Now for the fun part... WE PLAY! :D

Credits
3D Model - Xander3D on Gambody.com
3D printing, model building, painting and finishing - Aelia Petro
Digital Painting of Drogon - ertacaltinoz on deviantart. 
Celtic Dragon Art for the borders - Kevin Dyer. 
Dragon stats, rules, and profile by Aelia Petro
A Song of Ice and Fire Miniatures Game by CMON

This project is completely not-for-profit. It is entirely for fun.