Kernel Bob 
I printed some dragons, as one does. And I tried to photograph them.
🧵 1/N
The dragon was designed by Gabe of Lucky13, best known for his Dummy13 figurines. You can see that the dragon has a similar aesthetic. And it's infinitely posable -- I count 104 degrees of freedom!
I hardly ever buy paid models, but I like this one, and I met Gabe at 3DPrintopia where he was showing it off.
https://www.printables.com/model/1335739-dragon-action-figure
🧵 2/N
The small dragon is 100% size. PolyLite dark grey ASA frame, PolyLite metallic magenta PLA Pro body, and MatterHackers blue-green Quantum PLA. This was kind of a warm-up to make sure I could print and assemble it.
At 100% size, my dragon is hard to pose. My fingers are too big, and the tolerances make some of the joints much tighter than others. Maybe a better printer or better printer operator...
🧵 3/N
The other two dragons are at 200% scale. At that size, they're 46cm long with a 50cm wingspan (18 and 19.6 inches).
The big ones' wings are a single layer thick. The flyer's wings are transparent PCTG; you can see light through them in some of the photos.
I've been on a dual color filament kick lately. The #SoulCage used dual color, and I used three different dual-color PLAs in the dragons, plus a fourth in that crystal cylinder thing one dragon is perched on.
🧵 4/N
I thought it might work to photograph the dragon in front of some scenery. So I posed it in front of my monitor and selected some appropriate scenery.
I don't like it. So I'm sharing my mistake here.
Maybe with a color matched fill light and better exposure it could work. I'm not planning to explore that.
The last photo does highlight the dragon's transparent wings, though.
🧵 5/N
I'm kind of half inclined to print a really big version. At 500%, the biggest wing panel barely fits my build plate. That would make a dragon with a 1.25m wingspan (49 inches). And it would be kind of imposing. I could hang it on a string from the ceiling.
I don't want it badly enough to burn three spools of filament and keep the printers busy for a week, though.
🧵 6/N
I've only ever printed one other dragon. I made this guy overnight on Christmas Eve 2024. The textures and colors came out really good. But it might be a salamander, not a dragon.
🧵 7/N
__Miguel_@kbob I saw the image before reading, and I had to open the image to see if that was a 3D printed dragon or a REALLY AWESOME gingerbread dragon 😛
Turns out it's a REALLY AWESOME 3D printed dragon. I can only imagine how long that took to print, it feels like hundreds of filament changes...
@nanianmichaels Thank you!
I remember it was 25 hours, and it came out just in time to decorate the Xmas dinner table. I don't know how many filament changes-- it's four colors, 0.2mm layer height, but only 30-40mm high. So maybe 500-600 changes?
Jorijn Schrijvershof