One of the fun things about promoting a book is finding fun and interesting ways to spread the word. For the last few years, I’ve been pretty involved in 3D printing at work (Richmond Public Library) and so I took those new skills and created some .stl files you can have in advance of the book release.
The Three Spartans is my first middle grade novel, and is a parody of the battle at Thermopylae. This was an epic battle of 300 Spartans against 10 thousand Persians under the rule of Xerxes during the summer of 480 BCE.
In the Three Spartans, we see Art, Lea and George gather up a small resistance to battle Zeke and his Immortals. It’s a story of overcoming incredible odds, and inspiring those around you to do the same.
This is a 3D rendering of a spartan warrior I designed using the beta version of Desktop Hero 3D. I’ve been using version 1 of this program (which is publicly available) to make Dungeons and Dragons characters, and have run library programs teaching teens to write character backgrounds.
So, when I was looking at a cool giveaway, I approached Andrew at Desktop Hero and asked if I could create an .stl for a free download. He agreed, and using V2 I made the above Spartan and a rendering of Art Demus, narrator of the Three Spartans, as seen below.
Andrew was great. He’s redeveloping Desktop Hero 3D into V2, and it’s amazing. I’ve used Hero Forge from time to time to create a character, but this new Desktop Hero 3D (it releases in December) will be my only source for creating figures.
The interface is easy to use and the files (they export in .obj) print nice and clean. I printed mine on a Makerbot Desktop Replicator, with .2 layer height, 100% infill, 2 shells, a raft and supports. (Examples to come in later blog posts.) You can download the files below and give them a try.
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