Scaled up guardian ready for painting

I am so pleased with how this came out. The scale is significantly larger than my original sculptures and when sat on a plinth it will be adult eye height which is what I wanted as it generates a particular sort of equality, presence and connection with my audience.

I am grateful to know good people because it wouldn't have been possible to get this made in time if I had relied on the college 3D printing resource. Luckily I was able to call on a friend who has multiple 3D printers. Once I had scaled and sliced my original model, we designated parts to be printed on one anothers machines.

One slight issue is that because these sections came from 2 different printers, they had cooled slightly differently, meaning that they were not an absolute fit for one another when it came to assemble it all. I used some filler to seal the joins in preparation for painting. I quite like the visible joins and in the future would like to experiment with a filler that mimics the Japanese Kintsugi method of agranddizing damage and celebrating flaw.

I will use spray paint to finish the piece. I initially felt drawn to black, because it has such presence and encompasses everything in a way. But I am reflecting on this and feel like brown is more fitting because it adds ambiguity or material. Wood, chocolate or plastic; it could be any of them. This sits well with the angular quality of the print finish, which is reminiscent of both rough carving and retro digital rendering. I also like the subtle religious joke in having a giant chocolate looking rabbit; this having become the namesake of Christs resurrection at Easter.