Sometimes the best neolithic sites seem to be nestled away in the British countryside with few good words of advertisement said about them. A good example is Rhoslan Dolmen, which is undeniably an amazing neolithic relic, but is also not widely talked about in comparison to other ancient welsh sites. It sits on the western side of Eryri (Snowdonia in English), just north of the lovely seaside town of Criccieth. And if you’re wondering what a dolmen is, it’s like a single room burial chamber, with a large stone cover, and supporting stones to the sides (see Wikipedia for more information).
Quick summary of this 3D creation
Overview: A 3D scan of a neolithic dolmen.
Location: Rhoslan, near Criccieth, north Wales [map].
Date/era: Neolithic.
Software used: Kiri Engine, Meshmixer, Nomad Sculpt, Blender.
Intended use: 3D printing at 1:76 scale (Hornby OO).
Related pages: Cors y Gedol, Dyffryn Ardudwy.
Download: Thingiverse, MyMiniFactory, Thangs3D (non-commercial).
The dolmen was scanned using the Kiri Engine Android app and 164 12mp HDR photos. The photos were taken using my Insta360 One RS camera with the 4K lens. It was mounted on the Insta360 powered selfie stick, which helps with reaching up higher and has a very useful inbuilt shutter button. The raw scan was a whopping 5,931,953 triangles and 17,795,859 vertices – so I decimated it to around 10% as 3D printers wouldn’t fully reproduce such high fidelity models.
The 3D model was then reoriented and trimmed in Meshmixer. Then I used Blender to extrude and fill an edge loop around the base. Nomad Sculpt then allowed for some tidying-up and splitting the model into three parts to allow 3D printing without support material (the download link includes a single-piece capstone for resin printing too). Blender was then used to scale the model twice, firstly to life-size using an iOS LIDAR scan I made with the 3DScannerApp on an iPad for reference. Then to 1:76 scale ready for 3D printing at a size suitable for Hornby OO model railroad dioramas. Then I printed the three parts on my Flashforge Adventurer 3D printer using PLA filament and a 0.4mm nozzle.
Next I glued the capstone parts together, leaving the base separate so I could get inside for painting. Then I coated all the parts with a high-build filler primer, followed by The Army Painter paints and some Citadel Technical Stormshield clear coat to reduce shininess. The grass was also from The Army Painter, stuck down with some clear coat before using Uhu general purpose glue to attach the finished capstone. I painted a small OO-scale model of a sitting person and glued it on too, to add a sense of realism and scale.
And now I have a nice neolithic Rhoslan Dolmen just the right size for a 1:76 scale model railroad setup. Of course, I don’t actually have a model railway, but that’s nothing to worry about as they didn’t have locomotives in neolithic times anyway 🙂
