The income from his Patreon, where Zavala still does loads of custom commissions for his patrons and other D&D-adjacent work, now covers well more than just his rent. “I’ve made almost 2,000 models so far” Zavala said, “covering all of the D&D books all the way up to. Eventually that income became enough to pay the rent, he quit his day job to work at 3D modeling full time. After getting a good response on Reddit, he started taking commissions for custom figures. That’s until five years ago, when his wife inspired him to make a hobby of creating digital models for his own 3D printer. Zavala says he studied 3D modeling in college, but after a stint in the advertising industry he left it all behind.

Polygon talked with Zavala about his work, and how (for the most part) he’s been able to avoid the ire of D&D’s publisher, Wizards of the Coast. Miguel Zavala’s art project consists of more than 1,900 digital files, and he has nearly 3,000 paying subscribers supporting his work on Patreon. For more than five years, one man has been creating 3D models of every single monster in Dungeons & Dragons’ 5th edition, and giving away those digital files for free, so people with 3D printers can make them at home.

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