Building/3D printing a figure, and finding out how as i go along :)

[fierox]

Hello all,

I started on the osw forum and was asked to post here aswell.
Perhaps its of some help to other people planning to do the same and you guys might have some tips for me aswell
Just recently fell into the the whole custom thing, i didnt know this was so big!
I've been playing with 3D for a while and really wanted to try and 3D print something for some time.
When i received my Jake Sully figure from Hot Toys he really needed some company so i thought why not try to build my own figure to accompany him.
I had stumbled on a 3D printing service called Shapeways earlier and took the specs from their site as my reference.
My goal was to build a figure that would fit next to the Jake figure and have as much articulation i could achieve without ruining the form with gaps and visable joints.

For Shapeways i figured the best material to be the standard or frosted version.
The standard has a minimum thickness of about 0.7 mm. When parts get thinner the model gets refused because they cant print it.
Also larger areas should be made a little thicker to prevent warping.
A good part of the price of your print is based on the amount of material used. So to keep cost down every bit of the figure where its possible should be made hollow.
There also has to be an escape hole so they can get the powder out of the hollowed out part.
My figure is 43/44 cm high and 3D printing aint cheap, especially for an entire figure.
As 3D printing goes Shapeways is pretty affordable tho, for my figure it was the cheapest i could find but do check the details and look at similair printing services, there are quite a few around.

Now i also have to mention that this "affordable" printing also comes at the cost of detail.
There are also printing services that use more advanced printers and although at a higher cost they can print alot higher detail.
Especially for small bits their technique would be the best place to start. As i understood it they use a technique called "perfactory".
Oh and here its based on surface area so models should not be hollowed out!

first design of the figure:

Now onto the figure..
First i made the figure with the printing specs in mind. Though of where i wanted the joints and broke it into pieces.
Then i started designing joints and soon found out that this was actually the hardest part of the figure!
The joints i made basically work using friction and flexing so the difference between working joints, loose or not fitting parts is very close.
Pretty sure i still havent cracked it completely, if i ever do another figure i'll try to build it around more complicated joints but thats for another time.

Various joints,
model:

and printed:

When all the parts where done i took the figure apart and made an order to get it printed, a few weeks later the figure arrived.
At the time i knew i was probably going todo another print so i used cloth dye to give the figure a blue base color but at this time it might also be the right moment to make a mold of your figure and continue with that.

parts:

assembled next to Jake:

Posing:

Either way the material i picked for printing has a rough surface and is very porous so not too good for painting.
Still it was fun to see the figure come to live with a bit of paint (a local painter did the paint).

 

[fierox]

Having an actual figure and posing it again showed the difficulty of getting the joints right and also showed that certain joints or gaps were too visible.
The knees, hips and shoulders had big gaps in certain poses that really took the figure down when posing.
So i added more friction to the joints and redesigned the parts to hide them as much as i could.

parts:

The face of Jake on the Hot Toys figure is kind of neutral so i based my face on something to go with that, making it neutral aswell.
Having the figure and seeing it in real live i also wanted a bit more excitement from it.
So i split the head in two parts and made 3 versions of the face with various expressions. The different faces snap into the back part of the head.
Fun thing on this figure was that the position of the ears are also different with each expression.

Updated version:
Old left - New right

With the head made out of two parts glass eyes also became a possibility, i ordered a test set here: https://www.augenladen.de/puppenaugen...asen/index.php
They havent arrived yet, the plan is to fit them at the back of her head so only one pair is needed for the figure.

And thats where i am at this point, when they eyes arrive i continue and have this model printed.

figure:

I'm still a noob to all of this customising so if i got something wrong let me know!
Hopefully this helps other people and if you have tips or feedback i love to hear it!
A big thanks to all the people who helped out sofar!

Edwin

 

[shocktrooper_au]

Simply wow..... I want to do this but learning the 3d software is proving troublesome..... Fantastic!

 

[SchmittyJames]

Wow, this is amazing. Wonderful job.

How the hell do you call yourself a "noob", keep it up!

 

[Cheungkinmen]

saw this over at onesixthwarriors, awesome work!

 

[fierox]

haha thanks, i still have plenty to learn tho.
And once you have a printed model you dont have a figure just yet.
It needs to be cleaned up, and then there's molding/casting, clothing, hair. I hardly know anything about all that right know.
Good thing there is pleny to read online!

@Shocktrooper, yeah learning 3D software can be hard. Unfortunatly getting past the first bit like the interface and basics is a big step.
Best tip would be, have someone you know teach you the basics and trade it for a good bottle of whisky! That would certainly work for me!
If you enjoy it things will go automatically from there

Best second, tutorials on youtube!

 

[nexus]

If you make a couple of extras I'd be interested in one.

 

[barryo]

holy hell man..............this has to be one of the coolest projects i've ever seen. brilliant man, just brilliant...........

i have noticed on other 3d projects the roughness of the material surface with the printer. do you know whether or not it the actual material used or the printer............or a combination of both that leaves the finished product kind of "pitted/rough"? i would think at this point thru casting you could eliminate some of that but may have to go back to your master mold and add some detail that might get lost.

 

[shocktrooper_au]

haha thanks, i still have plenty to learn tho.
And once you have a printed model you dont have a figure just yet.
It needs to be cleaned up, and then there's molding/casting, clothing, hair. I hardly know anything about all that right know.
Good thing there is pleny to read online!

@Shocktrooper, yeah learning 3D software can be hard. Unfortunatly getting past the first bit like the interface and basics is a big step.
Best tip would be, have someone you know teach you the basics and trade it for a good bottle of whisky! That would certainly work for me!
If you enjoy it things will go automatically from there

Best second, tutorials on youtube!

Thanks mate, yeah learning the tools is the kicker. I'll struggle so far then it will open up to me I'm sure. But yeah very interested I shall subscribe and hope to see a lot more work from you

 

[MANDO]

A friend of mine shot me the link from OSW, and I was ogling it there. This is a massive undertaking, and you've pulled it off brilliantly.

 

[Spawn-man]

This is incredible! I look forward to seeing more projects like this..

 

[RavenEye]

So... heh heh, when can we expect a 1/6 "Bruce"?

 

[elar]

Welcome here, it's good that you come here

 

[annihilate22]

This is an amazing project! Definitely what the future of this hobby might turn towards.

 

[Username]

Beautiful work.
Looking forward to seeing those glass eyes in place.

 

[sdabbs]

excellent work my friend! What programs did you use to do the sculpture and then break it into parts to articulate?

 

[fierox]

thanks, i used Maya but i guess any program could be used.

@eldar thanks for the invite

@barryo Guessing that what you mean are the lines visable in a print.
From what i know its usually some kind of plastic thats being used.
The rough surface of the printed figure has to do with the resolution of the printer.
The higher the resolution is, the smoother or more detailed the print can be.

And yeah i cant wait for those glass eyes to arrive, hopefully they are the right size and color, they are already shipped

 

[elar]

Did you received eyes? How they are looking?

 

[fierox]

Did you received eyes? How they are looking?

Yeah they arrived yesterday and wow they are small (8 mm) but pretty aswell! Here's a picture:

So with the eyes here i also thought of a setup to place the glass eyes inside the figure's head.
Didnt just want to glue them in. I wanted to try and make a socket so i only need two glass eyes for the 3 different faces.
Hopefully that worked and the eyes are still able to rotate a little aswell!
Downside is that when the face is removed the eyes are loose in their sockets aswell (ofc they could always be glued in).
Still have a bit more tweaking to do. Some bits i have to be adjusted a little to make sure its still printable.

Time to give it some thought and then make it ready for print!

 

[elar]

Looks nice, maybe that right eye hasn't have pupil in center? Or that problem is only on photo? And colour looks fine. What you think?

And what about add some hole/place for gluing hair? Or it will be better without it?

And I must say, that is great idea with faces and eyes