Several 3D printed customs
 

Hey guys,

I've been experimenting around with 3D printing action figures for a while now in 6 and 7 inches, trying to find the least messy way to get them done and assembled. The customs are printed online through shapeways and I'm trying to offer some of them (and some parts) through shapeways: Strangefate on Shapeways

Printing them is not cheap of course and there won't have anything that's too close to an IP (for obvious reasons), but the generic stuff I'll try make available as I make it for whoever finds it useful. Right now I'm going through my library of 3d pieces I've done so far, uploading them to shapeways. Some stuff is there but not available yet... working on that over the weekend.


So far I've done Songbird, a female Dr. Fate, and 52 Powergirl:

Songbird was the first one and suffered from some uhmm... painting accidents around the eyes and some minor printing artifacts which have been ironed out by now.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...B/SBv16aFR.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...SB/SBv16bS.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...SB/SBv16dS.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...SB/SBv16eS.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...B/SBv16ess.jpg

Dr. Fate was the last one I just finished, and so far turned out the best.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...3_MAR_1427.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/..._MAR_1435a.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...2_MAR_1435.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...4_MAR_1432.jpg

And powergirl was rather underwhelming. I liked her new costume at first and rushed to make the custom, but by the time I was done I realized how boring it really was. Oh well...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...G52Final2a.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...G52Final1a.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...PG52final2.jpg

How did you attach the knees and elbows? Were the joints printed together, or were they assembled after printing?

Hey,

It's all assembled after printing. It's plastic so it gives and bends to some extent plus I have small grooves that allow you to easier slide the joints in until they snap into place.

You should try double elbow and knee joints for sharp bends.

Maybe down the road, but for now I find them too ugly as they break the anatomy up too much.

These are great! I can't wait until 3d printing is more affordable, because I've wanted to get into it for a long time, but it's just too expensive for me.

beautiful.

Thanks guys :)

Yeah, 3d printing isn't cheap atm, although the stuff that costs 40 bucks at shapeways could be printed at home for 10 with a decent printer already.

AAaand speaking of shapeways, I keep updating the store there with new stuff, added some new heads lately and a collection of pouches, throwing knifes etc that can be glued to any exising figure.
I'll be adding a collection of melee weapons soon too.

https://www.shapeways.com/shops/strangefate?sort=newest

Why do you have so many identical looking items listed twice and with different prices?

He sells figures/parts to fit 6'' and 7'' scale, so that's why you see similar images but different prices.

Oh, I see now. For some reason the " marks were not registering in my brain.

Yes sorry, I know it gets confusing with all the parts :/ ...maybe I'll switch the '' for inch.

Looking good man! The designs are very very nice. Hopefully the 3D tech will advance enough for smoother surfaces soon.

Have you considered perhaps
making several pieces of the part of the figure i.e scale them all out then put them together ? so you have like 47 or more pieces to make a fully articulated figure

Thanks Jin, the technology is kinda there, it just takes the more expensive plastics which I have been avoiding.

Warmachine, Sorry but I have no idea what you mean...

Edit: found an image might make more sense now
http://www.mintconditioncustom.com/w...paceghost7.jpg

So basically you make more pieces to have more articulation

Yeah, I mentioned something similar to him earlier in the thread. He said he's kept the piece-count low because he doesn't want to compromise the strength of the plastic. In order to cram more articulation into a smaller space, the parts need to be smaller, and therefore more fragile.

Ahh I see... and yes, there's 2 reasons to avoid for now.

First, while the plastic is very strong, a certain amount of strength is also required to assemble some of the joints and as Optimus said, I'd like to keep it as sturdy and easy to assemble as possible without visible pegs etc. Adding more joints would lead to smaller pieces and some could actually break probably. Plus the sturdier the pieces, the easier it is to print smaller scales.

The second reason is that I don't really like the ML articulation. Especially on female characters, it makes the joint areas look very ugly, making the whole figure look rather bad.
I looked at Square Enix Play Arts in the past which always manage a good compromise with knee joints especially, and I will keep adding more articulation in the future when I have some time but for now, what I have will do :)


Aaaand if nobody minds, a shameless shapeways plug, as I've added a collection of 6 and 7 inch melee weapons (swords and axes) to the shop, plus a beefier 7 inch version of some of them with 4mm grips to work on MOTU figures. Someone asked for the Atlantean sword from the Schwarzenegger Conan movies, so I made that one too.

Since the swords are small, they can also be 3d printed in metals... steel, silver, brass with different finishes. Steel is the cheapest but can't carry much detail, whereas the more expensive metals will have a nice amount of detail: Stranger than Fiction by Strangefate on Shapeways

Fair enough :) yeah they're looking really awesome ^_^

that one body looks like gamora, and the head like snowbird

Hey yes, I've done a Gamora too, she was in a different thread here :)

http://www.toyark.com/custom-3d-printed-gamora-158637/

I would buy Gamora off you in a minute. she looks fantastic.

Maybe a Dani Moonstar head in the future?

How difficult would it be to scale down some of these parts to mu scale (3.75")? I would love some of the female heads for customs. I might also be up for modding the shield torso.

ChuckSass - Thanks, glad you like her :) ...I think the belt, cape and head are still missing on shapeways to be able to make her, but once those things are there, you could make your own Gamora :)
edit... and yes, I'll be doing a lot more heads.

Jimsloth - Well, scaling them down takes 5 seconds, whether they're still printable... that's a different question. I think the cheaper plastic I use by default would be out of the question in 50% of the cases, and it also doesn't carry enough detail fidelity for that scale.

The more expensive plastics could do it probably, they have sharper details and can print smaller parts. Heads wouldn't be a problem probably. The whole figure might tho, as some joint areas would probably be too thin. I'll test it out sometime next week and see what happens.

definitely if theres only a movie gamora, i'll be purchasing a mold
and yay! I may finally get that long awaited Dani