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Athey In reply to avator [2012-08-21 17:25:20 +0000 UTC]

Heh - well, I'd say that zbrush was used considerably more than Maya was, in the making of this. It was just a lot simpler, because I could just make a black and white alpha of the shape from photo ref, mask that onto the geo in zbrush, and use a few deformers and then some sculpting for cleaning and refinement. It would have taken a lot longer to model if I'd been stuck with just Maya.

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Athey In reply to KytheraOA [2012-08-13 20:54:23 +0000 UTC]

Okay, I've actually just put it up on my etsy page - [link]
But I've also just run out of plastic for my machine- lol. Ordered more two days ago and it's supposed to arrive by the end of the week, but just know if you do order one, I have to wait for the plastic to get here before I can print anymore.

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Athey In reply to JessBDev [2012-08-13 06:15:56 +0000 UTC]

It's done by the slicing engine that I use to generate the gcode that the machine reads. I use a program called ReplicatorG to generate the gcode and I can plug-in any of the various slicing engines for it to use. The slicer I use is called Skeinforge. I haven't actually bothered trying any of the others since most everything I see from people say that skienforge is the best.

The problem with the generated raft is that it's often overkill. My own experience tells me that you can get away with a lot without using raft support, but the slicer puts in a ton of raft support anyway. It's overly-cautious, I guess, and because of that, it uses a huge amount of material that's just going to get thrown away. So it's a big waste of plastic sometimes. I've done a few models where I put in my own support structures into the model itself and printed without any rafting. But making your own support structures is sometimes a pain.

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JessBDev In reply to Athey [2012-08-14 23:26:05 +0000 UTC]

ahh awesome, id imagine it driving me crazy to put in all the support myself even if its overkill id take that option

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Athey In reply to Luna-Shedevil [2012-08-12 04:11:55 +0000 UTC]

I have a 3d printer which uses spools of plastic filament that is pulled into a heated extruder head that melts it and then draws it onto a flat print platform that slowly lowers to create each additional layer of the object being printed.

You can actually build one from old printer and scanner parts and various parts purchased online - but since building one from parts on your own is generally a rather daunting prospect for most people, you can also buy them assembled from various places. My machine is a Makerbot Replicator ([link] ) other popular ones are the various RepRap machines ([link] ), the Ultimaker, the Afinia, and the Up!3D.

Prices vary a lot depending on what machine you get, and different machines have different limitations and different quality results.

It's still a very DIY sort of community since it's only early adopters, hobbists, and prototypers who own the things right now.

I actually run a group here on DA for 3d printers -
I posted a journal a bit ago that has a bunch of embedded videos that demo these machines working -
[link]

Anyway - the objects that you print with the machines have to be modeled in 3d in some sort of 3d package. Since lots of people who own these things are just hobbyists, a lot of them use free software like Google Sketchup, or cheap software like Blender.

I actually do 3D art for a living (I work in the video game industry) so I own several professional 3d package licenses, and used Maya and zbrush to model this object.

People who do this thing often share their models on the Thingiverse - [link]

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Luna-Shedevil In reply to Athey [2012-08-12 15:00:32 +0000 UTC]

thanks for your answer ^.^

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Athey In reply to ShiKageMaru [2012-08-10 03:56:46 +0000 UTC]

I'm going a bit out with this one for ~phoenixdragon since she's asked that I paint it as well, and is paying quite a bit more, but I'l be selling made-to-order prints of it on my etsy, sans-paint for $35, plus shipping. It's actually really big - as big as I could make the thing on my print platform, so it eats up a load of plastic.

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spidersonicj In reply to Athey [2013-01-03 03:51:35 +0000 UTC]

How much wud it be to buy one painted & all? Really interested. Its no longer available on ur etsy page....

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Athey In reply to spidersonicj [2013-01-07 08:16:27 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, it was a real hassle to produce and took ages to print, so I'm not offering them anymore.

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spidersonicj In reply to Athey [2013-01-07 15:36:35 +0000 UTC]

Ok. Damn. Thanx for the reply. =\

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ShiKageMaru In reply to Athey [2012-08-12 00:23:43 +0000 UTC]

that's a pretty great deal.

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