Started thinking about how to construct the underlying skeleton for the arms so that it will allow for posing. Decided to go with running a steel wire with good plastic deformation properties through the center of all the joints and bones. Looks like the elbow will work fine as is but the hands will be tricky as they're so small! Also working out the exact placements of the joints for optimal deformation of the skin is a little daunting.
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The new face, jaw and back of skull are painted and finished and fitted together. Magnets are glued in, teeth are in and yes... she now has a tongue as well! Next: Time to test that new face mould!
It's truly amazing stuff! In the process now to make a final high quality mould and some final quality parts.
After 3 days and 19 hours... the the first part of the 5 part face mould has finished printing on my new ender 5 and... I have to say the result has blown me away! This was printed at 0.08 mm layer hight hence the long print time... but the result is worth it. Overhangs and support structures still cause issues and will need a little post processing but it's nearly impossible to see any layer lines on any other surfaces. I think a lot of credit has to go towards the Spider Maker filament. That stuff is insane. Expensive... but I think totally worth it! It makes amazingly smooth surfaces. This is going to be my go to filament going forward. Ok, a bunch more parts to print to replace old ones and then it's time to move forward.
After a few good months of punching, knotting, tying (or what ever the correct term is) hair... this is what we've arrived at. The result is not as good as expected but perhaps with a little hair cut and styling it will get there. Also did a really rough print of the torso to get a better idea of how the proportions read in real world. It's still a little hard to tell without arms and legs and with the hair being so huge... Also realized now that the elven ears are a little bit of a problem. As they are they are a little bit too small to actually stick out from the hair. So they just fold over and push it out and make it look huge... so either we'll need bigger ears that poke out through the hair or smaller, normal human ears... or a little less hair. (not as full)
After that little resin printing de-tour I have returned to FDM printing. Gotta say it feels good to be rid of that messy, toxic stuff. This time using an Ender 5 pro and Spidermaker PLA filament. Fingers crossed results will be better than before. Modded the printer a little by adding supports under the build plate to make it stiffer using the white filament that came with the printer. Now it's time for a real test. Making the modified front part of Aleysha's face mould again because there was a problem behind the jaw that destroyed the silicone in the de-molding process. Too much of an undercut... Will need to print the side parts again as well. Hopefully I have all the settings right to get a good result. It's a big print. 2+ days at 0.12 layer hight. Should have documented the making of the part better on the first run. What did I do and what settings did I use?
After a whole bunch of failed prints with warping and distortions, failed supports, 2 rolls of paper towels, dozens of pairs of used nitril gloves, hours of disassembling and reassembling the vat after changing the vat sheet, cut up micro fiber towels, filtering alcohol, curing and throwing out gunk and toxic waste generated while cleaning the printers and work station... I have come to the realization that resin printing is not for me. Time to sell those printers and go back to FDM. The speed of resin prints is great compared to FDM prints and I love the smoothness and level of detail of the parts in areas where there are no supports but it's impractical to print large, heavy parts as they tend to come loose and get warped and distorted. I do think it's possible to get the hang of it with some more experimentation and tuning, however working with these toxic materials is something that is way messier than I had hoped it would be and I'm not up for it. Furthermore it takes weeks for the printed parts to fully cure. Before that it will prevent silicone from curing. I hope SLS tech will become affordable soon so I can give that a try.
After months of waiting I finally managed to get my hands on an Elegoo Saturn resin printer. All the essential equipment has arrived. Time to test!
Started to learn some blender so I can do better renderings in the future. Thank you Blender Guru for your amazing tutorials!!
This is basically the reason for the lack of entries lately. Since all the previous hair experiments have been somewhat sub par... I have decided to cover a skull cap in french lace, pour some silicone over the top to fuse it with the skull cap and then use a ventilation needle to attach the hair to the fused lace... It works great! ... it just takes forever... Just doing a little every now and then while watching TV at night. It will get there eventually. Once the skullcap is covered in hair the stitches I used to bring the lace cap into shape to fit the silicone scull cap should no longer be visible. It's about 40% there.
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DEV logThe place for rough work in progress updates and recent developments. No glossy, polished imagery, just raw, straight from the workshop screenshots & photos. SHOPFundingYou can support my work by donating to the following bitcoin address:
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