3D Printing My First Character Model

First Written    Tue Jan 16 04:45:21 2024
File Modified    Wed Feb 14 18:32:26 2024
Latest Upload    Thu Sep 19 03:09:54 2024

In late 2023, I started getting back into 3D modelling, after having a 3D printer for a few years but never printing anything I modelled myself.

I thought I'd start off the new year printing my first character model, Alouette, a Lightman from a game I was planning a few years ago, Where Are Our Bodies.

Lightmen are humans who have woken up in mechanical bodies — patchwork assemblies of wood and metal with a glowing glass face (like a lightbulb)!

With her simple colour scheme and existing posable model, I thought Alouette was a great candidate for turning into a 3D printed figure.

I settled on a frame from one of her attack animations and naively tried to print the .stl file with little modification.

This was a mistake. Apparently I needed a bit more preparation.

First, I had to enable a Blender add-on: Mesh: 3D-Print Toolbox.

Analysis showed I had a lot of non-manifold edges, which was confusing the software I used to print (something I learned while trying to hollow out the model).

Following the steps from the All3DP article didn't fix my edges, but I was able to find a neat Online STL Repair service instead!

Then, I used a Displace modifier to add a tiny amount of thickness, to help smoothen out her features and reinforce the thin fingers and scarf which were prone to breakage.

For her animations, I'd relied on Blender's smooth-shading option to make things look nice, but that wasn't an option in real life. I'd have to live with the visible face polygons, but thickening did help a bit.

My usual workflow for delicate prints is to use two different print preparation programs.

I use CHITUBOX for slicing and manipulating, as I find their UI more intuitive, and PrusaSlicer for generating supports as their supports are usually placed more intelligently than CHITUBOX's.

You can see my first attempt on the left, and my final (and successful) print on the right!

I initially wanted to print with supports on her rear-side only, as that would keep her face untouched by support marks, but that required longer supports and a much higher print time. Fearing I'd need to iterate further, I opted to keep the model on its side.

Removing the supports was the most tedious part, as they were woven all throughout Alouette's hollow body. It took a mix of tweezers and tiny cutting pliers, and some careful double-checking of which parts were supposed to be there and which weren't!

For my first round of painting, I used spray paint primer, followed by cheap acrylic paints for the details.

Clearing supports out of her torso and limbs was rough, but it paid off well: the silhouette view looks great!

For the base, I found a nice simple one off of Thingiverse and spray-painted it green, because grass.

One thing I wasn't happy with was her face. I had used white acrylic paint because I wanted it to look very "bright" compared to the rest of the figure, like it was illuminated. Unfortunately, the white paint was also very good at highlighting brush strokes and rough face geometry.

My follow-up was to use a can of metallic silver spray paint instead. With scrap paper (that may or may not be tax and benefits info from my work) and scotch tape I prepared a makeshift "barber cape" to protect the parts I didn't need to silver-ify.

Finally, I touched up details and re-did the lips and eyes and had a finished figure!

Here's the before-and-after of the face repaint.

And here's some more shots of the final figure. The flower in her hand is a piece of paper towel I painted as a quick prop!

If you'd like, you can also download the STL here!

Tags: Blog, Where Are Our Bodies