Strangefate's 3D prints: Lich King skeleton is ready!
Posted in
Custom WorkstationHey all,
New here as the title says (new +10 messages I guess!) and working on my first action figure custom (exciting times)... I picked songbird because her costume is simple and tight with a few simple additional elements on top which seemed like a good and easy choice for a start.
I'm trying a bit of a different approach using 3d printing in the hope to get more options and flexibility down the road. I've printed some of my work before like but doing an articulated action figure always seemed rather daunting. I'm in the middle of some vacations so I happen to have time to try things out!. Resins seem to be getting better with different types and properties to pick from so I think it should be doable.
I don't have a print with all the joints I've done so far, only from the first test with a knee joint.
I didn't bother printing head and arms as there was nothing there to see yet. I'm still trying out different materials seeing which one will work best. This print one was done with the default resin, not the best detail fidelity and smoothness but slightly cheaper than others. Turned out better than I thought it would.
Since it was just a test it was all printed as 1 piece. Later, things like the Belt would be separate with a peg to attach it to the body, that way it should bend up when needed rather than restrict leg movement, plus I like the idea of separate layers and depth to make the figure look more 3d.
I was worried about the joints (still am about the chest). I wanted to create the same type of joints regular figures have (without the holes on the sides) and the pieces had to pop all in place, stay there and be tight.
To my own surprise it worked, joint popped in well (used some hot water just in case) and is as tight as they are on your average new figure.
Her height will be around 17cm / 6.7 inches with hair which felt about right to work with DC, MOTU, Marvel Select and the old larger Marvel legends (not a big fan of the shorter and spindly newer ones).
Since her parts are just printed, she can be scaled to any size, as long as the joints are still strong enough. After Songbird I'd like to do some larger ones like Skadi from Marvel's Fear and Titania, that would be anywhere around 18-20cm or 7.3'' - 7.87'' that would look proper with other larger Marvel Select figures.
I took some time today and gave her a quick paint job with regular acrylics to see what I was getting into and how the resin took on the idea of getting painted. Didn't wait for the paint to dry so coverage is meh. That aside, paint adheres to it better than it does on regular plastics so far.
So, by now the joints are all almost done, currently working on shoulders, then neck and wrists will be next. Hands are not posed yet.
The goal with the figure is to have a base on top of which I can model and sculpt any hero or figure of my design that I want, and then just print it out without much fuss. Also I'm trying to find a good balance between articulation and body outline, I'd rather be closer to MOTU than the current marvel legends where the human form is simplified and disregarded too much.
The original model I made is rigged so I'll have different posed, swappable hands and premade hair styles that can be pegged on her head.
Also, I sculpted an additional version with pronounced musculature that I can gradually turn on or off to get the physique I want for the current character.
I can also transfer any gear/chothes etc to the rigged version and print out a posed bust... if I wanted that, takes some minor work and faces would need more than a neutral expression.
And Songbird so far, leg detail still missing and everything was modeled for the rigged version originally, so the costume details flow over the joints atm, I'll fix that at the end.
Her hair was done but was limiting head movement too much so I have to redo that after the remaining joints are done.
That's all for now I think... I'll update if there's anything interesting to see, which may not be that soon.
Please wait...
Update Topic
the chains are separate as they add too much to the price, and the loose body parts are also available in the Skeleton Body Parts section of the shop.
Chest belt and book on the back can be removed, shoulders pads are on ball joints and otherwise it has the same articulation as the regular skeleton.
Right hand can hold MOTU weapons... and I have a staff coming, exporting it soon, althought it may be a bit too massive for him.
The back has 2 spots (1 on armor, 1 on belt) to carry the weapon holsters I'm doing for all my weapons (and any other weapons I suppose).
I'm currently in the process of exporting the geared Skeletons I've done so far (warrior and Lich). Moving in a few weeks so I may not have time to do both until after the move... in a month or so.
Right now on shapeways you can find the Base skeleton body (regular naked skeleton) and a headless skeleton version (so people can pick one of the other heads I'm adding over time.
Skeleton can hold any weapon and shield on my shapeways shop, too!
More hands etc will follow over time: https://www.shapeways.com/shops/Strange ... letons&s=0
and the first variant head so far on shapeways too:
Finished the Fantasy girl and also a first Amazon, that will be up on shapeways in a few days. Going to do a few more of them, some lighter armored (with leather) and variants of armored versions, for a more varied amazon army.
Also, the Nova and Fantasy girl prints I ordered should be arriving soon.
The loincloth is not included so I didn't bother making it nice.
Did a NOVA corps figure over 2 evenings... at first I was going to do the suit as they are in the comics (very simplistic), but then I figured I'd put some more effort and try to modernize it a bit.
I didn't want to go all serious 'movie concept' on it, but rather stay with the comics, just making the suit more detailed and functional. She'll be on shapeways soon
Also worked a bit more on the new armoured (somewhat anyway) fantasy girl... still missing some things and no detailing/sculpting has been done yet. The loincloth won't be included as it's better to use a piece of real cloth, and the sword there is just for show...
...aaand since Conan is awesome, he doesn't only get girls made for him, but also the one symbol with the 2 snakes he's been looking for.
Made after whatever images I could find of Thulsa Doom 's banner from the first Conan movie. It's about 22cm / 8.6 inches tall and the shaft can be held by MOTU figures. The clip around the center of the shaft is to attach it to my figures (skeletons and some of the medieval females).
Shapeways is down currently so it will up sometime tomorrow probably
I received the last Skeleton test print lately, but the fixes I had made barely made any difference, so I'll need more, bummer :/
The new weapons on the other hand turned out great, they have a good size and mass for MOTU figures.
Also got my test print of the female Conan'ish girl, and all the changes I had made to the base worked out great... The female base has now a better torso cut with better movement range, and a better knee movement range, plus a few other minor tweaks. She can now bend her knee way beyond the typical ~90 degrees that similar joints allow.
I'll be updating all figures with the new changes over time. I also have to put all their parts on sprues on Shapeway's now... which isn't fun but does make every figure a few bucks cheaper overall.
I made a Facebook page for all my 3D printing stuff last night, there's some renders there of the updated female base: http://www.facebook.com/MyStrangefate
I've also been busy doing new figures while waiting for all the test prints. All the new Fantasy themed female figures I'm currently doing will also have their gear reused, as much as possible, on new skeleton variations...
and currently working on:
Would you be interested in making me a Dr. Fate 12 inch action figure ? I will pay top dollar!
Regards
Collector 628
And I'm also close to finishing a Lick King kinda skeleton, with chains for a skirt... I'm trying to avoid large surfaces of cloth, like skirts, as they're not very cool when 3D printed in hard plastics :/
The chains are made out of properly interlocked parts that will work like a real chain when printed, so they'll move around freely.
Still have to add some damage to his armor and a big magic book chained to his chest belt, cause skeletons are not great at remembering spells.
Took the handle of the hammer and made an 2 handed axe with it too... I think I'll be getting prints of both for myself
And it may be too early to make a victory dance, but so far it seems like actions figures will be an average of 4-5 bucks cheaper than they used to be once they're back up... the new packing of the parts and spruing is doing a good difference with the new pricing system.
With the new, lower Strong & Flexible material prices, doing larger, cooler stuff is more fun... just gets more expensive in the other materials that didn't have their prices lowered, but the strong & flexible material is the most popular anyway.
Thanks for the offer Tauntaun, might come in handy
Painted the shields over the weekend, they all should be up on shapeways over the course of the next week.
Ps, you ever want something painted and shipped back for photos I got you covered on the house. You are really making amzing stuff.
Got the skeleton test print today! ...images below.
Overall very happy with it but... I'll be doing another test print. There's some small things needing a fix:
1. The mass around the head ball joint socket prevents it from warping, making it really tough to plug the head into the neck ball (almost broke it's spine, but hey, it's very tight I suppose).
2. The lower part of the double knee joint is a bit loose... which shouldn't be, but it is.
3. want to beef up the top of the shoulder just a bit (better visually).
4. want to beef up the elbows a bit too.
Also got the Shields test prints today!
Very happy with the shields too, lots of detail on them (which can't really be seen on my photos... too much white). I'll try to paint them this weekend.
They work great with MOTU male hands and the grip part can be removed to use other (yet to be designed) grips for other figures.
Surprisingly, the skeleton which I printed with 2 'evil claw' hands was able to hold the shield pretty well too, so I'll probably tweak the claw to hold it even better, that way I can leave the left hand a claw and the right one can have a regular sword grip. I thought I'd have to include a swappable left grip hand to be able to hold a shield.
Also got an Email from shapeways today.
Basically, they're changing their pricing structure as of the 8 of October. They'll charge less for material and more for size (used machine space) and more for the amount of parts per file (2 bucks for each loose part or item in the file).
What this means is that single items, or items with 2 - 3 parts (like 2 swords per file and such) will be cheaper. They've enabled the new prices internally so while you can't see the new prices yet, I can.
There's a good, bad and ugly side to this...
The good is that, all the items on my shop (excluding complete action figures) will be 2 to 5 bucks cheaper, which is great. Heads and swords and the shields will all be 3 bucks cheaper on average.
This change makes it more realistic to do larger items... weapons, bigger shields etc as material is rather cheap now (or will be).
The bad is that items with lots of parts (like my action figures) get rather punished as they have so many parts.
Right now a complete figure around $55 will be around $70 after the 8th.
The ugly is that I did some testing already and since the amount of parts is killing the price for the figures, I have to counter this by spruing all the parts together... or so I thought.
The machine space charge applies per part and spruing everything together creates bigger parts of course, so I lower the charge for multiple parts but get charged for having large parts instead.
Anyway, after 10 mins of moving and spruing parts around I found a happy balance and was able to lower the price to $56 (from around $70)... If I spent the time to pack the sprued chunks closer together I could probably save another 1-3 bucks.
So, for me this means that I should be able to keep figure prices about the same as they are now (which is a bit sad as I was rather excited about the cheaper material prices at first).
The painful part will be having to go through all the figure variants and sprue them together,... and reupload them.
On the bright side, since I'm gonna do this anyway, I figure I can update all the figures to use the latest body with the improved articulation, anatomy tweaks etc and I imagine it will take me the better part of october... I'll continue doing shields and weapons as they're quick to do in between (and I'll fix/finish the skeleton) but new figures and skeleton variants will have to wait a bit.
Anyway, enough boring stuff, some photos of the prints!
She's also got a removable decorative belt that goes around her belly that holds a fancy dagger around the back, which can be equipped too... had the idea after the taking the screenshots so can't see it here
She'll also serve to test some tweaks on the knee joints to allow for a greater movement range.
Left leg is the new range (just done quickly for testing) and the right leg is the current one.
Got to paint my Female Thor finally and she's up in the customs Gallery: http://www.figurerealm.com/customfigure ... w&id=65052
Also finished doing a first set of shields and came up with a removable grip for them. The default one will work on MOTU hands (and anything the like), then later I'll do separate ones that will clip to misc figures in different ways: http://www.shapeways.com/shops/Strangefate
Can't buy them right now as I still want to order a few to test the swappable grip and make sure it actually works and fits.
Doing 3d models does require a 3d app like maya, 3d max, modo, blender, Zbrush... they all do the job, but it is a lot more complicated than drawing or coloring something in Photoshop and saving that out. It wouldn't be an easy task without experience with any of the software packages and 3d modeling in general.
I could say that I might do a gargoyle version of the female body down the road as it seems like a cool addition after looking at your images and it wouldn't take me that long, but the truth is that there's so much cool stuff that I often don't really know what I'll be doing next, so I can't promise anything... but I might do something
I think I'll also brush on some glossier finish on the black leather areas.
I may scale the shields up a bit later...
Still need to figure out the back side to have it work with MOTU, my figures and misc figures in general as best as possible.
Did some more while waiting for test prints... mostly just stole my barbarian girl's boots etc and adapted them.
I already got some nice publicity from some Fwoosh people that got some of the shapeways stuff, Matthew K. over there did an awesome job on the barbarian girl: http://www.thefwoosh.com/2014/05/action ... trangefate
Until the skeleton is done - done, it's better to not draw too much attention, just makes me rush things if people get excited and I'd rather put more time into making the articulation better if it needs it without feeling any pressure.
Still tweaking the ball joints in general and doing more armor parts in between.
Thought I'd give it some Skyrim armor, that way if I want to do more SKyrim characters later, I can steal some of the parts from the skeleton
In my opinion, the angry skeleton face is a better choice.
There will be hands that can hold stuff, fists, claws etc.
Still tweaking joints atm.
I've done the beefing up on some of the limb parts, so he has slightly more presence now, better as a toy.
I'm actually more excited (personally) about all the cool swappable armor pieces, helmets, shields etc that I can do for it... those will be fun to model