Month: October 2018

This is it. The end of the 2 credit course known as Art Toy Design. It was hard. I tried to do a lot from home, but it’s challenging because a lot of the fabrication resources are at school.  But so is everyone competing for them in addition to malfunctioning.

The Final.

I printed out the last fairy.

This is round 2 spray-a-thon. There were a lot of students there who planned on spraying at the same time. I got most of what I needed  sprayed, but I was loosing a lot of time. I decided to leave it for the next day.

This is the batch from ITP floor. They are drying out at home.

I realized I needed the wing for one of the fairies so I printed a last minute design even though two small protruding things on them messed up, I was able to salvage the main part.

Portable ITP spray station. A semi lonely sidewalk behind Barclay’s. Not conspicuous but gets the job done. There’s a guy who used to sleep nearby  over night. Hopefully he didn’t pee in this area.

Spraying in a box is terrible. Particles swirling around for you to breath in. It was a bit windy tonight and cold.

The homeless guy used to sleep in that corner.

This probably wouldn’t work behind MSG.

Painting some happy little sticks, that I never will use for this project!

Not going to be able to do my finals here when they open.

Colors look good to me.

Some last minute modifications.

Some glue for your wings madam?

My final is called Swine Fairies, Pig Fairies, Pig Reaper?
This is definitely heavy on the composition.
We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.

I spray painted my assets on a shady sidewalk a block away from a police station hoping I wouldn’t get arrested or killed.

Supports save lives but also ruins print surfaces.

Those supports are such a pain to remove that I thought a Dremel would be a good investment. A multipurpose tool to do stuff… I did some grinding outside and it started to melt the PLA material.  I guess I could have continued with the Dremel put I don’t think I had the right grit bands for the job. I did some more sandpaper sanding and went back in.

I didn’t have the time to go to school to use the spray paint chimney. I don’t have a backyard, so let’s go to the sidewalk. Luckily I didn’t get noticed and cared about. Of course I was considerate and covered the concrete with cardboard. It was an interesting experience. It was dark and summery so not bad painting weather.

The colors work. I like the strength of them as well. Now to create the rest of the items.

After some further thought about the final project, I decided to utilize 3D printing for it. I am interested in continuing making art toys on my own, and it’s easier to get my hands on a 3D printer than a laser cutter.

That being said, I wanted to use a character I created as the subject of these toys. I already created a model for her in 3D, so this would be a great way for me to continue that world in real space.

To know what to expect, or if this process would even work, I printed a small scale draft of the character.

Things seemed to be going okay until one of the support columns fell over with a crack. The nozzle knocked it over and I was a bit worried.

Rightfully so, what the heck is this?

The figure can stand on it’s own, an upside to that trial.

I then thought I could run a 5″ scale model of her and take a break.
I thought wrong. Somewhere along the process, it seemed the nozzle got tangled in a web of stringyness.

I was getting worried, because I didn’t want to think about splitting up the figure at this phase. I was also worried about the extruder having issues.

Then after some thinking I realized I was overlooking the option of printing it horizontally. That would solve some of the weird breaking, hanging, tangling issues.

One hour later the figure was complete. So minimizing Z motion on this printer seemed to reduce print time.

This print was much better than the previous. However the details are still being lost, and there are some weird artifacts. This seems inherent to the medium. Perhaps my 3D model is too detailed.

As of writing this, I started a 4 hour print job maxing out the size and detail. I want to see what is the best print the Lulzbot got spit out with my model.

I am going to create accessories for my line of toys, so it won’t just be a female figure. However I need to determine how to best finish the models now that I have an idea of their physical characteristics.