Low budget 3D-printing again ...

Buahaha ... THAT was a quicky ... 1.5 hrs:

But many details lost - as expected - and a bad hole at the forearm. Well, it's okay for me. Still four parts to print ...

Generally I've learned that the maximum downscale for human statues for my printer is kinda 1:4. Imagine a 1.8 m tall swordmaid. Her statue would be at hight of 450 mm. Since Jamira is a really tall person (2.0 m) she would be 500 mm high. That's the roughly size of the current test-Tamara. To get better quality we really need taller figures. Let's say 1:3 - ~670 mm in case of Jamira. That's what I want!

1:3
will become the first of Printing-God's Ten Commandments ;-)​

OMG! Jamira's Imperium Spec Lancer would be 2.3 m long - lol!

 

Not much today. The right hand and forearm only:

That's the chocolate-side. The bad news are the lower side and I'm not able to assemble the gun and the hand:

No way to to put the gun to her hand without breaking her fingers. Okay, I'm learning and learning and learning ......................
atm I have another work in progress:

I rebuild the model of the Meckel & Loch MPK5. I will made a waterproof polygon net. That should enable me to put the hand and the gun together and make one print from them.
Oh ... wait! LOL! Meckel & Loch, eh? Sorry, Heckler & Koch ofc.

 

Btw ... I found an old grab of Jamira wearing her Lion armor:

That's really rough geometry and needs a complete rework from scratch. But it is still the main goal. Again I have to blame MA for messing around with the models:

Original version --------------------------------------------------------------> screwed version with hanging shoulders, idiotic breast design and lower textures

The statue I hope to own one day should hold the helmet in her right hand and wear a belt with her famous Niflheim sword. Would be the hilt of the sword only (like the light sabres from Star Wars). It should be ~700 to 800 mm high. But these are dreams of the future. Sweet dreams though ...

 

Another success of the day was the first serious talk to my friend who will try to finish the models. She is barely experianced with such a job - like I am with the whole project. But we will give it a try. We will share the parts of sanding and glueing/filling and she will do the paint job.
We talked about the boots and decided to use other boots than my modeler put into the model (see above):

Although the shoelaces will cause problems we both agreed that they look way better and the 3D-model itself is better as well. One idea was to substitute the laces by pieces from the original printing material (diameter 1.8 mm - wich would fit perfectly). Additional I have to rework the models a bit so they fit to the already printed parts. We will see. At least everything is in a fine progress :-)

 

Today my dear printer surprised me with a new trick: I printed the right shoulder and upper arm. The printer reached 98% of the print and jumped to 100% abrupt. So I miss the last millimeter. Okay, no big deal, but unpleasing.

 

Slowly ...
Slowly it becomes exciting ...

Good to see the improvement by "painting" and treating the rough part with Aceton compared to the last post.


First test for painting:


Aaaaaaand ... DACH is winner of WoF again! First consecutive double winner!
All in all a very good day ... ***wide grin***

We miss only one last part:

 

Well ... all these details, all these small or bigger problems and mistakes ... I'm really pissed off all that.
I need a bigger view!
We talked today about it and decided to stich the figure as it is and make a rough colouring. No more sanding and all that. Just to get an impression what it could be when we start to put more effort into it. And to learn more about what details really count when you see the complete figure.
All parts are printed. We will use the original boots and the crappy model of the MPK5. I cutted Tamara's fingers already (she doesn't bleed) to be able to put the handgun halfway good in position.
I've learned a lot so far. Now I know better how to handle the geometry, adapt it to the abilities of the printer and the finishing process. I think about to start from scratch again. With all this knowledge. Not sure about yet. Let's see how our attempt will end up tomorrow.

 

That was the plan:​

Well, the model is very rough. But all in all I am satisfied. I will improve her a bit (glue her together in a better way, fill the gaps and use some sandpaper. My friend will paint her a bit better and that's it. Tamara V1 - a test object. We won't put too much further effort into this one.

Alone the size is very impressive: 450 mm long and 360 mm high, weight 750 g. Not many of such unique figures out there in the world I think.

Now I need a break. We will make some tests ... print the hands and the face with 0.1 mm layer thickness instead of 0.2 mm. Heat small parts of the print wire with our old sandwich toaster and bend them to form shoelaces with loop. My friend already bought manicure rasps for fine details like crinkles of clothes, face and fingers and such. Imagine, she went to a cosmetic shop to improve a plastic model - lol.
Let's call it part one of stage two ;-) Tamara 2.1 even. Let's close this file soon and look forward to Tamara 2.2.
I will post a summary later.

 

Okay, let's sum it up.
The initial question was: "Is it possible to print a really big, good and unique statue with a low budget?"
Well, probably we have many different opinions what "low budget" means. For me the answer is a clear. Before I started I asked around and got different answers how much it would cost. But all answers were in the four-digit area. So for me "low budget" was meant below 1000 Euro.
How to calculate the costs? This could become a bit tricky.

1. The Consumables:
Print material (ABS-filament): 20 Euro
Sandpaper, colours, Aceton: 10 Euro
That's it: 30 Euro. Is this cool or is it cool?

2. The 3D-model
That's the first tricky part. Keep in mind: we talk about a unique model. (But besides you won't find good printable 3D-models in internet for free or for less than 1000 Euro.) The task was: You have a picture (photo/screenshot/sketch) and a verbal description of size, mood, appearance, details etc. Two ways to get such a model. Either you build it by yourself or hire a professional. I had few attempts to build it by myself (Poser, DAZ) and failed. So I can only list my costs for the second option "hire a professional". I paid 200 Euro
Note: The freelancer and I agreed to make a fix price this time. Eventually I would have to pay 300 Euro (hourly costs). This should be the base for a serious calculation.
Modeling: 300 Euro

3. The Equipment
I didn't buy hard- or software for this project. All tools and utilities were available already. No costs for me at this point. But I will list them for those of you who need to buy them.
3D-printer (with software and 1kg filament): 700 Euro
Rhino3D: 1100 Euro (alternative Blender: 0 Euro ... I don't know if it would do the job. Just FYI)
Tools & utilities: 10 Euro

4. The Effort
Well, hard to calculate. It's a hobby for me. Not meant to start a business. But to calculate it we need hourly rates and a number of hours spent. Again hard to say because this was a learning and testing project. Many vainly attempts, errors and wrong decisions. Rough estimated I would need ~20-30 hours á 50 Euro for prepairing the 3D-model in the future. At the other hand now I could give the modeler better informations what to do and take care for and save own work this way. And better modeling and prepairing of the 3D-model would save hours of finishing the RL-model (assembling, filling, sanding, colouring at 20 Euro/h). At least every single part (modeling, prepairing, printing, finishing) depends to the skills of the team members. So consider the following numbers as very vague estimation.
Prepairing: 1250 Euro
Printing (120 h á 1 Euro): 120 Euro
Finishing: 600 Euro

5. Additional Costs
Coffee: 10 Euro
Cigarettes: 90 Euro
Beer: 50 Euro

Okay, I paid 230 Euro to get the model. This is really a low budget price!
If you would ask me to get a comparable model you had to pay ~2500 Euro. This is still a low budget price compared to all other offers you may get. Just drop me a note if you find someone who offers a unique 600 mm statue to you below this.
Side note: Not to speak about the PEARL printer software. Many, many others would tell you that your 3D-model isn't error-free and needs reworks.

 

Fine! Order one model and I'll be able to buy a second printer and we can accelerate everything ;-)

 

Well, keep in mind that you have to do the rest of the job (2470 Euro) by yourself if you want to enjoy the benefit from ownership of such a model ;-)

 

Next project should be the same project: Tamara V2 even. This time with all experiances and all the new knowledge involved. I'm afraid this will become a really boring job :-(

For now I need a break from that bitch. Currently I'm up to make a Skyrim Map. Close to the original map from the DVD package. But I will change some details and improve it a bit as well as make it's appearance look like a map used by a medieval traveler during a few years. Printed at linen, some blood stains, lacerated seams, often folded and unfolded, burned holes from sparks of the campfires. But I won't spam EP with details about another not EU-related theme.

 

Okay, Tamara-vacation is over. Tamara V2 is on the launch pad.

Two days ago I contacted my modeler and he told me that it would be pretty easy to make one solid and waterproof model without holes and intersections within ZBrush from what I got first (on my demand). No sooner said than done, he sent me that merged model. I made some tests and it seems that I can trench it in Rhino without problems the way I want. The merged model includes the eyes, holsters and bracelet. Parts that caused serious problems before. The belt was a mess for him too. So he replaced it by a more simple one, which fits to ZBrush's method of merging single parts together to one body.
First of all I will make the scheduled test with 0.1 mm layer thickness. I will use the new face for it - with new eyes ;-) Probably a hand as well, because the fingers are the smallest parts of the figure. That would mean double printing time. So I will reduce the filling rate again a little bit from 5% to 3%.

 

I made a small section of Tamara's head:

Printed with 0.1 mm layer thickness and filling rate of 3%. The result was a bit ambivalent. The surface is way better, although still not smooth - wich was expected. But it's way better than the prints with 0.2 mm layer thickness. At the other hand we still deal with a cheap chinese device. You have to observe it all the time if the extruder works fine. This time I was unobservant for a few minutes. With a fatal result. I will post a picture tomorrow when I have daylight for a photo.