The Process

Do you want to make 3D figures come to life? It's allot of work.

Nobody said it was easy but before I ever did this, I thought that it was much easier than it really is.
It IS really easy to model something and print it, but to paint it and make sure it's a dope model, you have to go through allot of steps - ones that are less fun that just making cool sh_t. I'm tired of seeing the boring Gray prints with no TLC put into them. Once people can print on models (currently it looks low rez and bad) I don't think I'll like THAT as much as really painting it either.

This past weekend I put in time on the next phase. I decided how big the figure was going to be and how I wanted to paint it. In order to not have paint lines or wobbly brush strokes, you pretty much have to mask things off or print in pieces and then assemble them once painted - like a puzzle.

This means allot of things. You're going to have to make the puzzle work in a logical way. It takes technique and time. I'm not great at it, but I understand how it works and I have friends I can talk to about how to do it.


I broke the model up into pieces based on the colors they would be painted, as well as inset all of the elements to meet the printers tolerance. If you print everything flush, it won't fit together because glue and paint have thickness, plus pieces warp a little and they grow with temperature. It's not an exact science.

So I've created all the pieces and sent it to a printer. This is a high quality one that's better than the last one I used. It costs a pretty penny and takes time. Once it arrives I'll sand it and then prime it before painting. Heh - Metroid prime... get it? Ahhgggh.

This is quite an involved process so I'll document it with some pictures as the model comes in (hopefully perfect and fitting well without too much work once she arrives).

cheers,
&Rew.