WIP #33: Resin! (Patreon)

Here's something I've been planning to do for a long time: 3D printing! I've been wanting to go in and do some nice sculpts of my pony models in sexy poses and outfits, and make them available for sale as printable stl files! If the reception is good, I'm also thinking of adding a "3D printing enthusiast" tier. I'm excited to show this to y'all!

For the first model, I've chosen to do this pose with Princess Celestia, tying in with the "Private Audience" scene with Soarin that I animated recently. (a few more images and some story to follow!)

The sculpting process itself actually ends up being a smaller part of the process, but it's very enjoyable! Doing this gives me a good opportunity to explore and emphasise details and anatomy that I normally have to gloss over when making animations, and really crank up the appeal of the model as high as I can go. 

SInce I plan to print this model as large as I can, I've also thought from the start about how I plan to cut it up: the leather straps of this fun BDSM-inspired get up I've made for her give convenient lines on which the body can be split and re-attached, giving the prints a decent chance of hiding the seams, at least as much as possible. As always if possible, printing the model as one single piece is preferable. 

With an outfit like this I can also easily produce a semi-nude or "clothed" version of the model, by adding or removing the bikini, although this adds a layer of complexity to the sculpting, since blender's multires modifier doesn't really support multiple variations of the final sculpt non-destructively... c'est la vie. this is a destructive workflow.

The next step is rather painful. Using a series of boolean operations, the mesh needs to be cut, merged and reorganised into a series of singular, manifold meshes and exported as STLs - booleans are highly destructive and finnicky operations, especially on complex meshes. Especially difficult with this model was the bra: any small gaps left between the fabric and the breast led to print failures later, and once you're working with high-density sculpted and then decimated meshes, fixing such problems becomes a real headache. Thankfully, blender has some 3D printing toolbox operators packaged into a built-in addon, which does make the process significantly less taxing.

Another important part is adding keys and slots for registrating the parts together, and adding tolerances between them. This is primarily done through a series of dummy meshes which are used to "cut" and "stick" to the parts as thay're built.

When adding supports and slicing the model, I've tried to keep attachment points to bare or skin or other smooth parts to a minimum, to avoid unsightly burrs that tarnish the surface and need further trimming.

Of course, initially there are teething problems! In particular, I had a few frustrating print failures with her torso, trying to dial the supports in without blemishing her skin too much with burs:

But eventually, I've been able to get all the parts printed out pretty cleanly! Here I'm printing on the elegoo saturn, which is a very capable machine for its age, with a pretty generous build volume. We can see that the resolution is more than sufficient for resolving the details on a model like this, we can even faintly make out the skin porosity I'd added into the sculpted model. The print layers do show a little anisotropy of the surface, but once the curing is complete this almost completely dissapears.

The tail on this sculpt is... enormous. Fitting for Celestia, but really quite the challenge to print, trying to manage where the seams show as much as possible.

And just like that, she's done! Of course, there are a number things about this prototype model that are less than ideal, but it's my first one and I've learned a lot of lessons from making it! Hopefully, some of y'all will be able to do a far better job of it that I ever could!