I got my prints back from Shapeways today. It's kind of a strange feeling to see a little 3 dimensional model of something I've sculpted on the computer. She's 80 mm tall including the base. I figured that out as roughly 1/10th scale at 5' 5" tall. Overall, I'm really pleased with her but there are drawbacks.

I ordered two prints in different materials, the bright white one is White Strong Flexible and the off white one is White Detail. White Detail is more expensive, but in this test it looks much worse. White Detail has a much rougher surface and the striations between the layers of material are quite noticeable on the back in the last photo.

I'll have to prime them both and see what they look like after that. The White Strong Flexible looks basically ready to paint right now though after a bit of sanding. The little lines look like they should come off relatively easily.

I want to order one more material they call FUD. Frosted Ultra Detail. It's a lot more expensive and there is currently an extra one month backlog on it. It supposedly will pick up detail as small as 0.1 mm.

There are of course parts I'd change now that I have them in my hands. It's lot faster seeing it from all different angles now.

The main drawback I see right now is the tendency to add way too much detail to the digital sculpt. It's like sculpting a life size figure and then shrinking it down. I'm working on another now and I'm going to do that at 90 mm full figure.

I think I've found yet another hobby :lol:

Now I just need to figure out how to make it available for sale on shapeways...

Very nice!! Great rendering and great final product. I just want to know where you found pictures of my ex girlfriend to do this

Interesting. I have a 1/10 full figure of a printed girl that looks very good. This is a very intriguing process and it will be cool to watch it come of age in our hobby. Did you build it in the computer and email the file to a company? There are so many things I must know.

Yes, talk about this!

Nice work James, which software did you use for the modeling ?

Ouch! Nice job but it gave me an ugly flashback to "Boxing Helena!" Wish I could have those 2 hours of my life back! :lol:

Colin

Hello! Thanks for continuing to post your experiences on this! This is really great!!

-A fellow female builder

Thanks Hiroshi, isn't it amazing what can be found with just a simple google search?!

And thanks everyone else for stopping by!

To answer the other questions, I did build it on the computer. I used Sculptris which is a free download from Pixologic. You start out with a ball or a flat sheet and go from there. It's different, but I had a lot of fun with it. One thing I like about it is that I can basically sculpt anywhere as all I need is my laptop and my Wacom tablet. I did some sculpting a couple weeks ago in my camper out in the East Texas woods, never done that before!

All you do when finished is export the file in .obj which shapeways.com accepts and then create an account with them and upload. They automatically check your file to make sure it will print. Then you pay and wait 10 or so business days (this one took 12). They ship for free everywhere in the world except Russia (apparently problems with customs there) from Holland. My actual package came from NYC, and they've just moved their headquarters there, so it looks like they are shipping in bulk from Eindhoven to NYC and then breaking out there. I bought a couple other sculptures as well from other people and need to figure out how to list mine for sale now that I know that it works.

The only issues I ran into were sizing and hollowing out the sculpt. They charge by the cubic centimeter so hollow sculpts are significantly less money. I just bored a tiny hole and then expanded it inside. It took forever and didn't remove as much material as I'd like. I think I've found a better way to do it, but I'll have to try before I can confirm.

When I first uploaded, it came out at something like 3.2 mm tall. You can play around in Sculptris and enlarge your model, but it's not too accurate. I then found another free program called meshmixer. I opened the file in that and there is an option that will automatically export to Shapeways. You can select the exact height you want for the figure there.

Here's the link to my sculpting thread on this one. I think I've got links to most of the sites in there:

http://www.planetfigure.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42306

what are the charges for printing such items?

It really depends on the material, this one's anywhere between about $35 - $100 for plastics and sandstone. The White Strong Flexible version is $45 and the White Detail is $80. You can get the WSF polished for about $5 more, which I'm going to try. It just takes longer to produce. With better hollowing I should be able to lower those costs. You just need to make sure your walls are at minimum thicknesses depending on material or they will reject your order.

You can print in metal as well - Stainless steel is about $250 and you can have that plated in bronze or gold. Silver's over $500. Stainless is actually printed, the silver is a wax print which they then cast for you. They won't ship wax prints because they break too easily.

It says you can print in glass too, but I can't find that linked to my model.

I got a 32mm mini by someone else printed as well in WSF. It cost $4.50 which includes his markup. What looks to be roughly a 100mm full figure cost me $40 in transparent detail including markup. You could probably get 54mm printed for around $10 - $50 but don't quote me on that!

Thanks for stopping by Michael, you've got to post some of your work!

Ok, will do! Thanks for the links, played around with them myself. Great stuff! I will post my work soon. Cheers!

Jim, I haven't had the opportunity to sit down and play with the program. What is your opinion on the programs capabilites regarding flats? We're talking an everage depth of about 1.5mm with some areas going down to .5mm and others rising to 2.5mm and details ranging from sharp edges (such as a belt) to soft ridges and valleys such as you might see on clothing folds. Also the ability to render a shallow, but distinct engraved line.

Cheers,

Glen

And you really should come to the NTFC meeting and bring your sculpt next Saturday!

Very interesting experiment.
Not cheap though.
We'll probably see a lot more 3D prints over the next years, I'm sure.
I have seen some of the 0.1mm accuracy stuff and it looked the part.

Cheers,
Adrian

Fantastic work James!

I got my first items back from Shapeways this week, a couple of 1/16th helmets. Now I've seen the capabilities of 3D printing I'm very excited.

Any idea what happened to 'Print-a-Part'?

Shapeways is so easy to use, although I had my parts printed in FUD so had to wait a fair while.

Cheers,
Jon.

Sorry for the delayed response, I was out camping at Fort Richardson State Park in Jacksboro without wi-fi. Very interesting place, it was in use from 1866-1878 they've restored the hospital which is really quite large. A few other buildings have also been restored and it's quite fun to poke around.

Anyhow...

Glen:

I hadn't really thought of using Sculptris for flats, but it should work. There is no system of measurement, so it depends how you scale it before printing. I've found that certain things are easier to start in another program. Sculptris doesn't do flat objects well but you can always get a base mesh out of sketchup or blender and probably a number of other apps as well. Sharp edges, folds and valleys, and shallow distinct lines aren't hard to do. There are a number of brushes that seem to do pretty much what ever I want them to after a while.

You might have to mask the back of the flat, as I've found the tools do change the other side if they are close enough to each other. Certain materials in Shapeways will have problems with really thin parts, there are minimum thicknesses depending upon the material you order it in.

If work is calm this week and I'm not exhausted by Saturday, I do want to make the next meeting!

Thanks for stopping by Adrian & Jon!

Jon - did you FUD helmets turn out well? I keep seeing on the Shapeways forums that it's been hit and miss on quality with half a figure printing with terrible detail. I've got to order something in FUD, it looks like it should be great if it works. I've just ordered one in WSF polished to see what that's like and I'll print my next sculpt in FUD. I should be better at hollowing by then!

I've never heard of Print-a-Part, but it looks like Ponoko is offering 3d printing now too.

I just got another test print today. This one I did in White Strong Flexible (Polished). This one looks the best by far, the printing lines are gone and it's very very smooth like a resin kit. I figured some of you might like to see this material, but sorry for the mediocre photos, my cheap camera is easier to take quick pictures with.

I'm going to wait until I'm done with my next one to try FUD...

Very nice James. How much did shapeways charge? I sent them a sample a while back, but haven't heard back from them.

Thanks Richard! If I remember right, they charged around $35-40 for the prints, but they've changed the pricing policy a bit since this was printed. I've been too busy with my real job lately and haven't had much time for hobbies, so I've not checked in lately with them. The current full figure I'm working on should cost around $25-30 in 90mm plus shipping.

Somehow I (unfortunatelly) mised your last post about WSFP !!!
You say that the "White Strong and Flexible Polished" is better than "White detail" ???
Is it just smoother and detail lost, or smoother with same level of detail ?
Did You tried Frost Ultra Detail ???

BTW: there is a way to hollow the finished sculpt using Blender - did not tried it yet - but it might lower the printing cost...