DEVLOG 9 - Printing my model

Printing and curing -

To save on space, I combined my Chitubox file with my friend Francis's file. As we are both creating miniatures this is a very time efficient way to print as it means the print plate only needs to be cleaned once. The print itself took around an hour and a half to complete, after which the models must be carefully removed from the plate and bathed in an ethanol bath to remove any excess resin. Then, the prints are cured with UV light to make them safe to handle. Here are some images of the models before and after being cleaned and cured.

After printing, two things became clear -

1- the prints themselves came out great! there was a considerable amount of detail retained and nothing was lost, the supports actually could have been a lot less intense which was reassuring to know.

2 - something happened in the scaling phase, although I had double checked my model stood at 28mm, it appears something was off as the models were in fact very very tiny. Despite this, I was very impressed at just how much detail was kept at such a small scale, Its hard to see in these pictures and the following pictures too, but the model I made of Stagkafkat actually has almost all of her face details.

Removing the supports -

Due to the extra small size, removing the supports was very tricky. I had to be extra careful when using the pliers that I did not accidentally lop off one of her arms. Too, at this size, some parts were very brittle. Even though I tried to be as careful as I could I still unfortunately broke off one side of the wedge attached to her feet. too her left hand nun chuck got stuck on the sprue and also came off. I think at a bigger size these issues would have been resolved, and I do hope I can figure out what might have happened as I was certain I had scaled her correctly.

The base was a bit more neat than my model came out, however I was not able to slot the model into the base as the supports i had placed into the slot hole had adhered to all 3 sides and became impossible to remove. Perhaps with some sort of handheld drill like a Dremel i could remove them but i would likely risk harming myself as it is just so small. The good news is, I think my technique would have worked if the print were bigger, the slot and wedge match up great, and the bit that i could put together fit perfectly. Without those supports, I am certain she would have been able to stand up by herself in the base.

Below are some close up pictures of how she came out.

Here is my hand for scale, Shes teeny tiny!

Although my model didn't print 100% correctly, I'm so pleased and impressed that this project went relatively smoothly. It was a really enjoyable process creating something suitable to be printed and even though there were some slight hiccups in the road, I think this is something I'd really like to pick up and try again in the future. 

My takeaways from this project and how I could have improved in the future are:

- Double check scaling settings, Perhaps there was an issue when the two models were imported together I'm not sure?

- Don't go too crazy with the supports, when there are too many next to each other it makes that area really thick and difficult to cut through with pliers, you risk damaging areas of your model and leaving behind large support stumps.

- Add in more polygons to low poly areas, luckily this diamond like pattern on the base fits with the theming of my character really well, but for other characters this might look less good. Visible geometry lines in 3D software do in fact show up on prints, even at tiny scales.

- Less of a negative or an improvement point, but 3D modelling can actually be kinda fun when I don't have to worry too much about topology :)

Trello -

Throughout this project I have been able to hit all my deadlines without any problems! I am very glad I started working on this project early however as the sculpting stage did take up an awful lot of time. I think if I hadn't have done that I would have been scrambling last minute to get everything sorted. I do think there is a little bit of time before the final submission so if it is possible to do a re-print and try to fix the scaling issue I would love to do that as it would be great to see if my slot technique actually worked as well as how the model looks in general at a larger scale.

My last task on my Trello is my overall evaluation of this project, which I will get finished this week.