cloakfiend

I need an agent im almost usless on the net. Ive tried many a time. Im going to try my luck in some up market markets. Or im just gonna give away pieces on my instagram and do models for that 3d platform where people follow people for a small sum and get stuff like 3d renders or models and posters. Forgot the name though..not a good start lol.

I see, I feel like i my work is a little dark for that. But perhaps in the future. I also need to make some money before i donate any! Otherwise its kinda hard to help when you need help yourself! I tend to give most of my stuff away anyway. I like seeing the happiness it brings!

I'd love to try to sell a few things at a craft fair. any good ones in London that you'd recommend? I was also looking into metal clay, the silver one. looks interesting and dries at room temperature too!

im not sure what the end goal is anymore, i though it was to essentially recreate a dead dog (as if he was still living) as a 3d model? Otherwise a still lithopane would be the easy option. Eitherway modeling something from scratch with zero experience in modelling will be very difficult if a realistic outcome is the target.

just curious but what does a flat top surface look like close up? they look great in the photos but a close up would be nice for reference? also the layer height used for final prototypes or products themselves? rather than draft settings?

if you print four of them at once spaced not too close together on the plate then that should solve the melted nose issue. cooling is the issue. ive printed many many faces. printing a face upside down gives the best results in my opinion. also don't print flat, as you are greatly reducing resolution! I've been meaning to try metal clay for a while!! i was going to try the silver clay. rather than my usual plate.

cute, but that concrete must be quite expensive to mail!! unless you sell in a shop that is.

ive done a lot of this and ive found that all photogrametry has problems with hair and such and generally always needs to be touched up anyways. if you dont know 3d then you are pretty much stuck with what it gives you. sometimes however it can be pretty darn sweet.

Indeed its called Autodesk Recap now, and its expensive now. agisoft photoscan does the same thing and is free for 30 days trial but good luck taking photos of a dog from multiple angles without him moving! if youve not done 3d modelling though, good luck....i reckon if you follow some tuts, you might do it in like a few days to a few months depending on if you are a quick learner. for sculpting you dont really need to think about wireframe imho.

Thats way too low quality. You need to see the shape of his body. And how his fur flows. Youll need a side view, top down view...etc. all angles to understand how everything looks like from all angles. I can draw but sculpting took me a a while to get quick at it. You basically need to know how every single visible part of his looks like, from mulriple angles. So you can model it. Making things up to fill in gaps comes with experience. Try to save some time and see if you can find 3d renders from people who have done them before as they usually post different angles, which is helpful to define the basic shape.

Ive done a few of these reconstructions. And ive done my friends dog as well. Normally dog traits are common to the breed so you can use a similar dog for reference and then photos of your own to personalize it with your own dogs features. One photo is not really enough to estimate depth, but if you know the breed you can just estimate and use references. Its not that bad. Mine took 6 hours to do. I did a few book front cover recontructions as well. Forest of Doom was my favourite! Its in the what have you made section. It really brings out your creativity and makes you think in a logical way! Good fun. But i tried to copy a giger face and whilst the face came out ok(after like 9 hours!) I had no visual reference for the rest and kinda gave up. But then again copying a drawing is much harder as it is fiction, and only one reference of it exists. I use zbrush to sculpt with, but there are many alternatives and use what whatever programe you are quickest at because...its gonna take you a long time if you havent 3d sculpted before! But if you persist and keep refining your model from all angles, youll get there eventually and will be very happy....and learned a lot on the way!

..and plated, im glad i did it as i found a faulty wire that had been causing me many lots of headaches!! a much cleaner plate.

Here is an abandoned giger sculpt. I couldnt get it right so ive just left it as is. Will maybe try again when i know more tricks in zbrush. Dead eyes are deliberate here btw!!

Smart phones are awful when it comes to close up distortion!!! Oh how I loved color slide film!! It was the best!!!!

@geert_2 here is a render, I almost forgot how to render its been so long since i did it! geez i feel i need to learn all this again!? i think id have a hard time getting it looking like this in real life. i dont have a studio at my disposal! another thing ive noticed is that cgi lens distortion/perspective is different than real life and takes some getting used to to getting things looking correct when you are trying to reproduce something, it can be a pain as subtle changes in perspective dramatically change the way a face looks, so when you print something, it may not look exactly as you would expect!

yes i know what you mean! but i quite like the confusion around the highly reflective areas its quite hard to photograph highly reflective stuff, i'm always seeing my camera in the centre. im happy with it anyways. eitherway it was a test. I'm trying two color stuff soon and gloss coats, i always wanted to do high gloss coats! black is the primer, but i also agree that it looks quite cool. i can render it with different textures in 3d but it will never look the same in real life....

Here are my final bunch of photos, I'm moving on now, hopefully a real nice print coming soon, but I've been fiddling around with the sculpt for days now constantly changing it around, and I'm giving plating a break for a while, maybe, lol. maybe one last plate.

I use colorfabb filament. Any pla/pha should be ok currently im using dutch orange but i tend to favour their transparent filament normally. And i tend to simply brush it on generously or dip it. But i havent dipped in a while as im low on acetone! Buying some more now!

Yes and with larger prints, its just more filament which isn't that expensive (depending on the filament of course), but sla goes very expensive if youre gonna be printing a lot and there is a lot of waste which is obviously more expensive than filament waste. and the mess and uv and boxes and trays and space it all takes up is far more hassle than a single fdm printer. i hate resin, period its ultra messy and goes everywhere. just like plaster of paris. i wanted to do a demonstration in london at fablab about acetoning, but not enough people were interesting. i can do endless videos but a lot of things dont show up on camera and you kinda need to see it for yourself. i can almost guarantee once you understand how it works you will use it on everything. sanding out lines on an acetoned model is more like polishing, sanding out lines on an un-acetoned model is a nightmare. Sanding also brings out uneven lines. acetone has many advantages over other methods including cleanup as you can also snip off supports without worrying if it will split the model because it softenens it temporarily making splitting from supports almost impossible. ill do a vid about this sometime to show you what i mean. remember that you need to clean up resin prints as well, they also have supports. plating is not a secret though so do read up on it. you need copper anodes and cathodes a thing passing a current through a conductive solution of acid mixed with copper sulphate and a conductive object to conduct to. the expense comes with factors that simply make your life easier as opposed to necessity. unfortunately there are also many things that can go wrong and contaminating or depleting or oversaturating the solution with copper or other contaminants or organic matter tends to be the most common problems. Plating small things is easy. For large things it simply takes MUCH longer and you obviously need a larger setup. But the results are very satisfying!!!!

i know i should really add to my acetone thread for post production, but (in my opinion) it has to be done or else your simply cant take decent close up photos without seeing the layer lines or ringing or whatever. post work of some variety is essential imo. And for me acetone is simply the easiest way. im lazy too and hate sanding as well. there may be other methods like various coatings like xtc, resins of various sorts and acetone vapour on abs, but they produce inferior results again imo. im yet to see a better quicker method for cleaning up prints to perfection.......but im still waiting. not many people care for closeups so i assume not many people care, but im not many people, and i bought an ultimaker to make prints that i could work the lines out of in post, as it was higher res than the makerbot, and to this day I thank my friend from talking me out of getting a makerbot. that was 4 years ago. Everything you see here on this forum from me has been learned since owning an ultimaker. 3d printing, acetoning, sculpting, plating, adding patinas, proper sanding, all was a result of wanting high quality, affordable and reliable 3d prints. You need to be committed though, lol. and unfortunately, have a wide knowledge of skills including problem solving and research. but again depends what you are after. ultra high res is resin and thats messy and needs proper maintenance. dont expect to come back to a resin printer after a few months and expect it to work without properly maintaining it. you can come back to an ultimaker after a year and its likely gonna be ok! i always go for the least involved option. and resin costs are far higher for your average hobbyist.

I started with a copperface machine, and highly reccomend it to get started. I was told it was designed for use with small things like rings and other small items, but I soon got fed up of that and went big. Big things on a small setup are extremely difficult to acheive!! Also buying things like premixed solution is much more expensive than doing it yourself. Through a lot of.trial.and error and wasting money trying things out i am confident i can now plate anything as long as i can tick all my to do boxes. Plating is not expensive as some seem to think. But a lot of it appears to be trade secrets like the paint they use and solition mixtures and other things. The key to plating for me is to do it as cheaply as possible. There are simply so many variables its difficult to understand at the beginning what you are doing wrong if things dont work and can get frustrating. But if you percevere then you will reap the rewards! Unfortunately there is very little detailed information as to the best methods to plate properly and cheaply, which is why I have simply deducted my own routines, and that is why I am also reluctant as to simply tell everyone how I do it. also size matters! plating small things requires different techniques then large. also you have brush plating, but that takes so long I gave up!!! Once you have the plating set up Id say it costs anywhere from a few cents to a few dollars per model or something, but again depends on the size, the larger the model the more paint the more expensive! then again you can use cheap paint and it brings the cost down, but the cheaper stuff you use, the more experience you need to use it!

Thanks! its not that difficult to do, but more very fiddly and can be very irritating when things don't work as they should, I tried to polish this up a bit and rubbed a lot of the copper off(as i expected) as it was a very weak plate due to many factors that I was well aware of, but sometimes you gotta just try anyway!!! I might post a few extra post pics later and call it a day on this model...

heres my gopro timelapse...... got a few ideas of moving the print head out of the way, especially at the end.

Here are some more detailed photos...can really see the weird texture. Im gonna need to find a new method to plate much larger things. My setup is just not big enough!

Well this one turned out weird shiny!. Was way too big for my largest container and didnt coat properly. Am not going to do it again, might try polishing it a bit but it looks fragile anx might come apart. I have another one with eyes to do properly! This was a test of a few variables and i learnt a lot so im happy regardless of the result. Black is my usual mecha black primer. Will post some nicer photos tomorrow. Its 4.41am. Why am i still up? damn 3d printing and plating. Im going to try to clear coat this after getting arty with it. That way i dont mind if i ruin, it ill just paint over it after...and seal it, even though that never seems to work.