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kmanstudios

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Everything posted by kmanstudios

  1. I am making a stand to hold the wings when I finish. In the meanwhile, I am doing new wings to test how thin I can print and still make wings from. A dragonfly wing is the type of look I am trying to achieve. We shall see. 🙂
  2. I did this a while back. I will try to find the photos or make new ones and post the results here. I just checked and they are not on my list of previous attachments. Edit: found the photo. This was way back in my early printing days when I was just doing anything to learn about printing and playing with ideas.
  3. So, I was working on some more paint stuff to demonstrate methods and got totally tangented to a stray thought that took over. Faerie Wings. So, I spent a great deal of time researching how to do them properly and, every thing was a bust for me. Most thins posted are about making life sized wings. It works ok on that large of a scale, but not on the smaller print sizes. Many prints later and I can post at least about one successful test at conclusion of the project. I had been doing tests, learning and then starting over. Got bunches of printed wings here now. 😂 So, these are the steps I worked out so far to get them to work. I wanted transparency, delicacy and angular light that shows colours on one angle, transparent on another, etc. Tape down some cling wrap on a flat surface. Make sure it is pulled tight. A bit like stretching a canvas, if you have ever done that. Put down a holographic (very fine size) glitter, mixed into a clear suspension medium. I prefer anything that dries clear and is acrylic based. Do not over stuff the surface with glitter. You want it very sparse. When it is dried I apply a layer of a 'tacky glue' over it to make sure the surface that the glitter is on will adhere to the printed wing frame. The glitter can be felt as a bit rough becuase it does not lay down. Folding over the surface in a minute will get rid of all roughness, but doubling up the cling wrap will make it stronger and the external surface will be smooth. The glue I am experimenting on is this one here: Aleene's 29-2 tack-it over & over liquid glue. For no other reason that I saws it being used during my research. I imagine just about any 'tacky glue' will do. But, it must dry clear. I arrange the wing parts on the prepared, sticky cling wrap. Then I fold the cling wrap over to encase the wing frame structure. In this case, you can see that the frames are primed black before laying them on the cling wrap. Then you press it with weights. I put a thick set of paper towels down on my cabinet and then more on top of the wings and then weights over that. This is so that the frame will get really pressed down, but the soft parts in the hollows of the frame will get pressed towards the center of the frame instead of all on one side. This will be important in a minute. Once it has been pressed for a while, it is time to trim the excess wing surface off and to the edges of the frame. This will seal in the frame. I used a cheap old soldering iron as a hot knife. Once the wings are laid in and trimmed, I lay them out and then begin to put Stuart Semple's 'Stick' on top of the wing frames and let it dry clear. Then I burnish chameleon powders, used by fingernail artists over the treated areas of the frame. I also will burnish some straight into clear wing part to create an interference effect. Very transparent when seen on one angle: But on different angles, the colours will shift. I am still playing with the things to do to see if I can improve this. But, it is a start. And, you can see the way the cling wrap holds onto the shape, but also wrinkles is a bit how insect wings can be wrinkly. I am also testing out printing the frame as thin as possible so that it does not really look so strong. Basically, more delicate looking frame.
  4. That missing part is odd looking, but the advice is spot on. If you do post the file, I will be happy to take a look. 🙂
  5. You can assign extruder per model. That would be how you would print multicolour designs. On the bottom left hand side of the tool bar, select the model and then click on the number of the extruder. But when it comes to supports, you have to pick an extruder. There are certain parts of the extrusion that you can choose the parts of the support to be which extruder. But for simplicity, you can assign models to either extruder and choose extruder(s) for parts of the support.
  6. Correct. If I remember correctly, the printhead requires that the cores be in place. But Cura will not factor it in for slicing info.
  7. In Cura there is a thing called "Use Adaptive Layers" in the experimental section. You can search for it in the search bar or go to preferences and check the box to make sure it is easily found. I have all my settings exposed to make finding things easier meself. Hope this helps 🙂
  8. One of the very first things I learned from you. I was telling people to go around the block just to open the front door, so to speak...😂
  9. Well, I can tell you where the print is, but not how fast it is printing....... 😝
  10. I hope you let us know how it goes 🙂 I am curious to see if it can use a flexible filament.
  11. I would have to dig mine out to tell you the brands I tried and liked. I wonder about some of those reviews because I feel like there is a huge user error thing going on there. The names may not be correct, but off the top of my head: 3Doodler I did not care for because it uses only straight filament from them. I tried to put regular filament (coiled) and it was a mess because it would spin due to the mechanism of the pen itself. MYNT3D I liked because it would use any generic filament, coiled or straight, and was comfortable in the hand. This is a new name, but looks like the one I got: SCRIB3D. Liked it for the same reasons I liked the Mynt3d. I never tried anything but PLA in it though so cannot advise on the flexible filaments though. Sorry. Edit: They all had a temp adjuster so that you would not be stuck with preset temps for filaments.
  12. Yeah, I like airbrushes. The only reason I am not using the airbrush is the issues with setting up the compressor and such with so little room. I have a very nice airbrush; double action Iwata. The only spraying I have done is with rattle cans. because it is an easy setup. I have even used fingernail polishes to paint with (Airbrush). They have some very nice metallics and colour shifting paints. Not the colour shifting that occurs with temp sensitive paints, but more of the holographic angle changes.
  13. Screenshot showing orientation of model and pics of the print would help; otherwise, everybody is guessing. 🙂
  14. This will be about primers and the choices of colour underneath the main paint job. I have seen a lot of posts about primers in the past and what colour primer to use as the base. Primers prepare a surface so that additional paint will stick to the model. Personally, I will sue a black or white primer and sometimes a combo. When I have a print that requires the combo, I will post about it. One of the posts I remember talked about using a primer that is close in colour to the top coat. Basically, if the top coat is going to be red, then use red primer. There is nothing wrong with that. But, I use the primer colour to 'help' the top coat get the colour I want. This is a thingy I made for my ornaments and other hanging objects. I posted this on Thingiverse so if you like it, you can print one yourself. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4780296 I just got tired of kluging a paint setup with sticks and string. But, I primed this in black to make sure that my topcoats had deep depth in the final colour. This is a paint job using my Pthalo Blue (green tint), Unicorn Milk (for added pearlessence) in a couple of semi-transparent layers. I am using a soft brush (real or synthetic bristles), This gave me a very deep colour highlight that falls off to a much, much darker blue. This increases the metalness of the resultant paint job. If it hangs on a tree, it will pick up the highlights easily. This was coated with a rattle can clear coat to seal it and form a nice shell. I then Chrome painted the hanging part over that with Stuart Semple's chrome paint. I have not found a chrome paint that can take a clear coat over it. I did something similar with this design. In this case, I used the paints the same way on the base layer. Again, this gave me that rich, dark blue. Then I put a thin coat of Unicorn Milk on the 'bracketing' part of the design. I now had two layers of Blue. The very rich, deep blue with a silvery blue 'bracket' that wrapped around the ball itself. Then I shot clear coat over that and painted the chrome on top of that. I wanted to do a deep red, but it turns out that the red I have is great for bright red, but does not go over the black the same way. So, I just went opaque with Unicorn Milk mixed with Mica pigment on this one. One way to rescue a paint job that went horribly wrong. I will be buying new paints soon and expand my palette choices. But, this is an older model I painted using the technique with a black primer and then coating with transparent layers to get the deep cherry red. This was done using rattle can paints. The skull is the only piece of the model that I used a brush on. Had I used a white primer, it would have produced a much, much brighter red. This would work with 3D prints as the model and prints are both plastic. Some plastics do need more patience than others. By the way, since this was a smooth surface, I polished the model and did not use clear coat. Once I get the new colours, I will be able to demonstrate different colour variance by way of primer choice.
  15. noperz...learning a new interface is filled with hidden things. Ahhh, gotcha... 🙂 Edit: Just thought of this...have you tried the right click menu? Everything can be accessed with the mouse.
  16. Did you try to select and then multiply the model? Is that not the same thing? I am not sure what you mean by this. If you multiply the group, each group maintains the layout of the group. If you save a project file, all of its properties are kept including layout of models.
  17. 🤣 ooohhh, do not mispronounce that one 😜
  18. What are you using to hold the print down on the glass? Hairspray? PVA glue? etc.
  19. Awesome! 👍 That has been all of us at our starting points. 🙂 I used to post under the nom de plume "The clumsy noob" complete with pics of burned fingers and other things. And, when I had to sign things, I would use my plume de nom. 😜 These days I am more of "The forgetful dood." You will be surprised how fast you can get through this in the future. It is a bit of an upward slope at first, but it all starts to come together. Not really.....you can try using bitmap (2 bit black and white) as well as 256 for this if you want to cut down on the anti aliasing. Also, keep in mind that the technique you started with is very good as producing (purposeful) rounding when using a full 24 bit image. Kinda like planographs (is that the right word?) NO!! Lithoplanes.... duh..... sometimes, searching for the right words is a bit like bobbing for apples. 😂 Another thing to consider is exporting the model from Cura to a mesh format and then import that into a modeling program that deals with mesh and just manipulate from there.
  20. I have only one question...why are you wearing your kilt around your shoulders? 😆
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