danbickell

I would love to drop these parts in some RTV silicone and make resin copies, and I do have a bit of experience doing that over the years. However, I would need to go about these prints differently to make it work. As printed, it would be pretty impossible to mold that head. It would either need to be separated into 2 halves, or molded as a solid piece (with the inside filled in). The solid route would be problematic for fitting the eye detail (which has to go in from behind, sandwiching the visor), and also a problem for any neck articulation. Likewise, other features like the hollow gun barrels would need to be filled in. Part of what I wanted to experiment with trying 3D printing was doing stuff like that which can only be done by 3D printing. Even expensive injection molding couldn't really do gun barrels like that (again, without splitting them into halves). It would certainly mean compromises to the sort of seamless pieces with overhangs and hollow parts that you couldn't do with 2 part (or even 3 part) molds. And then there's the whole recaster scenario... One reason I might feel better about the idea of making this stuff available on Shapeways is that it would be so hard to mold and recast, as is. If somebody did try it, the results wouldn't be nearly as nice, and would have to have seams all over the place. And, at least in my experience (it's been some years since I've molded anything), all the silicone and resin and supplies aren't exactly cheap either. That's why resin kits cost as much as they do, and why you need to be able to sell so many of them to even break even.

A good clear material is half of the problem, but the main problem is getting parts thin enough. The 1:1 visor is only 8 mm thick, and that's the thickest of the clear parts. That's already at the limit of FUD in 1/24, and my guess is that it would be way too thin and fragile to polish. Objets can't go that thin. I would have to re-do the details surrounding the visor (which create a slot that the visor fits into precisely all around) to allow for a thicker visor. Hopefully, we can stretch some acetate around this buck I made and get good results. The Perrier bottle (or 1 thin layer of it, since it was double layered) worked well enough, but just isn't the correct bubbled out shape.

Heh. My hands have been going all crunchy crunchy swell swell after the first couple of hours for years, and I already had one wrist surgery. Too much mouse/keyboard and gamepads. In theory, the V2 should have less (or hopefully no) faceting, the gun barrels should clean out better, and better eye clamshell fit. I'm mostly curious to see what we can do with the clear parts. I ended up ordering the buck in frosted detail (FD, not FUD), because it should be nice and smooth and it can take 176 degrees F. Other materials seem to be some combination of not as smooth, not as accurate, and deform at lower temps. Hopefully we can make it work. I'm thinking Hikaru. Bodolza kill shot pose. You should do battle-damaged Max when you get one!

This was a case of using Elmers AS the clear parts. And yeah, we're old. But, I ordered the V2 1/24 S head, and I also made and ordered a vac form buck for the visor, so hopefully we can take the 2nd one to the next level with a properly curved and bulged out visor. I put the lenses on the buck too, but they will still be so small that it might not be worth it. We'll see in a couple of weeks...

Count me in!

Ok, 2 tries later, Shapeways finally gave the OK. Somehow, 990k triangles was over the 1 million poly limit, but 980k was good. The unexpected benefit was that the price dropped 28 cents, because of the material removed from adding the ventilation tubes at the back of the gun barrels. That's 7 cents per hole, woohoo!

Just finished uploading V2 of the 1/24 S head to Shapeways. Revisions: Additional subdivision iterations (higher resolution mesh to avoid faceting) Hollow gun barrels now have a 2mm air hole going all the way through to the inside (to help with the wax clogging issue) The small eye base is narrower, and the clam shells doors matched to get around visor clearance issues (I originally had to make the doors thicker to get around the minimum wall thickness for FUD). Thanks to Kurisama for the tip on zipping the file. The poly count went up to close to 2 million, and the .DAE file export jumped to almost 200 Mb, but it zipped down to 41 Mb (much smaller than the previously uploaded version!). I love it when I'm wrong like that! Now I just need to pull the trigger on ordering another head, and then consume myself with modeling while I wait another couple of weeks to see the result... Or not. Just got the email back from Shapeways about going over 1 million polys. Brain fart. I guess I'll just try to keep the extra geometry on the guns, since that was really the only place it was noticeable.

Yeah, I've looked at a bunch of that guy's work. Really amazing stuff, but yeah, I imagine doing a VF-1 like that would break the bank. Given enough time, It would be awesome to try on CG model. After it is all built and "working", just deconstruct it further, separating all the panels, building the frame underneath it, and detailing everything inside. Some of the artwork done for the VF-X in the TV series would be a great starting point (though it doesn't all jive with the final VF-1 design and transformation). Bright green 7-Up plastic would have been ghetto. The Perrier green is pure class and sophistication!

Nope, but you are giving me ideas to scout around the beverage isle looking for different possibilities. The answer is:

On the right track. The tricky part is what particular beverage. It isn't the saturated greens that the 7-Up or Sprite comes in, and the shape has a curve to it that the others don't. Unfortunately, it doesn't bubble out like the visor on the CG model, which actually causes a little bit of a clearance problem for the eye details. Still, it looks a million times better than without a visor. Will have to make a vac-form buck to make proper visors for these down the road. Any ideas about how the lenses were done?

By the dawn's early light... What a difference a day makes! Derek certainly did her justice, and even managed to cook up some nice ways to add in the clear parts. You'll never guess what the visor was made from. We learned a lot from this experiment. I will definitely push the topology resolution higher for round parts in the future, and I know how well the small details work with FUD (quite a bit better than I expected). I wouldn't be afraid to do more sanding to deal with print lines the next time around either. CA works great with the material as well, and the hot water + detergent + ultrasonic cleaner worked great. In the end, I'm pretty impressed at how it turned out, especially for a first attempt at something like this. Work every penny, and all the effort. Can't wait to see what can be done next using what I've learned from this.

Didn't even know that was an option. I wouldn't think it would help much, though. There shouldn't be much room to compress the data. Have you had much luck with that, and with what format? I seemed to get the best results with .DAE exports with all of the unnecessary options off.

Not sure, maybe a little of both. I couldn't get the number of subdivision iterations I hoped for due to the file size limitation. Could easily fix that for future attempts by separating the model into multiple orders.

First coat of primer is drying. The detail jumped out, but you can see some facets and print lines. Some of it actually looks kinda cool, but I think we'll do a little cleanup.

That is the 1/60 Yamato V2 head in the picture. I guess the penny that was in there isn't too helpful for non-US folks either! I don't have one of those fancy gridded cutting surfaces myself, but I got some shots on Derek's today.

Dude, what part of "Let us never speak of this again" didn't you understand?!? Everything worked out just fine. I honestly can't tell this morning which gun side is which. For those of you who haven't figured it out, Hikaru2 is my buddy Derek, who I have mentioned previously. He's seen the development of this project in person since the beginning, and has had plenty of input. His real-world modeling skills are top-shelf, and all those skills I've learned have come from growing up with him. I will leave the execution of model and paint work of this print in his capable hands because he has always been better at this stuff than me. So, time to shine, bro! Peer pressure... Scratch-building a large scale cockpit would certainly be a lot cheaper. I'd still probably print the whole console, and maybe some of the other more complex shapes and detailed parts like much of the seat and parts behind the seat. The transparency of the FUD material could be put to good use for lighting as well. Certainly some interesting ideas to chew on! I would love to have my own printer, but those markerbot setups come with a lot of limitations. I have a buddy who put one together, and has had some success with it, but only for parts that are much simpler. The quality you can get from those is somewhat crude compared to what the high-end printers can do. I still wouldn't mind one, and I think it could certainly be put to good use. It would be great for printing the parts mechaninac was suggesting to scratch-build, and then getting the detailed parts done by Shapeways in FUD. Even the high-end Objet printers (like Shapeways uses for most of their cheaper materials) couldn't handle this 1/24 head model, which is why I had to spend so much and target the FUD material printed with their Projet machines to get these results. Even if I had the money to blow on a Projet, I still don't think I would at this point. I think the technology is just starting to take off now, and in the coming years we'll see it jump leaps and bounds. I wouldn't make a big investment in the technology myself quite yet. Last pictures before this gets some paint: You can see how much more "frosted" the surface gets, without micro wax filling everything in. Like I said, though, just very minor sanding was needed, and certainly less than many would do with a proper injection molded kit. We'll see if it needs any more after a coat of primer...

I picked up supplies to work on the head print today. Got all the paint today, acrylic cement, and picked up an ultrasonic cleaner. We cleaned the parts with warm water and dish soap in the ultrasonic cleaner. The only problem was the wax material inside the gun barrels (since they are hollow almost all the way back, but don't have holes going through for air to move through), but we eventually got them all cleared out. Removing the wax does reveal flaws from the printing process, as any areas where the material was in contact with wax support material becomes white and frosty (often with a straight edge at the apex of a curve), but some very light sanding (a few light passes with a fine grit emery board) cleared it all up. Ready to shoot some primer on it tomorrow. I would really love to do that! As soon as somebody fronts the thousands of dollars it would cost to get something that big printed, I would be happy to prep the files specifically for that.

Thanks! Preparing a 1A head for printing is high on my list of priorities. I'll talk to you more about that soon via PM. The FUD material is acrylic. CA will work well enough, but isn't ideal. Apparently, it takes a little longer to cure than normal (like a minute), and isn't that strong (but should be fine for little things like this head). Looking into availale acrylic cements at the moment, like are typically used for putting together acrylic display cases.

Forgot what I was going to mention: part of the reason this seems to be so transparent is that it is mostly just 2-3mm thick. That's how it only cost $105. I was worried that it might be fragile, but it seems quite strong, with just a little bit of flex to it. Very happy with this FUD material so far. Yeah, I'm pleasantly surprised at how smooth the surface is, especially around all these curves. At most, it might get a few passes of 600 grit wet sanding. The primer is all about just seeing the detail better and because I want to actually paint this baby up. If we wanted to mold it and cast this thing in resin, it would need some big design chages, because it would be really difficult/impossible to mold the way it is. I guess the upside of that is that it also would keep people from buying a copy and recasting it as well, if I decide to make it available.

I just can't put this thing down! The pictures really aren't doing it justice. The material makes it difficult to photograph. Bright lights just glare on all the "frosting" (makes it look bumpy and rough), and it auto-focus has a hard time with the transparency. Even just looking at it, it looks best with low lighting, backlit by my monitors. This shot doesn't sell the details as well as the previous shot, but here it is all together (minus the little eye clam shells). (holding it upside-down, the pic is rotated): This one shows the detail more clearly. Even from the inside, you can see how crisp the panel lines are. The rough looking stuff visible on the face is on the inside surface. Likewise for the print lines on the top of the head. It feels smooth on the outside, but feels like a file on the inside. I think I must have lucked out and got the orientation I was shooting for in the printer, and without somebody else's order on top either. Looks like the wax support material was pretty limited to the interior surfaces where they won't show. Thanks so much to everybody here for all the support. I would not have had such a good first try at this without the support and helpful advice. Cheers! My motivation level for the VF-1 model just doubled. I need to print the A head now, and the cockpit, and the nose... and finish the rest so I can get it all printed. It will cost an arm and a leg, but the end-product would be priceless.

Please do try that! I would certainly buy them. I'm sure I will eventually get around to making some detailed FAST packs that fit my model, but it isn't like they would be any good for the Yamato V2. You seem to have the mechanical know-how and skill to pull off toy parts far better than I could, and with an eye for doing the right level and scale of detail to match the toys. Mine would surely end up an over-complicated mess! I'd say the weakest area of this 1/24 head is that it isn't a proper model kit at all. The parts fit together great, but there isn't any provision to hold it all together. Nothing is hinged or jointed, slotted or pegged. The neck rings just sit on the neck (technically, they would need thin plastic spacers to hold them off the neck at the proper position for any given pose), and the neck just fits up inside the head (but not attached to anything). You can actually put it together and hold it (hanging upside down) by the neck, but that puts the head sitting a mm or 2 too far up on the neck. You could glue it that way, and it looks perfectly fine, but it wouldn't be sitting as properly tucked-in in fighter mode as it should be.

Yeah, I was reading on the Shapeways forums about FUD cleanup. The recommendations are all over the place. People are putting their parts in sub-boiling hot water for a few minutes, using acetone, and even ear wax remover. Warm water and some dish soap sounds like a safe place to start. I'm sure that will help with the greasy stuff, but the wax residue will be the tricky part. I guess that's why people are resorting to heat and harsh chemicals, but that scares me a bit. I'm wishing I would have put some more pieces on sprue (other than the little 1mm thick sprue the small eye clam shell pieces are on), so I'd have some material to experiment on. The gun barrels are going to be the hardest part to actually get clean. Those are hollow almost all the way back, with the tiny "rifling" detail, and those are pretty much filled with wax. If I ever do something like that again, I'll make sure to make the cavity go all the way through.

Yeah, I'm pretty surprised myself! This is FUD. The surface feels pretty smooth, but you can see the print lines. Not sure how much the lines are visable because of the transparent medium, or what. Of course, it is all greasy, and there is wax residue in places. Currently debating how to go about cleaning it. I'm just really excited about how well the parts all fit together. There seems to be no detectable warpage or shrinkage or sagging from the cleaning process at Shapeways (which involves heat, to melt away the wax). Thinking we'll shoot some Tamiya ultra fine primer on it after cleanup.

Bonus pic!

Well, it certainly came out better than I expected! Nothing broke, all the parts are there, and all the details survived. Here's a few pics, straight out of the bag, with zero cleanup: