3D Printing
This is a project I worked on in conjunction with Todd Shelton and Mathew Powers, two professors at the School of Informatics and Computing at IUPUI. The short-term goal of the project was to take artwork and stories that Mat's daughter and Todd's son created and use our more advanced art skills to recreate their work with higher fidelity and more detail. The long-term goal is to work with future teams on the project and use creations like ours based off children's artwork and stories at Riley Hospital to help them cope with their ailments through art therapy.
We had two teams, one to work on the artwork that Mat's daughter made, the other for the artwork Todd's son made. I was part of the latter. Mat's team was about 6 members in size, our team was 4. We had three 2D artists that worked on converting Todd's son's story and artwork into a full storybook. My task and job for the team was to take some of their artwork of one character from the story, the dragon, and create a large, polished 3D print of it. There were quite a few prototypes and a couple models we went through in order to find a good one to print, but the results turned out pretty well on the 3D printing side of things.
We had two teams, one to work on the artwork that Mat's daughter made, the other for the artwork Todd's son made. I was part of the latter. Mat's team was about 6 members in size, our team was 4. We had three 2D artists that worked on converting Todd's son's story and artwork into a full storybook. My task and job for the team was to take some of their artwork of one character from the story, the dragon, and create a large, polished 3D print of it. There were quite a few prototypes and a couple models we went through in order to find a good one to print, but the results turned out pretty well on the 3D printing side of things.
Concept Art
These are the two pieces of concept art I had for the dragon model. On the left is Todd's son's artwork, and on the right is Mercedes Sweazy's (one of our team's 2D artists) concept art of the dragon based on his work.
3D Models
These are the two versions of the dragon model I created. We didn't decide to do 3D prints of both team's 3D models until a few weeks into the project, so I had to scrap the former model (the one on the left) I made & rendered since it didn't print very well (as you'll see below). Our team's initial idea was to take my 3D model and make renders of it for the storybook.
Not making the former model with 3D printing in mind proved to make it unusable for the new project focus. The one on the right is the finished model, and is the result of a handful of weeks of polish. I had to do a lot of test prints with this model to make sure the model was actually printable and that it was durable enough to be played with as a toy, but in the end it managed to print well and ended up very durable.
Not making the former model with 3D printing in mind proved to make it unusable for the new project focus. The one on the right is the finished model, and is the result of a handful of weeks of polish. I had to do a lot of test prints with this model to make sure the model was actually printable and that it was durable enough to be played with as a toy, but in the end it managed to print well and ended up very durable.
Prototype Prints
These are a series of images of all the prototype prints (which I sometimes refer to as test prints) that were made before our final print was started. The first one was the only print of the old model that I did the first week we shifted gears into producing 3D prints. It's fragile wing bones and the small size it printed at resulted in them being extremely fragile, and as such they broke off almost instantly after coming out of the printer. There was also a huge loss in detail in areas like the face and feet due to its small size. The redesigned model aimed to fix the wings and other fragile parts that the original model suffered from in terms of its design.
It proved to work well, and I polished up and added to each week's new version of the model based on the way the prints came out. Rapid prototyping is a big reason why 3D printing is as popular as it's become in recent years, and this is a good example of how useful it can be. Seeing the flaws with each version of the model in the real world gave me a lot of insight into how to fix it in 3D, something I could never get by just going off of what I saw on my computer monitor. In a matter of a few weeks, we went from a print that was small and fragile to one that was a good deal larger and much stronger, able to be played with as a toy like we aimed for initially with the 3D print idea.
It proved to work well, and I polished up and added to each week's new version of the model based on the way the prints came out. Rapid prototyping is a big reason why 3D printing is as popular as it's become in recent years, and this is a good example of how useful it can be. Seeing the flaws with each version of the model in the real world gave me a lot of insight into how to fix it in 3D, something I could never get by just going off of what I saw on my computer monitor. In a matter of a few weeks, we went from a print that was small and fragile to one that was a good deal larger and much stronger, able to be played with as a toy like we aimed for initially with the 3D print idea.
Final Print
The final print is the culmination of every revision and design change that we went through during the process of creating it. It's a much higher quality print than what was printed for the prototype prints, being printed the highest resolution possible (1x), using a dark red filament as opposed to the standard white, and a high percentage of infill to ensure it's strong enough to be played with as a toy. The final print is a slight increase in size from our final prototype print, being 7 inches in length as opposed to 6 in the last few prototype prints.
There was a small issue during printing, that being that the chin horn accidentally snapped off, but this was a minor setback. 3D printing has some easy fixes for snapped pieces, and in our case, a small amount of superglue fixed the chin horn quite well after drying. Overall, the print came out nicely (minus the broken chin horn) and should be a fun toy for Todd's son. It was also a great learning experience. Learning the proper ways to 3D print from trial and error taught me a lot about the practice.
There was a small issue during printing, that being that the chin horn accidentally snapped off, but this was a minor setback. 3D printing has some easy fixes for snapped pieces, and in our case, a small amount of superglue fixed the chin horn quite well after drying. Overall, the print came out nicely (minus the broken chin horn) and should be a fun toy for Todd's son. It was also a great learning experience. Learning the proper ways to 3D print from trial and error taught me a lot about the practice.