[WIP] Alien Toys Project - Design/Sculpt/Print
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Hey guys, this is some of the progress work for my university project at the moment. A series of characters that will be 3D printed and displayed for an exhibition later this year. I'll be adding to this as I go along and maybe add some more of the old designs etc along the way, thanks for checking it out!
IDEA CREATION/DESIGN PROCESS
While I did quick thumbnails and moodboards physically in my sketchbook a lot of the stuff I was working on was through Procreate on my iPadPro which I used for designing from start to finish pretty much. This includes some quick characters done within a couple hours but also more in depth designs of characters I intended to possibly expand upon at a later time.
COLOUR SCHEMES: When I first decided to design some toys I was inspired by blind box toys by Kidrobot but also the tacky/over the top colour schemes from the 80's-90's as it's something I personally love and thought tied in well to designer toys as a bold and explosion of colour crammed into one tiny figure. The colour schemes above were some quick palettes I wanted to use for the outfits/skin tones of the aliens and had next to me when colouring my characters.
BLINDBOX CHARACTERS: At this point I still wasn't sure on what route I wanted to take yet ie. going with a sculpt that was simple enough to mould and cast multiple times or to create a one off character. This was a quick exercise into doing a super quick and simple character that I could experiment with in the moulding process with different coloured resins and then package as different blindboxes.
CHARACTER DESIGNS: With nostalgia being one of the leading inspirations for these toys I went with the whole bright contrasting colour schemes I made earlier and some stereotypical characters you may find in old cartoons with skater dudes and monsters made of slime.
DECISION TIME: I ended up going with this character as my final design but was still super intent on making almost blind boxes still with the whole "same character but with different variations" sort of like alternative skins so I decided to stay with this characters basic build and then make various alterations to the designs.
CHARACTER TURNAROUND: Pretty self explanatory but a quick turnaround to help act as guidance when it would come to physically sculpting this character and trying to remain true to the design.
FINAL DESIGNS: These are the main 3 designs that I ended up with for my 3 sculpts
- Original Design: 80's-90's "cool-kid" with contrasting colour palette.
- Halloween Skin: A spooky punk twist on the original with a couple slight alterations to the body.
- B-Movie Sci fi Skin: A cheesy Barbarella-esque/UFO/atomic style costume, imagine a giant alien behind her on the front of a cheesy science fiction novel.
There are a few other old designs and thumbnails of alternative designs/eras that I drew up that I'll add soon along with updates on the digital sculpts on zbrush
Thanks for reading!
IDEA CREATION/DESIGN PROCESS
While I did quick thumbnails and moodboards physically in my sketchbook a lot of the stuff I was working on was through Procreate on my iPadPro which I used for designing from start to finish pretty much. This includes some quick characters done within a couple hours but also more in depth designs of characters I intended to possibly expand upon at a later time.
COLOUR SCHEMES: When I first decided to design some toys I was inspired by blind box toys by Kidrobot but also the tacky/over the top colour schemes from the 80's-90's as it's something I personally love and thought tied in well to designer toys as a bold and explosion of colour crammed into one tiny figure. The colour schemes above were some quick palettes I wanted to use for the outfits/skin tones of the aliens and had next to me when colouring my characters.
BLINDBOX CHARACTERS: At this point I still wasn't sure on what route I wanted to take yet ie. going with a sculpt that was simple enough to mould and cast multiple times or to create a one off character. This was a quick exercise into doing a super quick and simple character that I could experiment with in the moulding process with different coloured resins and then package as different blindboxes.
CHARACTER DESIGNS: With nostalgia being one of the leading inspirations for these toys I went with the whole bright contrasting colour schemes I made earlier and some stereotypical characters you may find in old cartoons with skater dudes and monsters made of slime.
DECISION TIME: I ended up going with this character as my final design but was still super intent on making almost blind boxes still with the whole "same character but with different variations" sort of like alternative skins so I decided to stay with this characters basic build and then make various alterations to the designs.
CHARACTER TURNAROUND: Pretty self explanatory but a quick turnaround to help act as guidance when it would come to physically sculpting this character and trying to remain true to the design.
FINAL DESIGNS: These are the main 3 designs that I ended up with for my 3 sculpts
- Original Design: 80's-90's "cool-kid" with contrasting colour palette.
- Halloween Skin: A spooky punk twist on the original with a couple slight alterations to the body.
- B-Movie Sci fi Skin: A cheesy Barbarella-esque/UFO/atomic style costume, imagine a giant alien behind her on the front of a cheesy science fiction novel.
There are a few other old designs and thumbnails of alternative designs/eras that I drew up that I'll add soon along with updates on the digital sculpts on zbrush
Thanks for reading!
Replies
As I've had to create a research document to run alongside this project for university work I thought it would be best to wait before uploading the additional designs/images. I've included some of the inspiration mood boards/artist pages from said document so excuse the titles and annotation. I thought it would be good to include these as they helped to shape how I approached my work but also the benchmarking I wished to achieve with my own work.
MOODBOARDS:
(artists: Yoko Honda / April Greiman / Sarah Bagshaw)
INSPIRATIONS:
(Artist Links: https://www.instagram.com/titi_alli/?hl=en https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8GntCqpzZ3pGZh_mUnfqLg)
(Artist Links: http://www.golfwang.com/book/#2014-ss)
BENCHMARKING:
(Artist Links: https://www.instagram.com/colus/?hl=en)
(Artist Links: https://www.instagram.com/gummifetus/?hl=en)
Spam Over. If people are interested in me uploading my entire research document at a later time just let me know
SCI-FI Sculpt:
CASUAL Sculpt:
ZOMBIE SKIN Sculpt:
I'll be uploading the printing/finishing progress in the future as well as some base and packaging concepts. Comments and critique are welcome
So for 3D printing I ended up using Formlabs Form 2 resin printer for my toys. The reason I chose this printer is 1) Our course has easy access to a personal form 2 printer meaning I don't have to outsource the prints from online companies etc 2) The Ultimaker printers we also use would not be capable of achieving the same level of detail as the form 2 3) The level of finish on the Form 2 resin prints mean less time spent on sanding/priming the surface.
PRINTING PREP:
As the models will be relatively small (ie. Fig 1: 120mm tall, Fig 2: 140mm tall and Fig 3: 160mm tall) I knew that spraying and hand painting these would be a nightmare which meant I would have to think about what would be the easiest way to handle/paint them. I ended up splitting the prints into separate stl files using zbrush's 3D print hub plugin, one of the most important parts when prepping to print was making sure in advance that the pieces would would actually fit together.
I found quickly drawing alternate mock-ups on how to split the parts up helped to visualise how they could work but also hide seam-lines/edges as efficiently as possible as I knew the models would be closely inspected by tutors/at the end of year exhibition.
PRINTS AFTER CURING:
This is how the prints from the form 2 normally turn out with scaffolding support material which is relatively easy to remove with some pliers or a scalpel if you're careful, the support material tapers slightly so there's less surface area in contact with the print also meaning it's easier to clean up.
This a reference to the size of the largest print and how fragile the small details can be, i forgot to remove the eyelashes on this one which made me realise just how easy they are to break off (the head rolled over and snapped half of them off).
This is what the cleanup looks like on removing support material, because of the size and how heavy this piece was it meant it required a bit more support material but this wasn't difficult to remove, diamond needle files are super handy to quickly sand back the plastic nubs left from the supports.
This is it all held together using the plugs I attached to the limbs back on zbrush making it A LOT easier to stick together at the end. You can see where the support material was used on the different pieces, if you are the one prepping the files for the printer avoid problem area such as the face/tight corners/hands as they will be the most difficult to clean up and you risk losing details. Instead aim for large flat/smooth surfaces like the back/stomach where you can sand/fill it back to normal.
SANDING & PRIMING:
For priming I used a combination of primers in the order of:
- PLASTIC FILLER PRIMER (yellow): This fills the slight bumps/dips that may have been caused by sanding back support material with files/coarse sandpaper.
- PLASTIC PRIMER (grey): With plastic filler primer being yellow I wanted a different colour over the top that i could tell the difference between when sanding through layers to spot areas in need of more primer etc.
- White cellulose paint primer: This was already in stock at our university's spray room which helped give the later layers of paint something to cling onto.
TIPS (that I learnt the hard way)
- give your previous layer plenty of time to dry when getting ready to spray the next coat as you can risk disturbing the surface of the later layer if the previous is still drying and can cause shifting of a dry top coat.
- be PATIENT, while waiting for stuff to dry is important, how you apply it can change the outcome entirely. When spraying your coats try to apply in fine/thin layers as it avoids pooling on the surface of your model and can leave it with a glossy finish. It also can make you lose fine details if you're working on a small scale.
- When starting to prime, make sure to remove any dust residue left from sanding as small fibers can show up in your paint job
- Spray in a well ventilated area, while it's common sense to everyone it's good to either work in an open area with not too much wind/a room with ventilation/extraction system as that can also help to avoid dust particles etc hanging in the air from sticking to your work.
Lollypop sticks with a tiny spot of tacky glue/ double sided sticky tape are a great way of letting you paint pieces separately and be able to manoeuvre while painting without having to weird yoga to be able to reach a certain part thats hard to reach.
This is what the second toy looks like with about 3 thin layers of plastic primer ready for one more before topping with the white cellulose paint primer. The form 2 printer is great for not having too many print lines left over which means most of the cleanup is just from the spots left after the support material has been removed.
Between each layer i made sure to remove any residue dust after sanding it back with a fine grit sandpaper so that the surface was nice and clean ready for the next layer.
More size reference for the scale of how small these figures were, this one being the smallest. This is with the final layer on or just about, be careful to not sand it too smooth as it can start to buff it and make it harder for the paint to stick to.
IMAGE SPAM OVER: Thanks for reading all that info, if you've got any questions let me know and i'll try to help make sense of any rambling. I'll upload some photos of the coloured sprays/masking techniques/hand painting and the bases for the models.