From Imagination To Reality

 

So, this is the heart of what this blog is, it is a short series of articles explaining how I have taken a Character sheet and turned it into a 3d model, as a way of remembering my friend in a way which was special to me. So what remains is the path of the process, I tend to waffle so I apologise in advance, I felt that a blog post would be a better place to share this information on the off chance that someone was interested in the process, but it is pretty boring so if this is of no interest to you I’d suggest you check out because that’s all that this is going to be about.

So how does one produce a painter’s scale model of a Character? Well in modern times it’s actually pretty easy, you 3d print it, or hire a company to 3d print it for you. 3d printers for this kind of purpose come in two types, filament printers and resin printers. There are many far more advanced forms of 3d printing currently and it’s an industry that’s growing expeditiously, however, these are the two most consumer-accessible forms of 3d printing. For a high-detail model that would be utilised for gaming or painting purposes resin is the best choice.

Anyone who knows me, also knows I’m a massive Geek, I always have been, its never going to change and I never pretend to be anything else. It would not be a huge surprise therefore that I own a resin 3d printer and I’ve had my eyes on getting a filament one for a while as well. It is pretty worrying that I own a resin printer, being as I’m one of the clumsiest people that exist, being dyspraxic, so handling and working with a highly toxic substance like liquid resin is likely something there should be laws against, alas there are not and so I have one.

This would be a short article if it were as simple as just printing something, to create a 3d print you need an STL file, a specialised form of a 3d digital sculpture. Now 3d art is an extremely specialised activity, it takes someone who is very detail-focused and patient to work on, a highly detailed sculpt needs plenty of inspiration, ideas and most importantly time invested in its creation. I am not remotely patient, or detail orientated. Art in 2d form let alone 3d is frankly not a talent I have or will ever have. So this is something I would need to outsource, but before that, I would need to produce or find a whole series of art that could provide visual information to assist in the 3d design.

Remember how I said art is not my thing? Well luckily AI has developed to a level that could provide the artistic skills I need, and its use is something I am getting better with as time goes on. Even writing this I am using AI programs to help with spelling and grammar due to being both dyslexic and ADHD writing coherently is naturally not my bag. The use of programs like Perplexity and Pixar along with finding a bunch of supporting files from the internet I was able to build both a visual and written portfolio from which a 3d artist could work.

I produced a ton of AI imagines this is but a small selection of them..

 Which I reduced down to 3 designs.

I found some better images to represent the characters’ species.

As well as more to display ideas for items and equipment the character wore, again a tiny selection of those I found but enough to give an idea of the vibes I was sharing.

Of course, to this I added written information to the Character, its biography and history, its class and how it functioned. I then began the process of finding someone to take on the commission of the 3d sculpt.

I’ve never needed to have a 3d file sculpted before, I honestly wasn’t entirely sure where to look. My first idea was to contact artists whose work I felt would represent the style well from files they sell, websites such as https://cults3d.com/en,  https://www.myminifactory.com/ , and https://www.thingiverse.com/ were places I’ve often used to search for files for types of models I sought for gaming purposes. Sadly these sites do not offer ways of taking on a commission and of the artists I reached out to, very few responded and those who did said they did not accept commissions. I found the same results from specific sites for collaborative groups of artists who work together such as https://www.bestiarumgames.com/ whose work I love.

A few google searches later and I found that sites like https://www.freelancer.com and www.etsy.com/uk were how to approach artists. Of course finding someone with the specific skills I wanted, rather than more general 3d modelling took time and many discussions. Depending on what you are looking to have sculpted, as well as the details and the skills of the artist you could pay anything from £30 - $1000 for the work. For my requirements an average of between $250-$500 was being requested with the higher prices coming from those who worked in the EU and UK where as lower end were from less economically developed countries. My final choice was someone who works in printing but has a range of artists they utilise for their productions. They are more focused on the printing side of miniature production but their access to a range of artists as well as a clear love of the process is what swayed my choice. https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/3DPrintCustomz and I fully recommend them if anyone requires their services.

Obviously, I had a pretty extensive amount of material for them to work with, but I was also flexible in terms of artistic licence for the model. My main ambition was for the artist to be excited with the project and for them to represent that in their work, make it their own. As for me this was a passion project, not just another commercial production. My agreement with Tanner the owner of the online company I used included unlimited revisions which is important when you want something very personal. So I paid my deposit and work began at the start of July.

The process went though a number of revisions, the initial concept I was shown was a very long way from what I was looking for in the final sculpture, so I not only provided a detailed step by step breakdown of changes I sought but also a series of additional images as ideas for alterations and changes.

The most critical change was that of stance, and after some conversations I found some examples to highlight my ideas. The original pitch did say I’d be happy with any inspiration the artist had in terms of style and stance, however the presented concept was the opposite of inspired. So I made sure to provide a range of styles and ideas in miniature form from various companies to demonstrate what I wanted.

There were other changes and suggestions, I wanted more appropriate iconography on the model to represent its divinity within the Dungeons and Dragons lore, a bunch of clothing changes such as removal of footwear, his iconic cloak, and the removal of the mask to allow his racial traits to be represented. The next few iterations showed huge improvement, and we were rapidly able to advance the project from this point.

 

 

I had a few minor tweaks I wished included, there was some plain surfaces I felt could be better utilised so I found some Dungeons and Dragons languages and chose one that looked cool, so in various parts of the model several parts of Talons history could be written in runes. His name and Class were written in runes on bands around his legs, and his deeds were written in runes around the edges of his cloak. 

 

So at the end of August the file was finished and I had a digital sculpturer of Talon I was extremely happy with.

 

There was more to do on my end of course to prepare the file for printing. A STL file needs to be converted to a CBT file for printing in digital supporting and slicing software. I first used a program called Lychee to scale and produce the supports to the file which allow the printer to cure the resin where needed on the model.

Resin printers work by curing photo-resin using UV light in tiny layers to a build plate. A model must be supported in all parts, for you cannot add new resin on a empty space without something underneath it, so parts of the model which are not flat to the surface of the build plate must be supported. It is also the case that you want no part of the actual model directly attached to the build plate itself as this would make it flat rather than fully 3d, so the entire model is built on a series of supports on which it is printed.

In addition, this software allows the user to create a printing profile based on the file detail you wish to apply to the model along with the speed of its printing and the curing times being used by the printer.

While Talon is a large print for a resin printer, it is also highly detailed, as a result, I required an extremely low layer resolution of 0.02mm or 20 microns, which also required fairly reduced curing times on each layer, I utilised 2 seconds per layer. These details are based on both the type of print as well as the type of resin I intended to utilise. In this case, it is Water-Washable + HD resin. I prefer Water-Washable for ease of cleaning the prints, although I always have Isopoly-alcohol for resin printing on hand and to clean my work area and printer after each print.

I had a few more things to do before I could actually print the model, I’d damaged my printer LCD screen previously so I needed to replace that, and I installed a few additional quality-of-life upgrades to the printer such as a flex plate, and the new screen was a higher definition one. Installation proved trickier than I had hoped but after a few failed prints and much head scratching I figured it out and got my printer running again.

 Due to its size and the detail of the model each print takes around 18 hours to complete, but I achieved a successful print this morning.That print required washing and curing before it is no longer toxic and can be cleaned up and handled. For some dumb reason I chose to print in white which is not ideal for seeing if there is anything I need to fix before I print it again, so I’ll wash it in black ink to highlight the details after I’ve cleaned the supports this afternoon.

I will write a final post looking at the cleaned-washed model, covering any changes to the file I needed to make and then the next iterations of the model. If it is finalised, I’ll show the finished printed version, along with the description and details of Talon concluding this short blog. I am making copies for a few people who either asked for them, I thought would want it such as members of our old roleplay group which I’ll send out or drop off when they are done with character details and some of the artwork I put together in this post.