Vili's bizarre 3D printing adventures, part 9 - The lizard warrior

Hello, everyone!

I am back with the 100th anniversary post since the beginning of this blog back in 2013! Can't believe seven years passed just like that!

The end of  Vili's bizarre 3D printing adventures is slowly moving towards it's end, but don't worry I will continue to write about my personal projects and what I stumbled upon while working on them.

The topic of today's journal entry is about one very skilled lizard desert warrior created by Katrin Staneva for the Character design course at CGZEN.

Lizard desert warior by Katrin Staneva

He is ready for battle! Better watch out!

Model analysis

This is not a very easy model to be honest. It is separated into eleven parts in total. There are a lot of details almost everywhere (except for the shoes) and also some of the pieces are small.

The model imported into 3Ds Max

The object was scaled in 3Ds Max up to 5200% which in Cura resulted as 14 cm height. It is within the limit described in the client's briefing. Let's dive into the interesting part!

Slicing in Cura

Starting with the one of the arms. Many details on the skin and of course little holes were made so they can be attached later to the body. 

One of the arms sliced in Cura

The area where the shoulder starts is perfect for having a stable first layer plus the support damages will be limited to a place which is hard to see.

Settings:

• Layer height - 0.1mm
• Infill - Grid pattern, 50%
• Supports - Touching buildplate, Density - 55%, Pattern - Grid, Support Z distance - 0.3mm
• Buildplate adhesion - Brim
• Nozzle diameter - 0.4mm
• Time taken - 50 minutes

The body sliced in Cura

Most of the body is surrounded with supports because of the overhangs, especially the one under the shoulderpad is more solid.

Settings:

• Layer height - 0.12mm
• Infill - Gyroid pattern, 10%
• Supports - Touching buildplate, Density - 35%, Pattern - Grid, Support Z distance - 0.3mm
• Buildplate adhesion - Brim
• Nozzle diameter - 0.4mm
• Time taken - 2 hours

Left hand sliced in Cura

Right hand sliced in Cura

The case with the hands was a bit special because the lizard is holding a weapon in the left one. The placement of each part is different but supports are needed on both. Sadly they kinda ruined a bit the details on the left hand. Right hand was printed with lower resolution.

Settings (left hand):

• Layer height - 0.1mm
• Infill - Grid pattern, 50%
• Supports - Touching buildplate, Density - 55%, Pattern - Grid, Support Z distance - 0.3mm
• Buildplate adhesion - Brim
• Nozzle diameter - 0.4mm
• Time taken - 25 minutes

Settings (right hand):

• Layer height - 0.14mm
• Infill - Grid pattern, 50%
• Supports - Touching buildplate, Density - 55%, Pattern - Grid, Support Z distance - 0.3mm
• Buildplate adhesion - Brim
• Nozzle diameter - 0.4mm
• Time taken - 19 minutes

The shoe sliced in Cura

Probably the shoes were the easiest to print although these supports on the bottom ruined the surface. Good thing nobody will look under them, right? ;)

Settings:

• Layer height - 0.1mm
• Infill - Grid pattern, 50%
• Supports - Touching buildplate, Density - 55%, Pattern - Grid, Support Z distance - 0.3mm
• Buildplate adhesion - Brim
• Nozzle diameter - 0.4mm
• Time taken - 24 minutes

The pants sliced in Cura

With this placement of the pants I managed to minimize the amount of the generated supports. Overall this model turned out okay.

Settings:

• Layer height - 0.08mm
• Infill - Grid pattern, 20%
• Supports - Touching buildplate, Density - 35%, Pattern - Grid, Support Z distance - 0.3mm
• Buildplate adhesion - Brim
• Nozzle diameter - 0.4mm
• Time taken - 2 hours

The tail sliced in Cura

The entire tail is covered in scales which we need to show as much as possible. Also the model is pretty dense and it might take quite the time to print it. With the right settings, of course, the print time and quiality can be optimized for best results.

Settings:

• Layer height - 0.12mm
• Infill - Gyroid pattern, 5%
• Supports - Touching buildplate, Density - 35%, Pattern - Grid, Support Z distance - 0.3mm
• Buildplate adhesion - Brim
• Nozzle diameter - 0.4mm
• Time taken - 4 hours 20 minutes

The knife sliced in Cura

The thing with the knife was which side to actually sacrifice. In the end just like Kain from the Legacy of Kain games would say "Suppose you throw a coin enough times... suppose one day, it lands on its edge." Well, the knife landed on it's edge. This was the best possible solution in order to keep the details intact.

Settings:

• Layer height - 0.1mm
• Infill - Grid pattern, 30%
• Supports - Touching buildplate, Density - 70%, Pattern - Zig Zag, Support Z distance - 0.3mm
• Buildplate adhesion - Brim
• Nozzle diameter - 0.4mm
• Time taken - 1 hour 14 minutes

The head sliced in Cura

Saved the interesting for the end. The head gave me the biggest surprise here. During the slicing there were no problems at all, but after the print something strange occured...

First draft of the head 

Holes on top! What the hell?? Hoooww?? Okay, at first I thought that it might be from the newer version of Cura and sliced again on the older one I had on my laptop. Printed a secon head. The result was the same. I admit I kinda panicked, because the deadline was approaching very fast and there was no time for mistakes. 

The next day after additional pondering at work I managed to figure out what was wrong with this guy's head. Cura has a very cool feature to check how the layers are being printed on top of each other with a slider on the right side of the screen. Here is what I found:

What is going on here? It seems that there is some kind of void and the infill ends at the lower level. With this the upper layers don't have a stable base to rely on and fall down into the nothingness, thus the hole appeared on the head. 

Model of the head opened in Max

The red area marks the problematic zone. Probably this is some leftover geometry that was forgotten during the modelling process. Funny thing was Cura didn't see any problems at all and this is normal, because to Cura it is a regular geometry. 

What I learned from here is to not always rely on the slicer to sound the alarm if there is problem with the model. Sometimes it just won't catch it. It's up to us to look carefully and notice the issues on time. This unexpected trap cost me two lizard heads. At least I kept them as a memory to remind me to always pay attention to every detail while working.

Also the head was too big and couldn't fit into the hole of the body so I scaled it down just a little bit.

Settings:

• Layer height - 0.1mm
• Infill - Gyroid pattern, 10%
• Supports - Touching buildplate, Density - 45%, Pattern - Grid, Support Z distance - 0.3mm
• Buildplate adhesion - Brim
• Nozzle diameter - 0.4mm
• Time taken - 1 hour 8 minutes

Post print

The struggle was totally worth it in the end! Even the head and the knife turned out pretty good (and without holes, huh). The details on the tail are super awesome as well! 

Just one more article left! I will try to finish it as soon as I find some free time. Hope you enjoyed this rather long read!

Until next time!~