3D modelling/printing thread

[KuroSan]

I've been dabbling in 3D modelling for a couple of decades now, never as a fulltime job although I've done a few bits and bobs freelance over the years. More recently i started putting together some stuff for a coffee table style art book based on the early colonisation of Mars. This is going to be a very long term project as I'm creating pretty much everything from scratch, including textures etc!

Alongside this, at the start of the lockdown I bought a cheap Ender 3 Pro 3D printer and after some upgrades, managed to get it printing reasonably well enough to want to start designing my own models to print instead of the usual landfill stuff everyone else prints.
I started out making a small storage tub with a star Wars style design and a Han Solo in Carbonite as the lid. Liked how that turned out so I got a little more adventurous and used Blenders sculpting tools to make a H.R Giger inspired box that I then painted and weathered to look more "alien-esque". I was getting a lot of requests to print that one, but it takes nearly 40 hours to print and I really didn't want to become a mass 3D print factory, so I started putting everything onto a 3D printing site that's actually made a few pennies over the last couple of years!
I then started to design a display stand for a Gunpla model (I build and paint those too lol), got wildly carried away with it and ended up with a modular display that can be extended both horizontally and vertically to display multiple models, that one has over 1k downloads now, which in turn motivated me to start designing more individual displays, like a Japanese Temple inspired display that I've still not got around to taking pics of yet.....

I'd love to do more of these, but until I get a better printer the time it takes to print this stuff is brutal and I have to rotate funds between other projects like bikes etc.
I'll add any pics to the thread whenever I create something new or if anyone wants to know more about the Mars art book. This is just a small montage of work I've done so far. Feel free to share your own if you do any of this as well!

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

Only just noticed this. These are fantastic, must've taken a long time to get up to that standard. You must have a good artistic side to model and sculpt the item at the bottom. The hard surface modelling is great at the top also. I'm miles away from that standard. I've got a printer and printed all kinds just for around the house etc. I hardly use it now, but it's there if I break something. I just mainly mess around in my spare time as I did a little bit of CAD in a previous job. A couple of years ago I started using Solidworks for Makers and leaning more about it, using it for printing things for around the house. I found it a bit robotic trying to learn, and thought that trying to draw organic things with it was a total nightmare. I fully respect people that can, but I'm sure there are better CAD programs around for this, the issue is cost though.

After getting fed up with this and it's limitations for what I wanted to do I also started trying to learn Blender for 3D modelling. It's an amazing piece of software, it is the best free software I have used by a mile. It is also very hard to learn but I'm getting there. I'm just focusing on 3d modelling, and rendering really. I'm also learning Adobe Substance Painter for and texturing as I find using layers way easier than using nodes in Blender. To learn all of Blender would take forever which is why I really focus on one main area. It's totally different making polygon meshes as opposed to using destructive modelling with nurbs in Solidworks. Making complex organic shapes is vastly easier than it is with Solidworks, but on the other hand a simple circular extrusion from a face that would take seconds in a CAD program, takes way more planning to keep good topology of the mesh in Blender. I also love the way that I rarely use dimensions as it is more of an artistic program. Not sure I'd ever use it for printing things. I tried a bit of sculpting with Blender, but I really want to focus on hard surface modelling as it's what I enjoy, it's also daunting to try and learn too many things with this program. I'm a long way of the standard that you are at.

How did you learn Blender? Have you had experience with other 3D software? I've read a lot of good things about Plasticity which is a fairly low priced (compared to most) CAD programs, using destructive nurbs for more artistic things like Blender. Thought it might be an easier program to use for hard surface modelling, but I'm so far into using Blender that I'm not sure learning another program is a good thing. I've only been trying to learn Blender for nearly 2 years so I'm miles behind you. It's probably much easier for me than it was for you years ago, as I believe that Blender had a much more difficult interface than it does now.

I feel like I'm in tutorial hell a the moment. It's hard to find good content. There's some excellent paid for services, but I feel that they lean mainly towards animation and game character, locations scenery whatever. I'm mainly into hard surface modelling, but want to draw cars and motorbikes etc. I've wasted time on some not so great tutorials, I've still learned things but know there's better when I do others. I'm currently about 3 months into a fairly old one by Chris Plush, called Cars Inside And Out. It's by far the best one I've done, I've learned a lot, when I've messed up, I've known a work around to put things right, which is progress to me. Once I've finished this this I'm going to start modelling things in the house or do a motorbike or something. This is what I did with Solidworks, found it way more fun than doing tutorials. But I hit a bit of brick wall with that program when I wanted to learn to draw more organic shapes using surfaces, it's just way more hassle than it is worth for a hobbyist, I also don't believe that this is what the program is designed for. I'm guessing programs like Catia, NX are used for this which cost $$$, hence Blender. Soldiworks for Makers is great at £50 a year for me, just for making functional parts for around the home that are obviously dimension based, but I prefer Blender.

These are some of the things I modelled and rendered in Solidworks, I'm no photographer though and need to learn about rendering.

speakers

Thermostat

Vape Pen (don't vape anymore)

Cheapo Verniers

Where I'm up to with the tutorial in Blender. Just modelled the exterior, started on the interior. It hasn't been rendered, these are just screen shots using a matcap. It will look way better when materials are added, some parts UV wrapped and textured, then rendered, be able to see through glass etc. It's not my work and I'm miles away from being able to do it, but I'm getting a lot better. The way he modelled the tyres was amazing, I've done some before in a motorbike tutorial but they were crap compared to these. Was also some basic rigging to get the wheels and parented items to rotate. Probably another month or so to finish this. Then I'll start modelling my own things.

I've just went down a rabbit hole with all this. If I was younger I would've just said **** this after a month at the most, like with most things I've tried to learn in the past. The problem I found with a lot of tutorials with learning this program, ones a lot easier than this one is that they never really stressed the need for good topology. This one does, explains how essential it is, and situations when it's not as critical (flat surfaces, meshes that are shrink wrapped to a guide mesh). It's all confusing after using a CAD program that this didn't really matter. It doesn't really bother me when it goes wrong. I've learned the hard way with this program to not make numerous different saves at different stages of the model. It's just a hobby to me, I'm too late in my working life to make a living from it. It's much better for me personally than when I used to spend a lot of time video gaming instead.

But your work is fantastic, you must be very artistic. Always just been measuring things for me, using blue prints etc. If you know any decent communities for asking for advice using this program it would be appreciated as I know I'll need advice when I start doing my own things with it thanks.

Edit: The printer I have is an Elegoo Centauri Carbon (original) core XY printer. It's a really good printer for the money, works really well out of the box. Was about half the price of a comparable Bambu Labs printer at the time. The version 2 is supposed to be very good too. I haven't a clue about messing on with printer hardware like yourself, I'm getting better with Orca Slicer though.