Junk casts

A lot of work still ahead, but at least here's  progress. Purple, bubbly progress...

CASTING!11

I'm finally casting parts! So far I have 4 functional silicone molds and I have cast feet, calves and thighs. The hip joint mold either must be slightly modified or cleaned, or I should try injecting resin with a syringe, the resin just doesn't flow right when I pour it. I will post some pictures of the parts I cast so far after I clean them a little.
I find it very encouraging that there has not been too many bubbles, I was afraid it was actually impossible to cast decent parts without a pressure pot, but it's working ok.
I can't wait to cast the whole thing!

Priming and sanding

As it turned out priming and sanding takes forever. But I am really happy that I am finally using the primer! I really dislike doing anything with clay, so I was looking forward something different to do after all the necessary clay modifications were done. I still need to add a little peg inside the head to latch to the bottom of the head back, but the magnet holders on top of the head and the head back are done and the feet and hand sockets should not need any further modification unless something breaks.
I guess one of disadvantages of printing all the parts at home is that the surfaces are still pretty grainy, even with the 0.1 mm hot end tip. After two light layers of primer and some sanding she looks like she is made of some spongy material. I am hoping to start the awesome mold making process this week, but we'll see how sanding goes.

Almost done printing!

Just the right forearm (third iteration) left to print.... I'm adding clay to reinforce the joint sockets and modify the elastic slots. I also need to add a structure inside the head and the head back to hold the magnets, right now the head back is held by two sided tape... Just want to use the primer already and cast :)

Still printing...

I have printed all the parts, made some alterations, re-designed and printed again the legs, sanded everything and made some more eyes... I am re-designing the arms and will need to print them again too. Both legs and arms had issues with joints, they were placed too deep and as the result the arms and legs did not print well, the joint socket was too thin and kind of jagged. For some reason it is really difficult for me to place the joint ball correctly. Probably because I have no idea what I am doing XD
Below is the picture of the first print. I was really happy she could actually stand on her own :)

Printing something!

Holding some physical part of the project suddenly makes the project so much more appealing. Even if the part is really rough, made of crappy green plastic and not scaled right.
This week I have printed a hand of my Sculptris model (actually I printed 3 right hands, using different filament, hotend tip and scale...) and despite being green and fuzzy they look awesome. I will post pictures soon. I also finished the head, meaning both the face part and the head back have been exported in .stl format and are ready to print. In fact the head back is printing as I am typing this.
Since we (my fiance Kevin and I) have swapped the hotend tip for a smaller one, the prints are now taking four times longer to finish. The head back is going to take 2.5 hours and the head will take 6 hours. I may try to print it tomorrow after work. I'm not really sure if swapping the hotend made a significant improvement is resolution, but I guess it kind of makes me feel better knowing that I'm squeezing the best performance I can get out of our little Printrbot Simple...
I'm hoping to prime the head on the weekend and maybe print some other parts.
Overall it has been a pretty exciting week!

My first creepy Sculptris model

Sooo I feel like I am mostly done with modeling, I may touch up some parts, but I don't think I can do much better than this. She has arms, legs, torso, and head, pretty good for the first try, right?? :)
I sculpted the overall body shape first and then added spheres where the joints will be. Taking into account how much work it took to sculpt her and all the cutting and separation of parts that I still need to do, I decided to try simple single joints first.
Below are some pictures of the work in progress. Next step would be to import the model in Blender and separate all the parts.