Custom posible figure

[RKapuaala]

Sherman is one of my most popular sculpts. I get a lot of requests for him in other poses. That isn't practical for me to do anymore, space and money are low. I've also had a lot of requests for him in various scales. The price of 3D prints have gone down significantly, making multiple scales a tangible option. I worked on the Sherman mesh all week, with this goal:
1. Sculpt a fully clothed water tight mesh
2. Rigg the mesh so that it could be posed with its cloths on without any or little distortions to clean up.
I am very close now to acheiving that goal and the short video below is Proof of this concept. The animations were stock animations include with DAZ3D. They are compatible with Genisis and Michael 4 but not really made for my mesh, but appear to do very well with minimal distortion of the mesh as you can see in the video.

In the past I would pose the unclothed mesh and add the clothing later because my rigging was poor and posing the figure usually resulted in some very odd distortions. I'm getting better at it now as this video should prove.

Once I prefect the mesh completely, I will make this figure available in any pose any scale.
All that is needed from the buyer is the dimension of the objects the figure needs to interact with ie... chairs, ladders, doors steps what have you and the scale or the exact height of the figure needed. He will only be available in a hollow 3D print to keep the costs down, each figure will be unique to the buyers requests.

 

[RKapuaala]

I posed my possagle Sherman in DAZ3D and sent him off to shapeways about 2 weeks ago. I recieved the figure last night and immediately started the process of cleaning him up.

I colored my primer with Acrylic Ink and primed him this morning. This in when the flaws start to come out and extra work has to be done before I move on to adding the next layer, but he looks fairly cool standing next to my 7/8ths scale Kauila.

 

[darkeye]

excellent walk cycle and animation buddy. the dancing made me laugh out loud!! very cool. do most of the prints come out grainy? or can you get a nice smooth resin print of a model?
i am working on a ZBrush model at present and would be curious to have it printed if possible for the experience but only if the qaulity was as good as i could make by hand. Your 'Flying Hero' print certainly looks nice and smooth as do your Ladies.

all the best --tim

 

[RKapuaala]

Tim,
Thanks. To tell you the truth its a toss up. I think it depends on who (person) sets up the print. Some of my prints come out absolutely flawless (like the flying hero print) While others are horrible. This print looks fantastic on the back, but the shoes nad the front are just passable. I've had prints as small as 1:29 scale that look better than higher polygon prints that are 1:6 scale. You just never know how they are going to turn out. Fortunately this is a much easier problem to fix. The grainy look can be smoothed out. It would be nice to smooth it out before primer but the material is translucent, and it's hard to see the rough spots because it is what they call frosted.
I would say that right now, this technology is good for giving you a very good start on sculpt that you can have printed in several different scales, but as far as a finished product,,, it's just not up to snuff. I will not be selling prints directly any more because I have had so much inconsistency with them. Instead, I will just have them printed in the desired scales and clean up the proto type so I can cast it.

 

[RKapuaala]

I forgot to put up this little redo of the mesh. It animates a lot better. I got the hand pointing and everything.

 

[darkeye]

sounds like for now that hand made wins on quality and mold costs. i'd be in to the bigger scales i reckon. cant sculpt minis now; getting older....

atb --tim

 

[RKapuaala]

Same here Tim. I can't see the features clearly and the magnifing glasses seem to distort the figure and I ended up with oddly shapped features. I like sculptris because I can enlarge an ey up to the size of my 20" monitor and make eye lashes if I want. Of course you can't do that and send it to Shapeways because they have a 1 million polygon limit.

 

[darkeye]

i saw sculptris when it first appeared. wouldnt load on my PC at the time so i tried the free trial on ZBrush and liked it so much i bought a license. that was Z4. now we are up to ZB 4r4. the revolution that was dynamesh continues with new tools to make most box modelling and meshing old hat.
i am very glad i bought a full licence. I have maya and max but i reckon ZB is likely all you need. i only fire up maya once a while.

as for Clay yeah, used to use a magnifer head thingy when i did 30 mm + but nowadays wouldnt go smaller than say 1/9th . being able to home in with Digital is very helpful.
if you are curious then there are some great vids on Zbrushcentral in the classroom. i spend waaay too much time watching 'how to's ' !!

atb --tim

 

[RKapuaala]

Tim,
I belong to the forum but mostly view the sculptris forum part. What do you get with the license and how much does it cost?

 

[darkeye]

gosh, i bought in in 2009 but get a free upgrade evry time they release one. i think it was 700$ and may still be. darned good value i feel because of the upgrades.....
you can hollow out objects with a click, remesh, chop n weld in an instant. not many digi sculptors here yet, would you like me to pop up some images in a thread? happy to.

atb --tim

 

[RKapuaala]

Yeah,,, I read part of your thread with the punisher,,, but my eyes are sore so I'm going to log off for the night, I'll read the rest of it later.

 

[darkeye]

lo. so were mine. too much digi!!! sure makes your eye go square. its like a weird video game i cant quite put down.........

atb --tim.

 

[RKapuaala]

Hahaha, all those hours of playing doom and heritic and decent should have conditioned me for digital sculpting, but my eyes were sore from starting the next layer on the figure.

I needed to get a sample shot up on my pre order page so I can pay for the castings. http://scalehumans.com/PREORDER everything on their now is digital sculpts.

 

[darkeye]

looking very clean there. nice job man. funny, there Toy and collectables guys on other forums do similar in that they sculpt digitally the seem to do a copy in say wax to clean up. makes sense in industry work i guess. Digi is a cool method of Mastering. hope you sell a good few.

atb --tim

 

[RKapuaala]

Thanks Tim, I'm pretty close to what I need to go into production on him, and already got what I need on the bust. The nude is another issue. I think the pose is just too ordinary for a nude and I have to work on something more eluring. Hard to figure. I sold about 11 nudes on ebay in a couple of weeks in 1:12 scale, so its hard to tell what sells so I sculpt what I want and don't worry about it

 

[darkeye]

always best to do what pleases since its hard to please everyone. nudes are tough because you have to avoid posing that ends up sleazy/porn. i always shove bikini on em, stops photo sites from wiggin out too!!

since 3d prints are so expensive have you considered a medium like Castilene which a a wx clay that is self supporting and is friends with RTV? 21 bucks for a kilo from Compleat sculptor in NYC. i use the hard grade. its like epoxy you dont have to wait for and is hard once cooled so carveable. used in prototyping in collectables and bronzes too. thought it might be useful info.


atb --tim

 

[RKapuaala]

Casteline! I like the idea of it. 21 bucks a kill is a little steep but its a little bit cheaper than sculpty or NSP clay. I'll have to give it a shot. Do you know any distributors?

 

[darkeye]

21 bucks might seem steep but here's a good thing; its reuseable like chavant so its a one shot 21 bucks plus in the smaller scales like 1;12 you can make a heck of alot of figures and parts with one block.you can make a couple of 1/6th at least! @ nothing holds detail as crisp as wax.
get mine from here;- http://www.sculpt.com/
or this --
http://www.chavant.com/new_site/index.htm

found my receipt for my castilene during a clear out the other day. i bought it in 2008! still using it!!

its like chavant; all you need is a lamp,80-100w, or hot box ,couple of tools and an alohol torch. very cheap way of making figures compared to 3dPr. or using sculpey/epoxy which are gone once baked or hardened. hope this helps!

atb --tim