3D works have additional photos. Use the arrows in each section to view them.
My work throughout this year consisted primarily of 2D and 3D fictional mechanical design and 3D printing and painting small figures of my own design. This process has several distinct steps from start to finish.
It begins with the concept phase, in which I will create concept sketches of my design to use as guidelines for the rest of the design process. I never use my concept sketches as exact references- the final design is often quite different from the concept, though more notable features and overall shapes of the concept are typically retained. I will often go through two or three distinct concepts for each piece- it’s rare that my first idea is used as the final concept (though it does happen on occasion).
Next is the modeling stage, where a digital 3D model of the design is constructed. This is either done in Blender or Autodesk Fusion 360, and will typically take roughly 30 to 60 hours of work per model. This is by far the most tedious and time-consuming part of the process, and was the primary focus of my work this year.
After this is the most hands-off part of the process: printing. First, the 3D model (which is split into several parts for ease of printing and painting) is put through a process called slicing. This will run the 3D model data through a program (called a slicer) which converts it to a format which the printer can read, called GCODE. The GCODE is uploaded to the printer, which will produce the parts from UV-reactive resin. Due to size limitations of the printing area, multiple printing sessions may be required to produce all of the necessary parts. For the figures I have designed this year, each complete model took around 10 to 20 hours to print, though this will depend heavily on the size of the model and the number of parts it consists of. Once the parts are printed, they must be thoroughly washed to remove any residual liquid resin, then cured under a UV light to harden them.
The final part of the process is painting. This was largely outside the primary focus of my work, and was frankly just done for fun as well as to make the final models more presentable. The painting process begins with a solid dark grey basecoat, upon which the figure’s main colours are applied, typically with a piece of sponge to add texture. Then, slightly lighter shades of the main colours are carefully layered on to give the paint more variety and to create a faux patina effect. Finally, some basic weathering is done using various shades of black and brown, as well as some dots of silver to imitate chipped paint.
I also created some 2D digital art throughout the year. This was largely a side project though, so I didn’t devote as much time into it as I did with my mechanical design projects.
