All 3D models with links span 3 words; the first leading to MakerWorld, the second leading to Printables, and the 3rd leading to Thingiverse.
Intro
It’s that time of the month again!
And by that, of course, I mean that it’s time for me to look back at the last newsletter and re-learn how I format these dang things.
But anyhoo, I’m back in business! Had a lovely time meeting the gf’s fam and friends, had a wonderful break away from it all, and I’ve hit the ground running for the new year! I’ve certainly got stuff to show so without further ado, let’s get into it!
Last Month’s Report
Pokemon TCGP Coins
Ok, I may have hyped myself up there, but we’ve got bad news right out of the gate: no new coins.
As some of you may know, I use an effect plate to create the sparkly effect on the surfaces of the coins. However, BambuLab has yet to release official effect plates for the H2D, so I’ve been using an X1C plate on my H2D to make them. If you really wanna know how that works, you can read into it here, but suffice it to say after a couple of mistakes here and there, I decided the plate was scratched up enough that I should probably buy a new one.
But instead of buying a new one, I just bought new sheets to save money and resources, but replacing them was an absolute nightmare. After removing the residual glue, there seemed to be a lot of tiny bubbles remaining, and for one reason or another, the H2D just did not want to calibrate the Z offset for both nozzles on this plate.
For the longest time, the right nozzle would print fine, and then the left one would either be too far away and the filament wouldn’t stick to the plate, OR it would dig into it, damaging my brand new effect plates. So much for saving money and resources.
Shown below are:
1) the most recent attempt, in which I did a manual z offset calibration. It printed the first layer almost flawlessly–using both nozzles–and then started digging into the print bed on layer 2. What the heck.
2) the most successful attempt, which still yielded no coins that were up to my standards, and
3) a standard issue showcase; the right nozzle prints more or less flawlessly, and the left side is of rather poor quality.
Not sure if it’s because there are bubbles under the sheet, or residual glue there I didn’t properly clean, or what’s going on, but I’ve contacted BambuLab requesting that they add effect plates to the H2D. They did respond, but lord knows if they’ll actually plan on adding them.
Not sure it I’ll buy another official pre-made X1C effect Plate, if I’ll wait until they make an official one, or if I’ll try to cut the bubbles out of my current one, but… if anyone knows any good 3rd party effect plates that ship to Japan, lemme know!
In the meantime here are all the coins lined up; Serena, Pikachu Ver. 2, and Mega Charizard Y are literally all finished and just waiting to be printed, while poor Goomy never got any attention past erasing the background of its screenshot. Mimikyu just came out on January 29th, And Gardevoir came out on February 1st, so they wouldn’t have been done yet anyway.
So they’ll be done when they’re done, but truth be told, they’re not my top priority at this point.
Project Kurt
After emerging from his end-of-year hiatus, my lovely video editor has come through! The Love Ball and Dream Ball have made their appearance. He’s currently working on a double-vid, so you’ll just have to wait and see! Check out their links for the videos to them.
Last Month’s Report
Sire! I have news about last month’s mission. Here’s what happened.
Main Goal: Release Durandal.
I aimed to release the 3D model of Durandal, and make a video about its history in the games. I talked about how simple the design was, so I should have *plenty* of time to get it done before the end of the month. And I was right! Well, mostly. Here it is. I had gotten it done with a good week and a half to spare, but after literally printing it out, assembling it, and literally filming the entire assembly video, I figured I should probably check out the game on Nintendo Switch Online to see if I couldn’t get some footage from the game itself for the Obscure Items video.
And to my surprise, what did I see? Why, the entirety of Binding Blade, and Blazing Bla-Wait. Is that Durandal, clearly drawn out on the Japanese box art.
Effectively, all of the guesswork that I had to do to create the model had been completely unnecessary; I had a clear top-down view that I could use to make my model extremely accurate. So… I did. I took the extra time to completely revamp the model, and even printed the whole thing out in white first to test the fit out, fine-tune it, and swap parts out for the final model. And finish it I did! Albeit with only a few days to go.
Also, I realized that since I had access to both FE6 and 7 via NSO, I should probably play the games myself to gather my own footage of the blade instead of trying to poach others’. So, while I didn’t make an Obscure Items video, I did make a behind-the-scenes video instead, which I hope will satisfy you in its place.
Accordingly, I am streaming (and live-translating!) Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade live on Twitch Saturday mornings from 8AM-11AM Japan time (like Friday night for America), for any interested. Gimme a follow! It’s a fun time.
Stretch/ImpossiGoal
Now, given that fiasco, I burnt all my monthly time doing that, and the poor Stretch Goal and its cousin the Impossigoal saw exactly 0 progress. Like, literally zero. I felt kinda bad, so instead I made you this.
This is the sword and shield found in the 3DS minigame by the name of Find Mii. If you’re interested in learning a bit more about it, you can check out the model page itself, but essentially, it’s a fun little print that I had wanted to do for a while but couldn’t justify using the filament on it.
It had been sitting completely done in my “To Upload” folder for quite a while, and in light of my recent surge in MW points, I was able to get an extra roll of yellow and white to finally print it out and upload it! Obviously, it takes some investment to print out, but I think it’s worth it. Or, y’know. You could use a regular printer and post this thumbnail on your wall. That also might be cool.
Other Stuff
I do other crud too!
I also make videos about my life in Japan. I know my fanbase (or, y’know. People that like my stuff, at least) is probably full of weebs, so there’s probably intersection there. The issue is that because I’m being so focused and diligent on my 3D printing stuff, I’m neglecting the Japan vids more than I would like. I realistically only got one short published last month! So if you’re interested in learning a bit of Tanegashima (the remote island I live on) dialect, check it out.
I’ll probably keep a little section here as well to keep y’all informed.
On to the next month!
My Main Goal is to Blow Up… and to pretend I don’t know nobody!
The theme for this month is Mustard. Wait. Ranch? Mayo? Ketchu—Catch-up! That’s what I wanted.
The theme for this month is Catch-up! Neat Freaks be warned; I’m about to show you my “ClipsInProgress” folder…
Now, to be fair to myself, many of these are genuinely finished and waiting for their time to be uploaded–the Ball videos, in particular, are all just waiting for my editor to finish them, and then they’ll be archived appropriately.
But many of them are half-finished, or forgotten, or just simply not good ideas to begin with. The goal for this month is to clean out my ClipsInProgress folder. By and large, each folder represents a video idea I had/have. I want every single one to either be finished and archived if it’s worth uploading, be properly given up on and archived if it’s not, or have a set plan of how it will get done. I’ll first be going through each folder and reevaluating its worth, making a plan for it, and then spending the rest of the month executing it.
To be perfectly transparent, most of these are related to Japan, and not 3D printing. I’ve been doing a good job setting and completing these goals every month, but the downside to that is that I’ve been neglecting other stuff I want to do. Going forward, I’ll most likely have to weave both YouTube Channels into this roadmap.
Separately, I’ve been meaning to make a display for these little Suika Game gacha toys I got from Akihabara! Unfortunately, the Watermelon seems to have disappeared, but I swore I got it…
Anyway, my girlfriend has asked I tackle some of the clutter around the house, and this is a good place to start!
Also, I wanna figure out how to proceed with the Pokemon Coins. Gotta get those out, after all.
Stretch Goal and ImpossiGoal
So truth be told, I’ve painted myself into a corner a bit on this one. Given that I’ve put a general “catch-up” initiative in place, I don’t have a good idea of how long it will take. Also, I’ve said that I want to get all the videos to at least have a plan set in place for them, so I’m going to lump these two goals together and just say that actually publishing all the non-Ball videos will be the goal, instead of just figuring out what I need to do next. We’ll see how it goes!
Conclusion
Man, I’m sleepy. Drove an hour one-way to go buy a new car, and then drove it for an hour back to my house. My girlfriend is searching for a job, and it’s kinda necessary to have a car to get around here, what with the whole “remote island” deal.
I’m looking to go to bed here soon, so have my Bucket List, and goodnight!
Bucket List
This is just every idea from the last time put here again for recordkeeping. I’ll probably delete some if I have zero interest in doing them, but feel free to skim through this and see if anything catches your fancy. So here they are!
Testing actual VG Boomerangs
Boomerangs have always interested me–I mean, how cool is a piece of wood with 0 moving parts that returns on its own after you throw it? I’m interested in designing a bunch of Boomerangs from Video Games (Specifically from the Zelda Series) and testing out how well they actually would fly if you threw them irl, if at all. Lemme know if you know of any games that have boomerangs in them.
3D Modeling Poseable Models in Blender
I know Blender is more about animations and stuff, but I currently almost exclusively use it for importing one kind of filetype, and then exporting it as another. Since it certainly seems to be a powerful tool for handling meshes and stuff, I figure it’d be good to learn more about how it works, and to try and model some basic poseable figures in there. The prefecture I live in, Kagoshima, has a group of mascots that are all pigs–I think it’d be cool to create a base form for them, add bones onto it, pose it like they do in their promotional images, and then add their little accessories to make a cute little figurine set.
Gameripping and Crowdfunding
I’ve used The Models Resource to find models as reference material many times before, so I was considering repaying the favor and getting some models to add. The Magical Sword from Hyrule Warriors has always been in the back of my mind to make, but there are a couple problems.
No one ripped the sheath from the game. Both the sword and shield are there, but no sheath to put the blade in.
It would take a lot of filament. More than would be sustainable for a hobbyist such as myself.
For this challenge, I’d like to see if I can’t learn how to rip the model, so I can try and upload it myself. And to get the filament, I want to try out Maker World’s crowdfunding feature to see if I can’t scrape together enough to get the filament to properly test it and then print it out. It’s a pretty complicated model, as you can see here. It’d be a big undertaking by itself in order to try and adapt it.
Making Practical Mechanisms
So I have no idea what direction this would go, but have you ever worn a hard hat? You put it on, and there’s a knob in the back that tightens it down so it doesn’t fall off your noggin. I want to try making a headband that works like that, but has a mechanism in the front that lets you easily attach and detach a mask. How would that work out? Is PLA even bendy enough to make a reliable headband? I don’t know, but I found the patent for the ratchet, so…
Making More Rubber Band Hinges
Y’all remember Bakugan? I do. Really cool marble-like toys with a hidden magnet in ‘em which, when passed over a metal card, triggered the magnet which unlatched a bunch of springed hinges, transforming it into a little figure. Really crappy card game, super interesting concept. I wanna see if I can make one using rubber bands to power the hinges, similar to how my Poke Ball works.
Working with TPU
Fun fact: I’ve never printed in TPU. Ever. Sounds fun though. I’ve seen people make squeaky rubber duckies with TPU, and I want to try to do that myself. Except instead of a Duck, I want to make a Pig Ball, from the obscure PlayStation game Tomba! 2. This is the highest resolution photo I could find of it via a quick google search, which should tell you how rare it is.
What are those Suspended String Thingies Called?
I’ve seen some pretty cool models like the one in this image here. I have no clue (ok I have some clue) how they work, but I want to try one! I’m a fan of Naruto, and for some reason these prints remind me of a Sharingan floating in a tank. I’d like to make one, and swap out the design for every one seen so far in the series. Shouldn’t be that hard, right?
Trying out Some Cosplay
Really small goal, but I want to try and make Zero’s Buster from Mega Man X3. I’ve got an idea to try and use straps that might make it relatively ergonomic and solid, but I also want to think of a way to make it easy to take on and off.
Electronics and API, maybe?
A while back I made a video (or 2… or 3…) in which I attempted to make disco lights for my twitch stream. I kinda succeeded, but the end product was really finicky, unreliable, and hard to set up. Basically, the gist of the thing was that I wanted to make a spinning ball with holes in it that projected shapes from an internal light onto my walls, in order to spice up my twitch stream. I was toying around with trying to make one from the maker’s supply, and if that worked out, I want to try and sync it up with my twitch stream so that it changes color if I get a follow, raid, sub, or something like that. That’d be gnarly. I’ve had a couple people tentatively offer to help, and I feel bad that I haven’t followed through…
The old one had (technically) remote control, RGB capability, and variable spinning speed somehow, but it’d take a lot of learning to figure out how to do it effectively and reliably.