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
In Japan, they have a saying: January goes, February flees, March leaves. It… sounds a lot better in Japanese (each respective month and verb begin with the same syllable), but the main gist is that the first three months of the calendar year/last three months of the fiscal year absolutely fly by.
And fly by they have! Can’t believe it’s already spring break. Truth be told, though, we don’t have anything planned in terms of travel, so we’ll be taking it easy at home. So that brings us some good news and some bad news:
Bad news is that we won’t be visiting any new places in the next week.
The good news, however, is that I’ll be chilling out at “work,” which historically means that I have 8 hours of time sitting at my desk with my laptop and 0 tasks. Accordingly, I have/had a week+ where I can just get stuff done. Which is VERY good, given the amount of new stuff that I’ve decided to saddle myself with.
But before I get into all that, let’s talk about
Last month’s report
Pokemon TCG Pocket
Oh, how I yearn for the day I can just report on new and upcoming releases, without having to hold my hat in my hands and tell you all about why I wasn’t able to do what I set out to do…
Anyway, Goomy has been released.
Finally got this big boy to print out right by using a brim. Amazing, right? I had been afraid that if I had done that, the post-processing would be absolutely nightmarish. Brims sticking to every single one of the dozens of coins, clinging in and around all the nooks and crannies present in between each of the colors…
Luckily, however, they came off pretty easily, and more or less in one piece, but if you zoom in next to the green cheeks on the smallest coin in the junction between all three colors there, you can see a bit of foreshadowing…
Ok, so above on the left we have a failed past Goomy attempt, and on the right is my most recent failed Mega Gardevoir attempt. The issue with Goomy is that it has a lot of long pieces, which are more prone to warping. You can see how some of the most egregious failures are of the largest size of coins–they have the longest sections, which warped up more easily.
Compare that to the Mega Gardevoir, where a lot of the failures come in the form of missing eyeballs. Why is that? Are they the ones warping? Well, no; but they *do* have a minimal build plate contact area. And while you’d expect the brim to keep it in place, the issue is that the spaces between the inner pieces are so small that the brim won’t generate in there. Presumably, Bambu Studio tries to generate a brim some distance away from both printed islands, realizes that if it does that the line would be thinner than the nozzle opening, and then just… doesn’t. However, if multiple lines meet, like we see next to the cheek of the completed Goomy one, it will print a tiny little dot. Which, if it wasn’t obvious, is not enough.
I’m trying to come up with a method to work around this, but… I’ll report my findings (if I have any) next month.
In any case, Mega Gardevoir, Mimikyu, Pikachu 30th Anniversary Design, and Iono are still patiently waiting, with Arven and Morpeko being added since last time. Hopefully, they will all be uploaded on my sites where they belong by the end of next month!
Project Kurt
Nothing to report, unfortunately. Gotta see if my editor plans on uploading the one he said he would or not. If he doesn’t, that’s fine, but… I just need to know that lol
Let’s Bring it Back
Main Goal
My main goal this month was to recreate Urvan, the fancy axe found in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. And I did!
This one was a rather frustrating experience; not because it was difficult to figure out how I wanted to compromise between the dimensions of the official art and the official model, or because I had to completely redo the handle since the joints were waaaay too weak and bent under the slightest pressure; no, I finished the white prototype shown here by March 11th. I was way ahead of schedule!
The frustrating experience is represented by the image below.
This is the availability of colors in the Japanese Bambu Lab store. As you can see, the last color, gold, is not available. And despite checking consistently all throughout the month, it never came back in stock. I ended up saying “screw it” and spending all my MakerWorld points on a ten-pack of white, which really comes in handy when prototyping new models–especially big ones.
Due to this debacle, I ended up just printing the gold pieces in Bronze, and editing the photos afterwards.
The Dark Grey, which I was also running out of, I solved by doing some tricks involving copying, scaling down, merging, and making modifiers of parts, which jerry-rigged Bambu Studio into kind of letting me print the parts in white with a Dark Grey shell on the outside.
Honestly, I wish this was a feature for Bambu Studio. Especially for a dual-nozzle printer like the H2D; it would be cool to print, say, an expensive filament for the walls but a waste filament for the inside. Or to mix colors a bit by printing an outer wall of one color and an inner wall of another.
Regardless, it’s available for download, and I made sure to remove the Dark Grey crud so that you can print it all in one color if you want!
Side note though, I might make this whole Fire Emblem weapon thing a regular project. It was really fun doing it, and Fire Emblem has a lot of sweet designs. I’m thinking of posting on the Fire Emblem reddit about a little history of Urvan, and asking for suggestions about what to do next. Except this time, instead of doing a proper vote, I’ll just pick whichever I fancy.
Stretch Goal
For (maybe, I didn’t check) the first time ever, I’ve completely completed my Stretch Goal!
The whole aim was to practice my artsy side by making a pen stand that was aesthetically pleasing as well as functional. I opted for this Greek-architecture-style column. It’s specifically made to accommodate a uni Jetstream 4&1, but it can most likely work with other pens, too. Not matter the angle you set it on the holder, it will slide down into a position that both shows off the design and is easy to take off to write with.
And since I made it with this specific 5-function pen in mind, if you take the head of the column off, you’ll find holes for 4 ink refills and extra graphite. AND, if you poke the back-right circular part of the column with the blunt pen tip, you’ll discover a hidden drawer! It stores extra erasers. Oh, and also, the eraser cap has a little place to put it in the form of a divot on top.
Overall, it was an interesting exercise in artistry; I was still limited both by my imagination and my software. I thought the pillar itself looked pretty sharp, and I was happy that I did it almost entirely without looking at reference photos, but the part that slides the tip of the pen in place at the base feels like it coulda used some more work. It seems so basic; like maybe I could have made it look wavy or made the stop at the end more detailed? I don’t know.
ImpossiGoal
This guy, however, was once again untouched. I just barely finished the Stretch Goal in time, so… sorry!
Other Stuff
I mentioned way back in the intro that I saddled myself with some new stuff. Here’s a few of them:
Japanese Study
As many of you may know, I live in Japan. But what you may not know is that I am on a contract, and that contract is most likely ending next year. Unless my employer calls up the program that negotiated my contract with them and works out a deal to keep me for longer, I will be finishing my current job, and will obviously need to find a new one, given my visa status and how the world works.
Accordingly, I really should get my Japanese level up, so I’ve gone back to the basics and am running through a site called Bunpro in order to work on my weakest area, grammar. My aim is to get N2 on the Japanese Level Proficiency Test (JLPT), which is the second highest one and is high enough to allow me to get any job that isn’t specifically geared towards native Japanese speakers. Unfortunately, that can’t get me a job at Nintendo, but it could get me one pretty much anywhere that does business with English speakers.
Basically what this means is that I gotta spend more time (every day) studying Japanese. The plan now is to read through all the grammar points through N2 on Bunpro, remove the ones I already know thoroughly, and then start grinding all the rest of them out. I did a similar thing with Kanji and vocab when I first moved here, so I figure I can do a similar thing again. Unfortunately, this means that a lot of time will need to be invested into it, and it will often take priority over other stuff like 3D printing.
The Pumpkin Mandomizer
…Well, this pun could refer to anything.
But at this time, it’s referring to the fact that I beat the entirety of Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade on stream (well, I played it all on stream and then somehow didn’t go live the final time to actually stream the ending, fml), and am now going through it again on Hard Mode to both visit all the routes I didn’t get the first time and to get the True Ending. But in order to put just a little bit more spice in my run, I decided to randomly pick my team.
Basically, the final battle lets you pick 8 units of your choosing, and coincidentally the game gives you 8 legendary weapons throughout the course of the game, exactly one for each weapon category. So, I split up all the recruitable characters according to who can wield what weapon, and randomly selected one of each to accompany me into the final battle.
Since I can use anyone I want up until that point, it doesn’t put too much restriction on me, but it will force me to play a little differently to work around them.
I’ll be posting weekly updates on my blog and the Fire Emblem Reddit as well, so feel free to keep up to date! Or, y’know, experience the thing live with me on my twitch, Friday nights US time, Saturday mornings Japan time.
Going Forward
Ok, April is starting so let’s cut to the chase!
JRRF!
The Japan RepRap Festival is coming at the end of May, and I will be attending as a volunteer translator, so admission is free for me! If you’re curious about exactly what I will be doing at the event… so am I. I’ve received confirmation but they have yet to respond to my emails asking for further explanation…
Anyway. I gotta make sure I’m ready ready.
Essentially, this boils down to getting my MakerChip ready. If you’re not familiar, it’s essentially a standardized version of the Maker Coin that 3D printing folks use in lieu of a business card. It typically has a logo on the front, and then a QR code to their website on the back. I have a website, but its main use so far has been to host the Pumpkin Jam, and not much else.
To put it plainly, the main goal this month is to revamp my website into a state presentable to the folks at JRRF (and that means making a Japanese version, too!), and to create a MakerChip that redirects to it.
As for whether or not I upload it, well… if you want one, you’ll have to get ahold of me, then!
Appealing to the Masses
That’s it! I’m selling out!
…ok. I’m not selling out. But as I increase my ambitions, it tends to take more resources.
For example, I used to make bigger projects like swords by assembling the first version, seeing what issues there were, and then fixing them and uploading it without re-testing. This hasn’t failed me yet, but is certainly a risky move–if other issues arise from me fixing the old ones, I won’t know and then it’ll be up to some poor end user to print the entire thing and realize it’s messed up.
Recently, however, like for Urvan and for Durandal, I completely printed out the model in white first, and reprinted/retried every single part until I had the completed model entirely in white. Only then did I actually print it out, and even when I noticed a small way I could improve Urvan, for example, I still printed out the relevant pieces in white to test them and make sure everything worked out properly.
All this is to say I want more points. And while I had great fun making things like Durandal, or Urvan, or the Find Mii Sword and Shield, and despite the effort I put into them, the fact is that they’re just not the kinds of things people would a) find and b) actually want to print.
Yeah, they’re definitely net negative in terms of points. If I want to continue doing what I like doing at the pace I like doing it, I need to throw a bone to the masses.
So I’m going to split the difference and make a King Slime from Dragon Quest. I’ve made a few DQ models before– the bog-standard Slime, the Slime Stack and the Bubble Slime are all some of the most popular models I have, despite not taking all that much effort to make. Heck, the Slime was like… the 5th model I ever uploaded, so… yeah. There’s a market there.
Hopefully this guy’ll be a quick make and a source of many downloads!
ImpossiGoal
Yeah, it’s the poor string Sharingan thing again. Will this guy ever graduate from ImpossiGoal hell? We’ll never know. Ah well.
Conclusion
This month may seem a bit light on projects (is it? Not sure), but that’s because I’m also doing the aforementioned studying and streaming. So please bear with me, and again, check out my stream!
See you next time! I’ll just leave my bucket list here:
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.