After weeks of tinkering with the class's new 3D printer, I managed to print the first successful model, which, coincidentally was a thing from one of my favorite video games - Persona 5.
I was picking through several potential, somewhat simple, but interesting models to test out the printer with, and stumbled upon Skull's mask.
I resized it to fit someone's face (which later turned out to be just a centimeter too big) and I never thought I'd turn out as well as it did.It took maybe 4 hours after re-positioning the model vertically in the Slicer so it wouldn't need to spend as much time on supports. Thinking back, I wish I had placed it upside-down even.
There was a hiccup, since we needed to pause the print at some point and continue the next day. Because of that, the bed of the printer cooled down and the model became a bit loose, so we resorted to taping it down. Thankfully, that pause didn't cause too much damage, but there was a second of panic when we set the printer to continue.
I cleaned up and sandpapered some of the edges and surface, then the teacher suggested to use a special hardening cement (?) to make the surface more smooth.
After that, I painted the mask black and got ready to learn to use spray paint. I wanted a more metallic look, and thankfully we had a silver chrome color. It took maybe 3 repaints until I got the texture that I wanted. Later I took a black paint can for some highlights, and that was mostly the reason for all those repaints....Eventually the mask went from a silvery texture to an iron one.
I then used washed up black for the lines going through the eyes and later drilled the holes open for some screws.
I took the time to also spray paint the screws for it to look authentic and inserted them with epoxy glue. All that was left was a photoshoot...and maybe to add some string if anybody would want to use it for Halloween or cosplay.
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| Bonus pic |
