"Trent's Devil Guy" toy finally arrives!!!

On Friday May 20th, a 3D print of Trent's Devil Guy finally showed up at my work. I was so excited that my head almost exploded! Why was I so excited about this new model? Because this is the first model that I've had 3D printed using Shapeways' new "Full Color Sandstone" material. Though the design of the texmap on this version of the character was greyscale, I was quite impressed with the quality of the print. The surface of the material is a bit rough(and ridiculously easy to leave marks on), but the fact that I don't have to manually paint each physical model to get a texture on there totally makes this material totally worth using.

As I promised in a previous post, I have now made this model available for purchase at my Shapeways Store. All profits made from the sale of these are split 50 / 50 between Trent Call and I. If you purchase one of these models, please note that it was not designed to stand up on it's own, and will need to be glued to some kind of a base in order to stand. If you prefer to order the model directly from Trent or I though, you'll get the model on it's own stand, sealed, and inside of a limited edition box designed by both Trent and I, and manually screen printed by Trent.

It happened that this model showed up on the same day of an art show for some recent works by Trent Call, the original artist of this character's sketch. When I got off of work that day, I headed to Trent's show with a wicked cool surprise in hand. Earlier in the day, I had told Trent that I'd need him to bring some kind of a "2 inch disc" and some epoxy to his show. I'd had no idea that he'd actually bring a floppy disk, but hey, the black floppy he chose functioned perfectly as a base for the character.

Now of course, one of the first things I needed ad to my to-do list right after I received this cool new thing in the mail "IS DROP IT AND BREAK IT". So, like anyone who's trying to get a task completed sooner rather than later, I dropped it and broke it only 20 minutes after I glued it to its new base and started showing it around. At the moment I broke it, I was admittedly in a bit of shock from just having accomplished that goal so quickly, but I still found it rather interesting that when it broke, it did so almost exactly on the UV seams I had used for the 3D model's texture map.

Fortunately, the same glue I had used to attach the toy to its base worked wonders in putting Humpty back together again.

More than one of Mother Nature's elements would attack the model that evening though. While Gravity had already taken it's toll, the Rain from that night was next up for laying down the abuse. By the time I got home with the model in hand, I was starting to see strange little spots on the model where the surface seemed lighter than other areas. Since the disk the character was glued to seemed to have the same kinds of spots all over, I had guessed that the lighter spots on the model were something that had been deposited on to it's surface via the rain. So what did I do? Stick the whole model under the faucet in my kitchen and try to "rinse the spots off". By the time I had let the model dry off after the rinse, it became obvious to me that the lighter spots on the model were not deposits, but areas of the model where the ink from the 3D printing process had been washed out or off.

Lessons learned from this experience? The next full color models I order from Shapeways will be dipped/coated in a sealant or finishing solution several times before I let them get anywhere near any other liquid. The photos below were taken after the 'rinse'.