Animals made in 3D by miniNature

Hello, like I've told in my welcome topic I try to make animals in 3D so I can print them in 3D at Shapeways, so I'll have more realistic models with higher detail and all my animals in my desired scale.
3D Printing is very nice. You can chose different materials, like a lot kinds of plastic, metal and much more. The technology is still growing, but you can already print with a detail of 0,025 mm with some materials!


My very first 3D animalmodel is the Giraffe:






You can watch and print the 2 Giraffe models in different scales here on the site of Shapeways.

Sadly I don't have money yet to print my own models, but when I've money, I'll show you pictures of the printed versions of my models.

When you have questions, tips, advice or constructive criticism, let it know. That will be very helpfull.

In the future, you can ask me for specific animal models in the pose and scale you desired and I'll try to make them for you. So let me know!

Absolutly phantastic

This is awesome

I have absolutely no idea what and how this is done, but the result surely is stunning (o)): (o)):

Thankyou for showing us. I hoipe to see more in the future

It looks very interesting I've always wanted to try it out :)

I´ve always wanted to try this, but Shapeways looks to be expensive... At least if you are not going to produce it massively.

widukind wrote:

Absolutly phantastic

Yeah! Yeah! (o)): (o)): (o)): (o)): (o)): (o)): (o)): (o)): (o)): (o)): (o)): (o)): (o)): (o)): (o)): (o)):

Good works and wow, that's interesting! I wonder if this is the future of designing animal figures
I must learn it too perhaps

Do You also sculpt in more traditional materials? :)

They're amazing! This idea of 3d printing is incredible, I think it's marvelous!

Thank you all for all that nice comments!

SUSANNE wrote:

This is awesome

I have absolutely no idea what and how this is done, but the result surely is stunning

Thankyou for showing us. I hoipe to see more in the future

I've made some progress screenshots. I think some of you would be intrested in that:


First I start with a good reference siteview picture of the giraffe. I've create a very basic shape of the body of the animal.


Then I elaborate the basic shape a little more detailed and give the model basic legs, head and tail.


On some point I'm happy with the basic shape and now I'll switch from Maya to ZBrush.


Here is the model imported in ZBrush. You can see it's a whole different program with an other layout. This tools are focussed on detailling.


Here I started part by part detailing the model.


Later, when the whole model had detailed muscles and face I give the model surface a short fur structure.


The model is made symmetric, so when I'm content with the model I can start with pose the model.


And when I'm content with the pose I upload the model on Shapeways, so it can be print.

SyLoBe wrote:

I´ve always wanted to try this, but Shapeways looks to be expensive... At least if you are not going to produce it massively.

Yes, It's true that Shapeways is more expensive than factory produced models. But I've two kinds of models in my Shapeways shop. Hollow models and Solid models. At Shapeways you pay for each cm3 material. So when you have a hollow model this is far less cm3, so much cheaper. There is only a little (2/4 mm) hole in the model in an inconspicuous area. I'll buy my own hollow models in scale II (1:22,5). The hole I'll fill with powder/sand and than I'll close the hole with some glue. Then the model feels solid so more expensive . Fortunately the giraffe is one of the largest animals, so all smaller animals in scale II will be much cheaper. A Kirk's dik-dik for example would be a cheap one :) And I go for quality over quantity.

Here you have a picture of someone else (RareBreed) on Shapeways who creates prehistoric animals:




This models are already printed. I think this is printed in the cheapest plastic material (white, Strong and Flexible) and he airbrushed it with grey paint. You can see all the details he made in 3D. I think it's stunning and my models will be detailed like that when they are printed.

ana wrote:

Good works and wow, that's interesting! I wonder if this is the future of designing animal figures
I must learn it too perhaps

Do You also sculpt in more traditional materials? :)

No, when I was a child I have made many animals of clay with my grandma, but these models were not worth to keep

Wow, nice work! I love the looking of the red images. Those are the programs I want to try some day :)

About the prices... Well, 160 euro for a 1:22 figurine is not a bit expensive, it´s VERY expensive.

SyLoBe wrote:

Wow, nice work! I love the looking of the red images. Those are the programs I want to try some day :)

About the prices... Well, 160 euro for a 1:22 figurine is not a bit expensive, it´s VERY expensive.

Yes, the 1:22,5 scaled models are very expensive. But the 160 euro model is the solid version. The hollow version of that model is 40 euro cheaper, but I'll try to reduce the prices of the hollow models more, with thinner 'walls'. I think the hollow version of that model of 160 euro, I can reduce to 60 euro.

I like to show you my new model! It's not ready yet. I must give him only a nice pose. Now it's still symmetric. I hope you'll like him:

Wonderful work!!! Congratulations!!!

Oh! He's beautiful, I'd just love to have a replica of him

Thanks!

HKHollinstone wrote:

Oh! He's beautiful, I'd just love to have a replica of him

That will be possible :) . Today or tomorrow I'll place the solid version on my site, so everyone will be able to 3D-print this model for themselves. This weekend I'll upload the hollow version, because now I don't have the best PC to hollow my model. (I'll make also a better hollow model of my giraffes, so they'll be cheaper)

miniNature wrote:

SyLoBe wrote:

Wow, nice work! I love the looking of the red images. Those are the programs I want to try some day :)

About the prices... Well, 160 euro for a 1:22 figurine is not a bit expensive, it´s VERY expensive.

Yes, the 1:22,5 scaled models are very expensive. But the 160 euro model is the solid version. The hollow version of that model is 40 euro cheaper, but I'll try to reduce the prices of the hollow models more, with thinner 'walls'. I think the hollow version of that model of 160 euro, I can reduce to 60 euro.

And what is the price for a Dik-Dik? And would the price cheaper if you would produce more animals???

That is phantastic

I consider, is this used to create a model later with clay or something? I know, it might be a stupid question, but I'm actually interested how such 3D model can be used to make a normal model

this is very intresting

i also create 3d models on my computer
but i create them for games

i can make everthing you want in 3ds

i use the programs;

milkshape
lightray
blender

for my 3ds models

also i use some convertion programs like

adobe photoshop cs5
3d exploration

and some other small programs

i make houses,,tanks ,,planes,,animals,figures,,cars

all for games

i work together with a german guy and a french guy

i make the models,
the french guy makes maps and models
the german guy,makes maps models and animation

i have some modelmappacks olready on the net
most are ww2 models,,because i make models for games

but i have ,,modern and old planes,,modern annd old army stuff

all kind of cars,houses tree's bushes,,etc etc

movie figures,,at this moment i work on a ww2 tank,,the Maus
just finished over 30 dinosaurs for some Jurassic maps in a game

Martien

btw,,i'm dutch to

and was olready thinking in making stuf like you do

widukind wrote:

miniNature wrote:

SyLoBe wrote:

Wow, nice work! I love the looking of the red images. Those are the programs I want to try some day :)

About the prices... Well, 160 euro for a 1:22 figurine is not a bit expensive, it´s VERY expensive.

Yes, the 1:22,5 scaled models are very expensive. But the 160 euro model is the solid version. The hollow version of that model is 40 euro cheaper, but I'll try to reduce the prices of the hollow models more, with thinner 'walls'. I think the hollow version of that model of 160 euro, I can reduce to 60 euro.

And what is the price for a Dik-Dik? And would the price cheaper if you would produce more animals???

That is phantastic

I can't told you exactly yet. Shapeways will calculate the price of the model when I've sent them a Dik-Dik model. I need first to finish a Dik-Dik, but I've a basic model of a Dik-Dik already, so I've tried to calculate the price: a 1:22,5 Dik-Dik (model is 2,4 cm high, 2,6 cm long and 6 mm wide) is less than 1 cm3, but because it's so tiny, he must be print in the highest detailed plastic. That material had a handling fee of $5 and $3,49 for each cm3, so I think a 1:22,5 Dik-Dik would be $8 = 6,15 euro. But I can do also other scales. a 1:10 Dik-Dik can print in cheaper materials so that would be $12 for a model that's 12,5x more material. Normaly it's not cheaper to produce more animals at the same time. You would pay for each cm3 material, but when you print more animals at the same time you'll pay only 1x shipping costs. Only the Strong-and-Flexible materials on Shapeways (that's the basic plastic) has a discount: 'For models that are greater than 10% dense (material volume divided by bounding box volume), after the first 20cm3, the remaining volume is calculated with a 50% discount.' You can watch here when you want to learn more about the pricing.

Fisva wrote:

I consider, is this used to create a model later with clay or something? I know, it might be a stupid question, but I'm actually interested how such 3D model can be used to make a normal model

Yes, this models can be used to create a solid & touchable model. This is done with a 3D Printer. A computer sent mine file to the printer and the 3D printers can print my model in different materials. Most common are plastic materials, but you can also print in different metals like steel, silver and gold and also materials like sandstone, ceramics, chocolate, paper and lots more. Just say a material and it's possible. This will grow very big in the future. Here you have a sample video of the basic plastic material Shapeways used. You can see how a 3D Printer works.

STORMnl wrote:

this is very intresting

i also create 3d models on my computer
but i create them for games

i can make everthing you want in 3ds

i use the programs;

milkshape
lightray
blender

for my 3ds models

also i use some convertion programs like

adobe photoshop cs5
3d exploration

and some other small programs

i make houses,,tanks ,,planes,,animals,figures,,cars

all for games

i work together with a german guy and a french guy

i make the models,
the french guy makes maps and models
the german guy,makes maps models and animation

i have some modelmappacks olready on the net
most are ww2 models,,because i make models for games

but i have ,,modern and old planes,,modern annd old army stuff

all kind of cars,houses tree's bushes,,etc etc

movie figures,,at this moment i work on a ww2 tank,,the Maus
just finished over 30 dinosaurs for some Jurassic maps in a game

Martien

btw,,i'm dutch to

and was olready thinking in making stuf like you do

Nice! Do you have some pictures somewhere on the internet?

Wow, that's very interesting! I haven't seen such things before... I haven't even thought that it is possible to print a figure... wow

My first African Elephant model is finished!

Here some images of the posed model:




The solid version of this elephant bull is now available to print from my site. The far cheaper hollow models will be available this weekend.
I'll hope you'll like him! :)

I am a bit confused. you make the model on the computer, and it somehow gets gets turned into a real 3D figure? Please correct me if I am wrong. I would love to try it though.

cattlecollector wrote:

I am a bit confused. you make the model on the computer, and it somehow gets gets turned into a real 3D figure? Please correct me if I am wrong. I would love to try it though.

Yes, you're right. Here I found another clear video who shows another (cheaper and less accurate) 3D print technologie. I think this video shows on a good way, how a printer can build a 3D figure:

What is the material they're made from? Is it flexible?