Merry Chimpmas!

This year's Xmas cards then.  Like last year, based on a silly gag.  The inside of the card was just going to have ooks and eeks but I tempered myself and added some English words.  He wasn't necessarily going to have fur but Daniel Bystedt's great furry character tutorial was on YouTube so I followed that for pointers.  Also I tried messing with the hue of the finished chimp to see if purple made more sense.  It did not!  No turntable for this, the back's complete but you're not really gaining anything.

Having said that about the turntable, here's an alternative.  I went through my incrementally saved projects and rendered out what they looked like at the time.  So you have, going clockwise:

1. Initial block out, I really do start with circles cylinders and rings.
2. Hands and feet.
3. Merge and remesh from many pieces into head and body pieces.
4. Remesh the head (a technical step that doesn't lend itself to a screenshot)
5. Head adjustment and body paint.
6. Head paint.
7. Body pose, banana creation, hat shape, insert curve brush fairy lights.
8. Hat refinement, bulb materials.
9. Hat bobbles, bulb inflation.
10. Head refinement and pose, new eyes, bulb inflation, material and light work.
11. Fibres!

I like:

• The fur!  Three separate sets of fibres: Close and dense fur, specific longer fur (thighs, ears etc), and sparse long fur for variation.  Very pleased with it.
• Those blocky squared off hands and feet.  Just what I was aiming for.
• The background, I remembered to add a shape for interest.
• The folds in the hat; largely started with very low level cylinder geometry pushed around to keep quads of the same row the same relative size, just like real cloth would  if it was quadded.

I dislike:

• Getting a really nice noise for the wrapped banana but then when it applied (or rendered) it broke my geometry, so I had to switch it off.  It looked just like slightly crumpled wrapping paper!
• The bulb placement (despite being an elegant solution) was a bit inelegant on the final composite.

Happy Christmas!

Stylised Lord Summerisle 3D Print.

And now something different!  Inspired by a line of vinyl toys called "Vinyl Idolz" I thought I would give aping their style a go but for a character that I would like to have done in that style.  So of course I picked Christopher Lee's Lord Summerisle, from The Wicker Man.  In his pose from the end of the movie that any google search would yield ya.  Here he is:

Neat huh?  Sumer Is Icumen In!  Created using my standard ZBrush to Sculpteo workflow.  It's a shame his build has been fraught with issues.  I had hoped to have him completed by the May Day bank holiday coincide with the film's timeline but ah well.  The jacket piece, in a resin that was a new material for me, I managed to snap trying to wedge the jumper chest in place.  Then the reprinted jacket came and was a surprisingly terrible quality so I had to get that part printed three times in all.  Also the chest piece needed to be re-done to actually fit in the middle.  This is the first print I've done that has had this level of issues, and I think it was down to me getting cocky.  Don't get cocky!  Lessons learned though.  He's a hiccup over 6" tall from soles of his shoes to the tips of his fingers.  A nice size.

I like:

• That he is precisely how I would expect a Vinyl Idolz Lord Summerisle to look!
• That hair.  Lots of curve tubes with a ton of refinement.
• He stands on his own.  A bit difficult to gauge when he's still at the virtual stage.
• The curve going from his ankles to his head.  It's a nice action line.

I dislike:

• Something's up with his feet pegs, they should be more flush with his trousers.  I think it's something to do with having the plastic dyed when it's not had all the dust removed from the internals.
• That it took three goes to get the chest / jumper working.
• My miniature painting skills are very rusty, but I've mostly got away with it.

So this might be the last graphics post for a bit.  My next project is most likely going to be an iPhone game so not really part of the creative geometry remit.  I may post stuff about that here too though, it should lend itself to screenshots although it'll be 2D and sprite based.

Ulala Blue!

Okay, so not as rapid an update as I was hoping.  Mainly due to 3D print woes on another project which meant I've been working on two in tandem, and generally not having time for either.  Anyways, more Ulala work!  A sister piece to last year's Amazing Tales magazine cover, using most of the same layout stuff from that, and my Ulala model, although with a new outfit:  Whenever I unlock a new costume in Space Channel 5 Part 2 I assess it for using for these projects, and this is one of those!  A very Courreges feel to the outfit and the layout is shamefully an homage to a Cosmonauts poster I saw in the Science Museum.

It went through a lot of revisions on the actual scene.  The intent was to have her walking on a small planetoid a la Super Mario Galaxy, with alien flora, as if her and the Morolians were out on a school day trip.  But I couldn't get a look I liked, hence this being in purgatory for a time.

I like:

• Most everything on this one.  Very pleased with how it all came together once I worked out the scene.
• That a friend thought it was a targeted ad when I showed her a sneak preview!
• The outfit - with a specular overlay in Photoshop it really looks like a futuristic shiny mini-dress.
• How easy it was to reuse whole groups of layers in Photoshop when on the layout stage, probably just how a professional would!

I dislike:

• Ulala's blown out face.  One brightness contrast layer too far.  D'oh.
• Everyone's a bit disconnected from the rainbow ring, as it glows, it's got no shadows cast on it.  A necessary evil, but it does make it a bit airy.
• How many iterations it took me with some masks and overlays in Photoshop.  I need to tweak my workflow on some of it to help with layer masks updating with the right layers.

Whether another cover of Amazing Tales gets made, I'm unsure, as I really want to move on to making an iPhone game which will take a lot of my creative run-time, and as such I've been trying to finish this project and the 3D print one.  I will always gravitate to Ulala though, my space reporter muse.

Gundam - Shaldoll Scout Turntable.

Associated turntable for the Gundam - Shaldoll Scout.

Gundam Turntable from Tom Lewis on Vimeo.

Gundam - Shaldoll Scout.

Crikey!  What do we have here?  A finished project!  I have had a bit of a block on finishing stuff:  I've another two projects that are 3/4 done, hence the lack of updates.  Here's a bit of a departure from ladies and monsters though:  A robot!  Not done one before and yes it's thematically similar to the Tortilus but this felt much different to build.

I say "robot", it's a Gundam, technically, and a RGE-C350S Shaldoll Scout to be precise.  I have a big book of Gundam line art of *all* Gundam ever, so thumbed through and found this model to use as reference.

So it felt like a departure from the Tortilus as this was 99% zModeler and dynamic subdivisions, which as an old box modeler makes me happy.  I can think in low poly cages.  No visible UV work either (the shoulder has a decal on it but I couldn't have a front view and that in the same shot) meaning all the noise is procedural noisemaker 3D placement rather than UV placement which made it way quicker.  Three layers: erosion, dents, and paint colour variance.  All composited together in Photoshop in post.  I'll definitely use that tactic again.

I like:

• Big robot!  Definitely fulfilling my own brief there!
• All the lines aren't super sharp, there's a little bevel on most everything.
• My noise work.  It seems too much up close but when it's printed A4 size it should be just right.
• That I didn't spend another x hours doing more kibble that wouldn't be visible or in keeping with the cleaner Gundam style.
• I have had all the practise with the zModeler brush I'll need for a time!  With that it's so easy to add secondary detail on low polygon cages then cheat the high polygon look.
• The Photoshop composite has made it look like there's WAY more fidelity than there actually is.  It oughta, there's 50 layers actually doing something!

I dislike:

• No visible decals.  Would it have killed me to add some warning signs in a PS layer?  It would've helped sell the size even if they became barely visible.
• That I didn't bevel the shoulder gun where the barrel meets the housing.  Look at it!  Amateur hour!  I mean, I'm not being paid so it's not professional hour but still...
• That you can't really tell that he's 18.2m tall but I did keep the camera low to aid that.
• Gundam v Transformer gripes:  If I'd done that latter I'd've had more visible interest with an endoskeleton, it wouldn't all be one material, and it would have been way more poseable!

Right, time to man up and finish one of those almost done projects!

Happy Christmas!

So here's the image that went out on my Christmas cards this year.  Enjoy!

I wanted to do the whole "A t-rex has short arms so can't do a thing" joke with dressing a tree.  Job done right?  I intended to do this as a purely 2D piece but was frankly laughably bad at sketching on my Wacom in Photoshop.  I probably need a Cintiq eh Santa?

I like:

• How I drew out seven different heads using pen and paper to explore the shape.  The tall snout came from this and that was me just trying something that pushed the norm.
• The tree, as it took many attempts to get the fidelity appropriate for the dinosaur.  It's got a touch of the monkey puzzle to it which suits with the prehistoric look.
• That I got to create a toon shader material in ZBrush for the end effect to help it be more illustrative.

I dislike:

• That he can still blatantly reach up and down enough to dress another couple of rungs of tree, but I was so pleased with the composition as it is.  Creative license.
• His texture's a bit wonky with the triangles, and after lighting and toon shading you can't tell his belly is yellower than the rest of him.  I'll push that more next time.

Oh and the inside of the card asks how he put his hat on.  A worthy question I'm sure you'll agree!

Introducing Ulala! (v1 3D print)

Greetings space cats!  This project is the intellectual culmination of a lot of the classes I've taken over the last two years.  The appealing character design from Mike Defeo's class combined with the 3D print knowledge from Joseph Drust's one.  Did you know you can't get a good Space Reporter Ulala figure?  Well, you still can't, but I have one!

So the combination process: I had Ulala finished from an earlier 2D piece, then I chopped her up for joints (after dressing her in trousers as her traditional short skirt would be too stiff to be useful when posing).  Shipped to Sculpteo to print (more on them later) and then painted with Games Workshop paints.  A bunch more involved than this paragraph would indicate!

Sculpteo then.  She's printed in their white plastic but only on their standard layer thickness (100-150µm).  I wanted the fine thickness (60µm) but apparently she's too fragile for that.  Now I chose to combine her pieces on a sprue to keep the cost down (Sculpteo wanted to charge me four times as much to print each piece on separate runs, so I made a sprue to force her to be printed in one go) but doing this didn't help isolate which pieces of her are too thin (probably the microphone).  I do intend to re-print her after working out the fragile bits and re-orientating parts to mitigate the tree-ring effect of 3D printing, but not for a little while.  I had thought to sand her down to remove layer lines but trying that had a tendency to give the material an almost furry quality, as though I was pulling apart a block of nylon, so I didn't do too much of that, so her fidelity is not as high as I would like.  This wasn't mitigated at all by three acrylic undercoats and two coats of colour paint and three layers of matte varnish.  Lots learnt though.  Oh boy lots learnt!

On to more pics...  She's about 16cm tall BTW, there's no real scale indicators in the pic.

I like:

• She's the best action figure of Ulala you can (can't) get, which is almost damning with faint praise, definitely not my intent!  I think she's just great.
• The outfit is a faithful recreation of the spy suit from Space Channel 5 part 2.
• A large proportion of pieces are reusable for a different outfit.
• That she stands on her own and can facepalm (two of my aims when making a figure).

I dislike:

• The thick layers.  Should there be a next time I'll work out why Sculpteo reported that the model was too fragile for thin layers.
• The muddy face paint job, it's a side effect of the thick layers I'm sure.
• The midriff joint.  It's big and invasive for what it does (adding the potential for some contrapposto swing in them hips).  Ball pop next time maybe as opposed to a Revoltech joint to give the capability for more sublte movements.
• The thigh joints.  I knew it would be touch and go how high the knee can lift upwards before the hips got in the way but it was a trade off between that and cutting chunks out.  I should've cut more.
• Paint chipping despite all the coats of paint and varnish to finish.
• She's too fragile to really get in there and pose like I might with a store bought figure.

More dislikes than likes but they don't have the same weighting.  She'll be posed, not too outlandishly, and probably stay that way, so the paint chipping and joint dislikes aren't such an issue, and from a distance she reads just fine, largely mitigating the layers and the face.  At some point I'll do a version two with the finer layer thickness.

Having said all that I think she's fab-u-lous.  Aah to have enough hours in the day to make the entire cast of Space Channel 5.  That is most definitely not a teaser for a future 3D print project.  I do not have that many hours in the day hah!

Memo to self:  Recreate the Max Fleischer - Betty Boop pose with her.

Tortilus Turntable.

Associated turntable for the Tortilus.

Tortilus Turntable from Tom Lewis on Vimeo.

Tortilus.

So this latest project has been in development (hell) for a long time. The initial idea and shape were conceived nearly three years ago but I lacked the inspiration and inclination to box model all the hard surfaces in ZBrush at the time. Paul Gaboury taught another Mastering ZBrush course at UArtsy and focused on hard surfaces expressly for making a mech. I marched to the beat of my own drum and didn't do a gundam like the majority of the class. I did a late 19th century steam powered exploration vehicle in the shape of a tortoise. I give you, the Tortilus:

Neat huh? There's a ton of detail under the shell which is rather obscured but you can tell there's stuff going on there which is good. Not millions and millions of polygons due to judicious use of bevels and dynamic subdivisions. New ZBrush stuff as it was a new course.

There should be crew. Think Michael Caine in Zulu but due to time constraints and wanting to do an illustrative end image rather than photoreal he's remained in 2013. Maybe one day he'll be in the balcony.

I like:

• The concept. It's mine. It's clever. It reads British.
• It's not a pretty lady or a humanoid! Variety is the spice of life.
• Getting on the course for free as an alum, seriously, they may be pricey but it was great to sit in on a course I took three years back!
• Using the ZModeler brush. I'm old enough to have box modelling as a skill; it's nice to have that supported in ZBrush.
• It should 3D print pretty well. There's very little that's a fudge, structurally.
• The blueprints in the background. You can see the flywheel. Made in ZBrush's own render passes.
• That the class including Paul Gaboury and Ryan Kingslien liked the finished product and concept.

I dislike:

• It all looks the same material, because it mostly is. Steam tractors are generally painted metal all over, but maybe the carapace could have been different in hindsight.
• You can't see the substructure because of the carapace or lots of other incidental detail at that angle (flywheel, gramophone horn, suspension springs, steering wheel, rear doors, it's all there)
• I haven't got a crewed up grimed up (this one's too perfect too but as it's an advertising poster I'm allowed it to look off the production line) version actually exploring through a jungle. Not enough hours in the day or Keyshot experience.

My next project shouldn't be too far behind. 3D print one too. Staaaaaay tuned!

Sphynx Warrior Turntable.

Associated turntable for the Sphynx Warrior.

Sphynx Warrior from Tom Lewis on Vimeo.

Sphynx Warrior 2015.

When I was starting to learn all this 3D stuff I had a short list of things I'd like to sculpt.  That list is now much longer, but sometimes I revisit items already cherry picked and ticked off.  This is one of those.  Four years ago I sculpted a "Sphynx Warrior"; a humanoid with a Sphynx cat head a sword and shield and chunky paws for hands.  I'll save you from an image of it, that description already does it too much justice.  Sphynx cats are amazing for sculpting though as they're hairless, and I could keep the accessories to a minimum to stop the project getting out of control.

While researching lightweight swordsmen, I happened across Angampora, a Sri Lankan martial art.  Looking reference up before the Internet must've been such a sleuthing job!  There's no way I'd've found out about Angampora from a library growing up in the 90s.  Anyways, perfect for the job:  Lots of lithe chaps leaping around with simple outfits and lightweight weapons.  In fact, the pose is largely taken (sword arm, feet kicked back) from a picture I found online.

I've rendered out two views, as I was intending just the right facing one as the hero image but that missed out on the sash knot (yeah I could've just mirrored the sash before posing) but it turns out the left facing view feels more dynamic.

The background is a recoloured Utah salt flats pic taken by me that is also about four years old hah.

I like:

• The anatomy.  Enough to not put "anatomy" in the "dislike" section.  The wrinkly Sphynx head is good, the incredibly rotated right shoulder is good from the angle I'm viewing from, the feet and hands suit the character.
• The knot on the sash.  It's again a real flow of geometry.  It's how you tie a karate belt!  I like doing ZSphere knots.
• The eyes.  They have concave irises and there's another spherical tool which is transparent over that.  Much better than just painting on a sphere.
• How the pose has a sense of motion and reality even though it's quite extreme.  Especially in the left-facing view.
• That it's a measure of how I have improved over four years since my last Sphynx Warrior.

I dislike:

• Not spotting the surface on the lower section of the trousers with its normals inverted, a feature extruding inwards on ZModeler introduced, which made the cloth texture noise displace in rather than out on the lower leg.  Fixed in the pics, after another two hours swearing at layers.
• Slight colour differences between the two views despite using the same layer stack!  Missed something subtle.
• The right-facing view has lost some of the movement that was there when sculpting, probably from when I pulled back the perspective distortion to make it less fish-eye distorted.
• The cloth is too clean.  I should try doing tattered cloth one time.  The lack of grime / wear and tear is a common "flaw" of my work.  The cloth is also missing seams and stitching.

Overall, very pleased, although my improvements are now less leaps and bounds between projects.  It's entirely possible that my next posted project is also an old one.  I'm back on Paul Gaboury's UArtsy class and it's giving me a chance to revisit a mech I left 20% done as I didn't know where to go with it.  A toss up between that and more Ulala!

Ulala Turntable.

Associated turntable for Ulala.

UlalaTurntable from Tom Lewis on Vimeo.

Introducing: Ulala!

Another sculpt from the "list of things to sculpt".  One that had been on it a long time too!  Those who know me will know my favourite game of all time is probably Space Channel 5.  Part 2 technically as I can actually play that without digging out my Dreamcast from storage.  The star of this is Space Reporter Ulala.  She was due a good quality high resolution update.  Yeah this is an odd subject matter as I'm basing it on a 3D model already, but it's all from my own scratch (Space Gal's musculature and head) tweaked greatly rather than me finding the original SEGA meshes and subdividing those.  Here she is:

In the spirit of me getting projects to a "print and hang on the wall" level I've gone for a retro magazine cover which was a lot of fun to do and really matches her dorky nature.  Her outfit's colour scheme is her original Part 1 one, not the white one from Part 2, although as I have the model made, I'd like to think I can make time to do a whole series of Amazing Tales Space Reporter Ulala Adventures.  She may well get 3D printed too if I can work out hip joints I'm happy with and find a flexible material for her skirt.

I like:

• That she's Ulala, blatantly.  So this project is an outstanding success.
• Her index finger mittens.  Turns out these exist in real life so I felt okay with keeping them and not doing proper gloves.  I assume her original model had to keep the polygons down so four fingers and a thumb was too much of an overhead.  They add to her charm.
• The magazine cover.  I might do that as a finishing technique a lot.
• Her anatomy, especially the hints of knees, although having said that...

I dislike:

• Her stomach.  There's no hint of abdominal muscles.  That's a mistake.
• The angle of her on the cover.  She's got lots of curves going on and the view I picked is too flat.

Right, better get a turntable sorted, although the latest ZBrush has changed their export options for movies and I'm not a fan of that at the moment as I can't make them loop perfectly, which is a key point to a turntable!

African Drummer 3D Print.

And now for some more 3D printing!  My family and I lived in Nigeria for a couple of years when I was a kid and as such we have a decent number of knick knacks from then.  One of these is a collection of wooden figures doing various traditional bits and bobs.  I took a load of reference pics a couple of years back intending to "just" do the sculpt digitally but with 3D printing taking off I decided to go one better.  I got three copies of this chap printed out:  one for me, one for each parent.  My brother's missed out as his young son might enjoy the small parts too much!

Cute aren't they?

I like:

• Beige material - It looks almost patinated which really added to the hand made feel of the finished piece.
• No glue - It's all pegs, which makes them a little wiggly, which I think adds to the character (the head has some rotation in it for example)
• The reaction my parents had to them.
• The existence of 3D printing.  It's still bordering on magical getting physical output from my virtual toil.

I dislike:

• His stoop - due to a small amount of looseness on the feet / base connectors, a feature of the wiggle room.
• The elbows - Those joints were nearly impossible to get in.  Credit to Sculpteo's plastic that it didn't snap.

I needed to get this update published as the next project's just about finished!  Staaaaay tuned.

Happy (slightly belated) Christmas!

So this is this year's card. Yes the list had names on, but I have obfiscated them as they were the actual recipients:

It's all pretty straightforward stuff. I like the list the most, it had a nice workflow to make and make look good. Also there's many Photoshop texture overlays to save me doing the texture work in ZBrush which was a new technique for me (bricks, mortar, paving slabs, wood). Here it is direct from ZBrush:

Also, after getting Space Gal and the Green Man Knight printed out to hang on a wall it turns out I've been running with my monitor's brightness set to 100 which wasn't even vaguely representative. Hence the lower pic being so dark, and the upper being corrected. This is true for everything I've posted before too, which is well, irritating, to put it mildly! Fixed from now on though.

Wishing you all the best for the season!

Green Man Knight Turntable.

Associated turntable for the Green Man Knight.

Green Man Knight Turntable from Tom Lewis on Vimeo.

Green Man Knight.

Cor long time no post!  I blame a few things; the World Cup, a long hot summer in beer gardens, and needing to create something up there with Space Gal and Space Skull (not necessarily Space *something* though heh).

The idea that'd been bouncing around in my head for ages was "Green Man Knight".  The Green Man being an ancient possibly pagan symbol, frequently appearing on churches (and pubs) in the UK.  I figured a knight with that symbolism would work as a sculpt.  Here he is!

And yep, I think he is up there with Space Gal and Space Skull.  So, for back-story I figured different trees would give different benefits to his armour.  Here I've made him a traditional gaming tank, where the Oak symbolises stamina bonuses, and the Ivy symbolises resistances.  Note the acorn studs on the mace.  I'd be made up to have this armour in a MMORPG hah!

I like:

• That he's both menacing and a bit twee.
• That he's from my own mind rather than someone else's concept, although I suspect that's a big factor in why he took so long!
• The fact the only red on the entire build is the eyes.  I had to change the snail from "garden" to "grove" to remove some browns.  It's a really nice palette choice.
• His integration into the background, which was initially a photo of the Wye Valley, taken by me on one of my trips back to where I grew up.

I dislike:

• Hardly anything!  But if I were to be super picky I'd refine the wood more, put a little curve into the arm guards, and well, try and not put as many man hours in as I did.  I lost a good few evenings trying and failing to remesh the helm to put UVs on it.  Also some lines are too tangential; the shield into back of the elbow guard, and the scratch that intersects the snail's eyes, both only spotted in post.

Overall though, delighted!

So do I 3D print or not..?  The leaves would need bulking up, and I'd lose the snail, and he'd not be pose-able without spending another age on him...  So probably not for now.  Plus I have Christmas cards to make!

Skull Chaser 3D Print.

Still grasped by the 3D printing bug, over the late May bank holiday weekend (and another two days) I went back to some Jake Parker illustrations for resources and inspiration and decided to take his Skull Chaser as inspiration.  I'm not going to post ZBrush shots as there's plenty of end result real ones to get through and as Slimer proved, the end result is precisely what is in the virtual realm!

As before all the visible joints are the model's own.  All Revoltech.  These were much easier to get in this time as the material printed in is plastic rather than the much harder multicolour material Slimer was.  Again, all printing by Sculpteo.  Onto the pics then.  He's about 15cm tall.

Neat huh?  I really need to get my own IP so I can sell this stuff hah.

I like:

• That he can stand on his own without the stand (that admittedly fits lovely into his backpack.)
• The plastic material.  It has WAY more give than the multicolour.
• How spot on to the reference it is heh.
• How nice it all fitted together.  The only glue is on the tips of the white antennas to attach the visor.
• The helmet pivot.  It's a standard pivot joint, but so satisfying to click in place.
• That I've managed to fit in a 6mm joint as a neck inside the helmet.  Not a lot of range of motion on this one but enough to offset the helmet being unable to look up or down.
• That the knees and elbows can't bend the wrong way due to good cuts when slicing the model up.
• All the extra bits (spare head, hands, gun) makes it feel like a proper Revoltech piece.
• That he can facepalm.  Always a good test of a figure.

I dislike:

• Snapping the antenna when gluing the visor on.  Grrr.
• Paying extra for "polished plastic" on the black plastic.  I can't discern much of a difference.
• The angling of the hips pivots.  They needed to be angled off horizontal to fit both into the slim hips.  It's making posing harder than it needs to be.
• My pictures.  Don't do him justice, especially on the white plastic which is quite translucent.
• The gun.  I didn't hollow it, so it's overly heavy, and I didn't hollow enough out for the grip to go in and had to file away a chunk of material.  You can see the uncoloured white plastic at the top of it in the pointing pic.

My First 3D Print!

So the *other* ZBrush Workshops course I was enrolled in was "3D printing for artists", hosted by Pixologic's own Joseph Drust.  This week I got my finished piece(s) shipped to me after having them printed through Sculpteo, woop!  So diving straight in, here they are!

Yep, Slimer from Ghostbusters.  Technically from the IDW comics version of Ghostbusters.  An old sculpt tidied up (improved musculature, creases, and hopefully appeal.)  Here's a quick ZBrush render:

The joints in the first shot are standard revoltech joints.  I've had to cannibalise some of my regular action figures for them, but that's fine, someone else made those hah.  Here's some closeups to show off the multicolour material:

As far as materials go it was a good choice for colour purposes, but it has literally zero give in it, and is quite heavy (despite the body being hollowed out, what a mission that was!)  I did test filing down some of the ridges, but it took too much colour off, so stopped that pretty quick!  The material is akin to ceramic, and as such has really good compression strength.  However, not so good if you are trying to twist in joints into holes that have set a hiccup too small.  Here's a pristine hand, and after me screwing in a joint.

D'oh.  Then I promptly went and did the same with his other hand.  They're not even symmetrical pieces!  Ah well, live and learn.  Next print will be in the Sculpteo plastic material.  Interesting to see the cross section of the multicolour material though.  It shows how deep the colour goes.  Anyways, after a bit of judicious gluing and a lot of not so gentle wearing away at the holes with watchmaker's screwdrivers, here's the finished piece:

That, is pretty cool.  Note the tongue, it's on a joint, although due to me angling the hole so I couldn't get access straight on (the hole points at the pallete rather than forward, silly design decision) it's not as perfect as I'd like, and I don't want to start twisting it to pose it in case the torque does bad things to the eggshell of his body.

And finally, a source, ZBrush, print pic all in one.

Learnt a lot from the course, and it's really fired up my drive for getting more stuff made "real".  Next project is actually almost finished, and will be in plastic, so will hopefully be even more refined.

Space Gal Turntable.

Associated turntable for the Space Gal.

Space Gal Turntable from Tom Lewis on Vimeo.