Kerbal 3D prints!! [KSP figurines by AD-Edge] (Warning - Image-Heavy-Thread!)

[AD-Edge]

So this has been a long time coming, and I haddnt planned on posting this just yet - because its still very much a WIP project. But my impatience got the better of me!

Wanted to share and get some feedback from this awesome community

First, heres some pictures, then I have a bit of a \'making of\' story with additional details and even moar pictures for those interested.

Bob 3D model with helmet:

Jeb 3D model with helmet:

Jeb 3D model, helmet off:

Jeb 3D model, helmet on, visor off:

Bob freaking out as per usual, without his helmet:

So, now that I have you interested!

The story:

I started playing KSP way back, about 10 days after it was first released and I found myself (like everyone else on this forum), completely loving the game and especially the hilarious little Kerbals who would scream or smile with joy during flight. We all know Bill, Bob and of course Jeb.

So after only a few days playing KSP, I decided to do some kind of really interesting/different fanart...

At the time (mid-late 2011) I was messing around a lot with models for 3D printing, after having my first 3D print ordered at the start of 2011 from a company some of you might know - Shapeways (http://www.shapeways.com/).

I was spending my spare time throwing some other big 3D printing project ideas around, so it was a pretty logical that my final idea developed pretty fast:

I wanted to make some real 3D printed Kerbals, hopefully the first - ever!

So that was it, I whipped up a basic Kerbal mesh from the limited pictures on the Kerbal website (in my program of choice - Blender), and after then being distracted for several months by other projects, uni, life etc etc... I finally got around to making a new 3D print order (at the time it was an order for another project). This is when I remembered the Kerbal model Id been working on, which was in a state almost ready to print. So a bit of tweaking later, and I had the model properly ready for print, along with a highly experimental helmet piece and a visor section which could (in theory) plug into the helmet allowing for a visor\'d helmet, or an open helmet, and sit on the kerbals head. This was tricky to work out, and all 3 parts had to be accurate down to millimeters for it to work out.

Either way, a week or 2 after ordering, the models arrived! Id ordered one kerbal - a test version of Bob with a goofy pose, along with a test helmet (both of these objects were printed in a \'full colour sandstone\' material, meaning they came out of the 3D printer in full colour (no painting needed at all)), and a 3rd object - a visor. The visor was printed in a material named \'transparent detail\'. Unfortunately the visor material turned out to not be as transparant as Id hoped, but the visor itself (after a bit of sanding and tweaking), fit right into the helmet.

pic of the failed visor model -

So I was impressed, and a month or 2 later made another order, this time with a Jeb model, another helmet, and 2 new visors. Both visors were being printed in a new material \'Transparent Detail\', with one model being super thin, and the other just being as thin as I dared.

That order arrived, and this time the visor was better. Not perfect, it had a yellowish plasitc tint and wasnt as transparent as Id hoped, but it was good enough for now. (for the record, the super thin version of the visor was a deformed blob, since the walls of the object were way too thin, Id guessed it would probably not work, but wanted to try just incase)

Heres the helmet object on its own:

Heres the helmet with the visor not inserted:

Helmet with visor inserted:

So the helmet isnt quite finished, Im still going to tweak the visor a bit (you can see in some of the pics its not quite fitting at the bottom). But its pretty damn close.

Jeb and Bob with helmet:

As for the Kerbal model, it was pretty much spot on with what I wanted, very impressed with the material and how vivid the colours turned out. Id spent a lot of time on the details as well, everything from the teeth of the chracter, to the belts and buckles of the suit, even the mun boot tread!

Munar Boots!

You might notice with Jeb as well, hes got some little bits prodding out of the \'spacesuit disk\' which attaches to the helmet underside, these were added and made the helmet a lot more stable (with Bob the helmet sometimes slides over the disk completely and didnt position itself properly)

Heres a few different angles of the Jeb model:

Bob & Jeb closeup (some printing artifacts easily visible):

All KSP parts that have been ordered as of May 2012:

I designed the kerbals to stand about 2 inches high.

The helmet is about 1.5 inches - these Kerbal fellows must have some strong necks to life such a drastically proportioned helmet O_o

Models in my hand, for an idea of the general sizes:

So, I guess thats it for now! Look forward to hearing some feedback from you guys and what you all think.

Its been a lot of fun working on these little models, 3D printing is an exciting area to play around in.

The next step for this project is to get a final Kerbal printed (Bill), and 1 other helmet (so theres one for each of them), and some more finalized/tweaked visors! Thinking of making another order in June, so we\'ll see what happens. Once I have all 3 models completed, Ill more than likely do a quick little video for my youtube channel to show them off.

And if shapeways ever adds a completely clear material to its available materials, Ill more than likely get all the visors reprinted, although the golden visors are starting to grow on me.... Hmmm.

Should also say - thanks to Squad for this awesome game!

Also the entire album of 32 images (some extra ones not in this thread) can be seen here - http://imgur.com/a/Q2gdD

Cheers for now,

AD-Edge

[Tobu91]

That is absolutely amazing. Brilliant! I\'ve only played this game and been on the forums for a week but I\'ve seen how awesome this community is and this is a great example of this awesomeness.

You should make a rocket.

[Capt'n Skunky]

These are SO awesome and I want one NAO!

But seriously, be careful, unless you have permission and licensing rights, you might be crossing a line here if you distribute anything.

Cheers!

Capt\'n Skunky

KSP Community Manager

[Motorsheep]

Wow. Just wow.

This community is insane.

We\'re getting ship parts, loading screens, autopilots, cartoons, a roleplaying universe, and now even figurines. ???

This so much more than makes up for the whining idiots in the development thread.

I believe we should make up some kind of award for you, sir.

And now that I\'ve properly praised you, let me shit on your efforts:

Frankly, they look a lot less adorably absurd to me than the originals. I believe their eyes should be set a little further apart.

[Capt'n Skunky]

I believe we should make up some kind of award for you, sir.

Something like this?

Cheers!

Capt\'n Skunky

KSP Community Manager

[Richy teh space man]

I wouldn\'t mind having the three of them sat on my desk..

[Briareos]

That\'s some damned fine modelling work there, good job!

As for distribution (assuming you got the rights per Skunky and you wanted to do so in the first place), doesn\'t Shapeways allow you to make the model 'public' so anyone can just go to the website and pay to get a copy made and sent to them?

[semininja]

I have only some very minor suggestions that could improve these already awesome models. One is that Jeb\'s grin could be allowed to stretch about 10% wider, as it\'s Jeb. The head might stand to be a bit shorter, but I can\'t say for certain that it would make much of a difference.

Just a minor question: as far as printing artifacts, does the orientation when modeled affect the orientation when printed? If it did, you could arrange to have it printed head-vertical to avoid that issue.

[GWBBQ]

When are you going to put them in a model rocket and launch them? /

[Sordid]

Those are incredible. The only suggestion I have is that it might be worthwhile to polish the visors to smooth out the artifacts and make them more transparent.

[Panichio]

Those are really cool! Well done!

[Moach]

awesome!!!!

so..... much.... awesome.....

and to think the 'real' first kerbal models were simply tin foil shreds mashed and battered into the shape of little men - which were shortly later non-optionally strapped into cardboard-engineered fireworks-derived 'spacecraft' :

glorious! - you sir, have won the day! - you have been awarded one kerbillion internets! :thumbup:

that, and the right to call yourself AWESOME! - c\'mon, you\'ve earned it! :cheers:

[deadshot462]

You win.

That is all.

Seriously tho, that\'s amazing. Looking forward to future kerbal print outs!

[AD-Edge]

These are SO awesome and I want one NAO!

But seriously, be careful, unless you have permission and licensing rights, you might be crossing a line here if you distribute anything.

Cheers!

Capt\'n Skunky

KSP Community Manager

Glad you like them Capt\'n Skunky!

For the moment, I have no plans on selling the models, its just a fun little personal project of my own. I hope Im not burned on a stake by all the other people on this forum for this point!

Ive had others bring up this concern though, and its my perspective that Squad is a small indie developer, who I have great respect for, so there would be no selling and then profiting of items where the original idea and design is owned by someone else (especially without their direct permission).

doesn\'t Shapeways allow you to make the model 'public' so anyone can just go to the website and pay to get a copy made and sent to them?

Yes, and I already have a shop half setup for some of my other 3D printing projects.

But basically, once you have the prototype shipped and working you can add the model to your shop, and then other people can visit your shop and effectively hit the \'order\' button, and shapeways deals with all of the 3D printing, shipping and payments (with the person who owns the shop getting payed for each sale a \'markup\' which they themselves setup)

Quite a cool and innovative company!

Just a minor question: as far as printing artifacts, does the orientation when modeled affect the orientation when printed? If it did, you could arrange to have it printed head-vertical to avoid that issue.

Yeh the orientation can have quite an effect on the result of a printed model, but this is not linked to the orientation of the exported model from a 3D program, the Shapeways staff usually get the file(s) and can then rotate them, and put multiple models into a single \'print job\' for the printer, so they can get rotated and moved around at this stage.

These guys look like they have been printed lying down. Unfortunately the user has no control over what orientation the model is printed at (at least with Shapeways that it), but there has been talk of bringing in such an option in future, which would be very handy of course.

Those are incredible. The only suggestion I have is that it might be worthwhile to polish the visors to smooth out the artifacts and make them more transparent.

Yes, Im looking into some options for polishing the visors in some way. Could work out very nicely. The only down side, is that I like to have my 3D prints come out of the printer and not need much tinkering. But Ill see how nice I can make the visors, would like to be able to see those faces a bit better

Thanks everyone for the feedback so far! ;D

[Zephram Kerman]

Congratulations! You have won KSP. 8)

The art looks great! At this scale, the limitations of 3D printing are apparent. But I think we\'re all so impressed that it doesn\'t matter.

If the visors cannot be really transparent, then I really like your idea of the gold color visors instead.

Amazing.

[togfox]

I had this idea a while ago and posted in this forum how hard it would be to extract my favorite ksp mun lander from the game so I could print it in 3d and leave it on my desk. It seems this is quite difficult so I didn\'t pursue it. Your models are great. Nice work.

[ColdFire75]

They are AWE-wait for it-SOME

[boyercam]

Does harvester know about it?

[AD-Edge]

The art looks great! At this scale, the limitations of 3D printing are apparent. But I think we\'re all so impressed that it doesn\'t matter.

Yes, any smaller and there might be issues. I decided what size to work at carefully, so I didnt run into any printing resolution related issues, or end up printing massive figures which meant I wouldnt have money to eat for weeks at a time.

Keep in mind tho, a lot of these shots are zoomed in a LOT, looking at it with a human eye and you dont notice any artifacts, unless you really look close (and have really good vision)

I had this idea a while ago and posted in this forum how hard it would be to extract my favorite ksp mun lander from the game so I could print it in 3d and leave it on my desk. It seems this is quite difficult so I didn\'t pursue it. Your models are great. Nice work.

Hmmm, interesting idea. Similar to what that one guy is doing with minecraft - allowing people to select a segment of terrain and then getting it 3D printed, so you can have your favorite building/mountain/castle sitting on your desk.

Its definitely possible, would indeed be some work though.

Does harvester know about it?

Not sure! I imagine hed probably post a comment when he does see this. Hes probably busy coding away at the 0.15 release atm anyways.

[softweir]

Moach knows, and I\'m sure he\'ll tell his brother at some point!

[wired2thenet]

Hmmm, interesting idea. Similar to what that one guy is doing with minecraft - allowing people to select a segment of terrain and then getting it 3D printed, so you can have your favorite building/mountain/castle sitting on your desk.

Its definitely possible, would indeed be some work though.

Perhaps an openGL or DirectX program that could load the .craft file and any relevant parts, and then output the entire model as a single .obj file. It\'s a little beyond my ability to do such a thing, but I\'ve seen that done with other programs that has a similar 'build' style.

Holes in the parts would be problematic though (for example, I imagine struts would be a pain).

[togfox]

I had this idea a while ago and posted in this forum how hard it would be to extract my favorite ksp mun lander from the game so I could print it in 3d and leave it on my desk. It seems this is quite difficult so I didn\'t pursue it. Your models are great. Nice work.

Check my enquiry in the 3d modeling forum on this site.

[707-Engineering]

Amazing work dude !

but just a though, even if the visor looks slightly yellow, it looks like a gold plated visor, which already looks good.

so much awsome..

[AD-Edge]

Moach knows, and I\'m sure he\'ll tell his brother at some point!

Ahh, good to hear

Perhaps an openGL or DirectX program that could load the .craft file and any relevant parts, and then output the entire model as a single .obj file. It\'s a little beyond my ability to do such a thing, but I\'ve seen that done with other programs that has a similar 'build' style.

Holes in the parts would be problematic though (for example, I imagine struts would be a pain).

Struts would indeed be difficult, not to mention impossible with the full-colour printed sandstone material I used for the Kerbals (tolerance would be too small for the material), but with something like the white strong and flexable material youd probably get details like the struts, but then of course the entire model would be white. Guess those of us into model building and painting models would like that, but yeh. Interesting idea all round.

[White Owl]

I like the notion of printing out the whole airframe, and then I\'ll add struts of metal wire myself.