I LOVE MY 3D PRINTER

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I recently received a 3D printer for my birthday. It certainly isn’t what I expected to get for my 70th birthday, but there it is. I read all the instructions, assembled the machine, and watched many videos before I started using it. At first, I just made things that were either free online or included with the program Orca-Flashforge, which I used to make the file 3D printer-ready. Once I felt a little more comfortable, I took photos of one of my polymer-made cats and used an online program called Meshy, which turns your photo into a 3D image. The program is really good, although it somewhat changes what it sees, turning it into something similar but not quite the same. All in all, it does a pretty good job.

The next image I made was based on a drawing from Famlaer – A Different World, the third book in the Famlaer series. It was an illustration of a tiny dragon-like creature being held by a hand. Did I mention that this 3D printer supports 4-colour printing? Anyway, it does, so I took the photo into the Meshy site, transformed it into a 3D image file and loaded it into Orca and over to the printer, using 3 colours. It took over 8 hours to complete, and when it was done, I was amazed. I never imagined that I would see any of my illustrations in a solid 3D form. I had to paint parts of it to make it look more like the original, but it turned out better than I could have ever imagined.

I did a few more images from my illustrations, then decided to go full tilt and use all the colours at once. I found an illustration that I thought would be a perfect fit, went through the motions, and sent it over to the printer. The project took over 45 hours to complete. Whew! That is a very long time to wait, but watching the progress was something else. When it was finished, I had to paint a few areas to give it a closer resemblance to the original, and I added a little sparkle to the windows and plants on the side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

I love my 3D printer and the potential it has to make my life a little bit more interesting. Not that it isn’t interesting already after writing three books, making a number of shadow boxes to sell around Nova Scotia and just having fun in general.

This is another one I made from an illustration from one of the Famlaer books. I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on my new 3D printer. Here are a few photos of what I have produced.

 

 

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About head birdbrain

Robin is an artist and a retired graphic designer living in Nova Scotia, Canada. Art has always been a major influence in her life, whether through photography, pottery, drawing, or painting. Although she thought about it for many years, she didn’t start writing until later in life. Her main influence regarding faeries was a book illustrated and written by Brian Froud and Alan Lee, although her drawings are of a completely different style. From then on, Robin began imagining her own faery world, which stayed in her imagination for many years until she finally sat down to draw and write it. When Robin began drawing characters and scenes, the full story had not yet shown itself to her. It wasn’t until most of the drawings were done that the story finally revealed itself, and she wrote the first draft of the first book, Famlaer – The Real Faeryland, which reads more like a descriptive work than a story, exploring Famlaer and its inhabitants. It provides a solid foundation for the following books: Famlaer 2 – A New Beginning in an Old Land and Famlaer 3 – A Different World, which are engaging fantasy/adventure stories for all ages.

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