My New… Hobby?

I’ve always enjoyed creating dimensional characters with clay, wood, fabrics, etc. so I thought “Hey, why not buy a 3-D printer and make some characters that way?” Sounded simple enough… except the first thing you have to do is create those characters in a 3-d modeling program. I had already failed miserably with Maya and Z-Brush but felt I might have a fighting chance of learning Nomad Sculpt… and after several months of practice I did get to a point where I could create something in Nomad Sculpt that I was, well… not totally embarrassed of…

…so on to step two. I buy a Bambu Labs P2S 3-D printer and it’s all going to be fun ’n games at this point, right?!? Uhm… no. A huge learning curve. Six kajillion settings to choose from and I had no idea what to do… so I started watching YouTube videos trying to learn how to use this newfangled contraption. They say you learn way more from your failures than you do from your wins and I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt… that is absolutely true… and I have learned… a lot…  

…and of course, rather than do simple things I’m trying to do complex shapes with arms ’n legs and miscellaneous stuff shootin’ out this way and that and I’m here to tell ya failure is built right into an approach like that. I’m currently figuring out how to cut my characters into separate pieces so they at least have a shot at making it all the way to the end. I’m also learning how to repair problematic areas and put everything put back together again…

…and the last thing on the “to do” list is painting and that sounds like it should be pretty easy for a guy who made his living for decades with a paint brush in his hands… but of course it was not. Back to YouTube and painting videos. I ended up buying a set of Vallejo Game Color paints because they are super highly pigmented and are a huge step up from the 89 cent a bottle Apple Barrel brand paint I was struggling along with…  

…so my new hobby is A LOT more involved than I had originally anticipated it would be… but it’s all good… I’m learning and doing something new and it’s extremely rewarding to transform one of my rough little pencil sketches into a full blown 3-D model. Double big fun.