So I've been working on designing my own figures, completely from scratch, 3D printed. I've designed all the parts, taking measurements from Mega Construx figures (since that's the scale I'm currently most intereseted in).

First, I made my Zartan, printed on an FDM printer:


I tweaked that design, then came up with Zartan 2.0 and printed on an SLA printer:


Zartan is built on the 'realistic' buck I designed up, attempting to have regular person muscles instead of heroic/superhero proportions, while maintaining the somewhat scrunched build of the MC figures required to make them fit in with brick builds. So I needed to work up another buck for the heroic figures, since I'm really into the MOTU figures at this scale. With that, I present MC-Scale Hero Buck 1.0. He needs some revisions done, as I had to do some cleanup with a drill bit and X-acto to get some of the parts to fit properly but as you can see from his right elbow and torso connector, he will work with MC parts (I have clear parts printed to replace them, just wanted to test/show the compatibility). I don't like to waste prints when they come out decently, so I'm trying to think up a name for this guy. I figure he'll either be crystal/gem-based, or maybe ice. And I know the feet/calves look huge but that's on purpose -- I'm a fan of the Alcala MOTU mini-comics, especially He-Man's primitive look before becoming He-Man, so I designed the legs to look like Alcala's drawings, as best I could. I also see I didn't push the torso and crotch pieces together snuggly like I thought I had, but they do peg together tighter:

Printed at 35um with a 2k resolution screen:














As you can see in the pictures, I have mixed in some Mega Construx figure parts. My ultimate goal is full compatibility with Mega Construx for interchangeability, without any modifications after printing. Then the next goal is making molds for small scale production so I can army build.

the detail i can see look really good! maybe paint this guy a light color then a wash so all the detail pops. i like the more realistic feet. do you think more realistic hands are doable? that's the one big turnoff of the factory figures for me.

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Oh man, I want to see a color changing Zartan now.

Primitive He-Man needs a dino to ride…eventually.

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That's wild what can be done with 3-D printers now. Great work

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Thanks, guys!
2D2C: I'll probably give him a wash. Once I have the design down, I'll actually be working on resin blends to get flesh tones so I can print in final color. I've been toying with the hand thing because I agree the brick hands kind of suck. I think I could do a hand posed similar to the original MOTU figures, with the thumb tucked down, and that should be a good compromise. Will be trying that in the near future.

Pluv: both those Zartans change color. The second one is a pic of it in the sun, so it's purple. Out of UV, it's more of a pinkish color.

Sgcaper: yeah, I told my wife that ten year old me would just be dumbfounded if he knew the capabilities we have now.


Edit:
Pluv, here's v1 under uv:


And v2 away from UV:

Action figures from scratch....I've seen many people do this on 3D printers and it makes me wish I could do the same! Great work!

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Action figures from scratch....I've seen many people do this on 3D printers and it makes me wish I could do the same! Great work!

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So I'm waiting on some resin to work on my MOTU figure buck some more and decided to try something else.

I've been working on Mega Construx GI Joes for some time, as the pieces come together. Unfortunately, for some characters, the pieces just aren't there. When I made my '84 Joes, I did the best I could with Deep Six, using parts that sort of fit and a lot of (bad) sculpting. I've never been happy with the results:




Not only did it not look the best, it was way too short, especially for a guy in a high pressure dive suit that would have a lot of bulk to it:


So over the past couple days, I designed up a figure and printed him out. He's all printed except the head, which is a Mega head. I need to cut down the dome a bit and reprint, I wasn't sure how tall to make it to fit the head, but I can cut off a couple millimeters and have it fit better and look better. Then I'll polish it up and hopefully it will then be translucent.

He's printed in white resin then painted with clear resin for the dome:




(ignore the hair that apparently came out of my brush and stuck to the figure. I'll be removing that. Didn't see it until I started making this post)




And he's got the bulk and height you'd expect from a guy in a deep dive suit:




And while designing him up, I got the idea for a couple similar blasts from the past, so there should be updates soon!

i think he is my favorite thing you have printed. you nailed the look for sure. a little tweak and you could have alien universe spacemen.

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Thanks! I'm actually pretty proud of him. While I looked at reference pics to work him up, he's completely my design work.



Shhhh, you'll ruin the surprise!

Great work

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What is a failure, if not a chance to learn and improve?

Since I use acrylic paint, and I'm using water-washable resin, I thought I'd try something an experiment. I did a quick rinse of the model instead of a thorough rinse. Then I painted it with a thin wash of acrylic and put the pieces out in the sun to cure as I normally do since I don't currently have a cure chamber. The results were not good. I'm not sure if the acrylic reacted with the uncured resin or what, but the paint became tacky and did not dry. Even after several hours, it's just as sticky as it was after the attempted cure. You'll see in the accompanying pics how the paint actually moves around and globs up as I touch the piece, similar to how enamels behave. However, I also coated a scrap piece with some pigment powder and placed it out in the sun as well. I was not optimistic about it, since the pigment covered the resin so I didn't think it would cure but it did. I'll attempt it again with a full model and see how it works.

But here's some pics of the failed print, which I'll be reprinting and testing the pigment powder on. I'll also be attempting to use some Future or other clear acrylic on the dome to see if I can make it more transparent, per some other types I've read online.
Behold, Mindroid beta test 1 (my Deep Six model modified, inspired by a Fisher-Price Adventure People figure):

Oh these are nifty.

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