Tag Archives: monarchbutterfly

3D Printing, Etsy, Print Diary

Print Diary – Cork Puppies, An Injury, First Etsy Sale!

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Greetings All! Another busy, busy week preparing for the Occoquan Fall Arts and Craft Show. Here’s what I’ve been up to.

Achievement Unlocked – First Injury???
And….. I suffered my first 3D Printing injury. You know how I was reveling in the benefits of printing on the painter’s tape? One of the “perks” is the items stick so well to the tape, I need to use a scraper to get them off. I like to consider myself typically a smart individual, but Tuesday I made a very un-smart decision as to where I placed my thumb. I sliced right into it.

3D Printing - Injury

Good news– I didn’t get stitches (I used to verb “get” instead of “need”– because it was borderline).
Bad news– it is steri-stripped and all wrapped up to keep immobile.
Good news- now my Mom, my four year old ad my husband get to do raft removal. Muahaha : )

3D Printing - Raft Removal with Ryan and Mom

Cooling Fan
Eight days ago, I had a victory when I replaced my 50mm Cooling Fan. I know, that’s not normally a victory, but you have to keep in mind that I am a software person. Anything remotely hardware related is an immediate victory for me.

That cooling fan was perfect for 8 days. Then yesterday some filament fell into it… again… and snapped a blade…again.

I’m officially adding M107 to all my ending GCodes.

Cork Puppy Licensed!
I heard back from Thingiverse Designer EHM and she gave me permission to sell the Cork Puppy at the Craft Show! This week, we’ve printed a mini army of Cork Puppies.

Cork Kitty
To compliment the Cork Puppy, I designed a little Cork Kitty. I tried to match Designer EHM’s style for the puppy. My two year old instantly pointed and said “Cat”, so it seems I was successful in making the species of domestic animal identifiable. At least to two year olds. : )

Companion piece to Designer EHM's Cork Puppy-- the Cork Kitty. #3DPrinting

First Etsy Sale!
Holy crap, Internet. I already had my first Etsy sale. I wasn’t going to promote my shop until October. I haven’t even told my closest girlfriend that my shop is up. But someone found me and bought something! AND they left the most amazing review.

First Etsy Review

This is very different from my listings on Shapeways where you often have to actively promote to get the word out. Tracy Hazzard from HazzDesign had mentioned to me a while back that Etsy is a buying platform and people know to go there when they are shopping, whereas they may not necessarily think to go over to Shapeways. My experience so far, seems to support her claim.

3D Modeling, 3D Printing

Print Diary – July 29th – Monarch Butterfly and Glowing Cthulhu

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Victory with the Monarch Butterfly
As I mentioned yesterday, I was having some trouble adapting the Public Domain Monarch Butterfly model by Liz Havlin. Although I have been 3D modeling for about 18 months, I was having some trouble achieving what I wanted– I wanted the holes of the butterfly to not be holes. I wanted the sections I wanted to be orange to be 2mm high and the sections I wanted to be white to be 2.3 mm high.
Unfortunately, I was introducing all sorts of manifold issues along the way. One day, I may look back on this and laugh at myself and my “silly ways”, but for now here’s what I ended up doing that actually worked for me.

I was able to easily make a solid butterfly that I extruded up to 2mm high– so I had my orange all set. For the white, I:

  1. Highlighted the vertices of the hole I wanted to fill.
  2. Hit the Duplicate button to make copies of those vertices.
    Monarch Butterfly - Duplicate Vertices
  3. I hit escape (those new vertices were selected).
  4. Then I went to Mesh->Vertices->Separate->Selection. This move those vertices to their own object, which I filled in as a face and then extruded up 0.3mm.
    Monarch Butterfly - Seperate Menu Options
  5. I ended up with a bunch of 0.3mm high cylinders that I added to the solid butterfly (that was 2.0 mm high) and the hollow butterfly which was 0.7 mm high (making my black outline 0.4mm high)

    Monarch Butterfly - New Solid Cylinders

The colors are in the same height and order as the Baltimore Oriole (Orange – 2mm, White 0.3mm, Black 0.4mm), so I can print butterflies and orioles together.

Again, with future modeling knowledge I may look back and scoff at my approach. Nonetheless, I have my butterfly… and he’s beautiful!

3D Printing - Monarch Butterfly in Action

3D Printing - Monarch Butterfly Magnet

Glowing Cthulhu Coaster
Another project I tackled was a lot easier. I have a little Cthulhu cutout I modelled for my “Glowing Cthulhu Pumpkin” on Shapeways.

Cthulhu Pumpkin in Hand and Glowing

In the case of the pumpkin, an LED inside provides the light. I decided to see what ColorFabb’s GlowFill could do. I went ahead and took that same cut out I drew and modelled and carved it out of a small beveled cube to make a coaster. I printed the first 2mm in GlowFill and then the top in a solid color. I am pleased with the result. Not only does Cthulhu glow, but the border around the coaster glows as well. A win.

3D Printing - Glowing Cthulhu Coaster (Blue) - Before After