Monday, December 23, 2013

Happy Holidays Dragon Lovers

Hey peeps,

Been a while since I last posted. I have been on holiday for the bulk of this month but I am back now and working away on some cool stuff (mostly for Mold3D). I wanted to share a trailer with you - How To Train Your Dragon 2 (even though I am a little late doing so). I worked on this project for most of 2012 and I am happy to see that it is nearly finished and will be in theaters before we know it! The first film is one of my all time favorite animated features, and it is looking like this one will be just as good! Enjoy.



Monday, November 25, 2013

How I 3D Printed Stoick?

Hi everyone. I have a very special announcement to make. Next January, my business partner Edward Quintero and I will be launching Mold3d.com, The first resource for digital artist, designers and sculptors interested in 3D Printing. I will be breaking down my entire process for 3D printing this Stoick model. I urge you to go sign up for our newsletter at www.mold3d.com to be the first ones to see the breakdown of this 3d Print! Along with this breakdown, we will have some really cool interviews and spotlights of other amazing artist pushing the limits of 3D Printing.


Friday, November 8, 2013

3D Print: How To Train Your Dragon's STOICK.

Two years ago I had the opportunity to join the DreamWorks Animation modeling team to work on How To Train Your Dragon 2.  With modeling finishing up this week on the project, we wanted to put together a gift for Dean DeBlois (Director of HTTYD2). For the past few weeks I have been crunching away at home to finish this 3D print using my Form 1 3D Printer and Zbrush. This has been the most ambitious 3D print I have done, being a final height of 8" and built from 11 separate pieces and then assembled by hand.

If you happen to be going to CTN Animation Expo this year I will be breaking down part of my process live at the ZBrush booth Friday, Nov 15 from 2:15PM - 3:15PM, Saturday Nov 16 from 4:30PM - 5:30PM and Sunday Nov 17 from 4:00PM - 5:00PM.

Want to know more about how Stoick was 3D printed? Check out my next blog post.

See you there!


Myself with Dean receiving the 3D Print. Thanks to Sean Choi for the awesome capture!

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

See you at the CTN Animation Expo!


I am happy to announce that I will be presenting alongside a slew of other awesome artist at the ZBrush booth  during the CTN Animation expo in Burnbank Nov 15-17.

Check out the artist lineup and the schedule for everyone's presentation time!



Friday, November 15th
12:00PM - 1:00PM: Louie Tucci
12:15PM - 1:15PM: Steve Talkowski
2:15PM - 3:15PM: Robert Vignone
3:30PM - 4:30PM: Jared Krichevsky
4:45PM - 5:45PM: Joseph Drust
6:00PM - 7:00PM: Danny Williams 
Saturday, November 16th
10:15AM - 11:15AM: Justin Fields
11:30AM - 12:30PM: Solomon Blair
12:45PM - 1:45PM: Joseph Drust
2:00PM - 3:00PM: Danny Williams
3:15PM - 4:15PM: Loic Zimmermann
4:30PM - 5:30PM: Robert Vignone
5:45PM - 6:45PM: Jared Krichevsky 
Sunday, November 17th
10:10AM - 11:10AM: Damian Szeibert
11:20AM - 12:20PM: Rod Maxwell
12:30PM - 1:30PM: Dominic Qwek
1:40PM - 2:40PM: Danny Williams
2:50PM - 3:50PM: Punn Wiantrakoon
4:00PM - 5:00PM: Robert Vignone


Monday, October 21, 2013

Dancer Print


This weekend I finished up my Dancer print. She is built from 3 separate prints. Before assembly I used a grey primer on all the pieces, then used a semi-gloss black paint for the base, a white primer for the shirt and left the body the grey. From top to bottom she is about 5." tall. At the bottom is some progress pictures. Thanks! Please follow/subscribe!








Thursday, October 17, 2013

Base component

I printed out this component that will be the stand for the dancer bust. This is also my first successful grey resin print! The grey material is so cool! It is also really smooth. It really does smooth out the model between each layer just enough.


Monday, October 14, 2013

The Big Print (so far)








I made a few model tweaks to this sculpt in ZBrush recently and then printed out this larger scale bust. It is the largest prints I have done yet! The print time on her was about 18 hours at 50 microns. She was printed in clear and then finished with Tamiya Fine Grey Primer. This print was also hollowed out some to save resin and print time. Gentle sanding on the face (3800 grit sandpaper) and basic support cleanup were done on the print as well.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Releasing a print, the easy way.





Razor Print Release from Robert Vignone @ Polysculpture on Vimeo.

I put together a video to show an easier way to get the 3D print off of your form 1 platform.

  • Get yourself a razor blade, place its edge against an area of the platform that sticks out the most.
  • Gently wedge it underneath till it stays.
  • Once in, lift the edge of the razor blade and then take your spatula and slide it under. 
  • Work the spatula through the rest of the model. It should be very little work.


Friday, October 11, 2013

Engadget+gdgt Live Boston 2013


Not the greatest photo ever but my prints showed up on the Engadget blog gallery! Mid-Left side you can see all 3 of my earlier prints in cool glass cases. They will be going to London next I believe.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Old is new again

While I move forward with my newer models (which take forever, I know). I am chipping away on my past works to prep them for 3d printing. This is sometimes a tedious job and takes a bit of re-sculpting to get everything working together. Here is a wip image of my dancer. I will have to sculpt some hair,clean up some of the anatomy and cloth, then I can form it.


Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Young girl test print.

Finally had a moment to get some prints off this week. I just finished up this 2" print of my girl print. This is with the new supports from the Formlabs software. They are much more sturdy!

I will say I am happy that she stands up on her own. This was printed at 50 micron and is about 2" tall.

Will post a follow up with the final bust tomorrow. I will also be kicking off a larger print of her next.




Happy Printing!


Thursday, September 26, 2013

Webinar and QandA with Form Labs, Check it out!

Check out the webinar about the form1 printer.Lots of great info here on maintenance, workflows and the future of form1 printing!




Sunday, September 22, 2013

Live from Maker Faire! from Formlabs on Vimeo.


A really cool video of Sam from Form Labs @ the Makerfair highlighting their printers and showing off some work of mine and other artists pieces. I Wish I could have been there! Next time...

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Young Girl Sculpture


Sculpture of a young girl I am preparing to 3D print. Sculpted in Mudbox & ZBrush. Rendered in Arnold.


Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Meriel


Here is a preview of one of the characters I have been working on. She started of as just a bust sculpt but after a while I started to like her design so much that I decided to really take this piece all the way. I will be finishing up the details and texture work this month tol have her posed and ready for print shortly after! I will be shooting for a larger scale print on this one, hopefully in the 12"-16" range with a nice large base. 

Her inspiration is derived from a mixture of a mermaid imagery, leafy sea dragons, and coral. More to come!

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Gone Social


As some of you may have noticed, the blog has been re-designed from the ground up using the strength of Google's new-ish Dynamic Blogger templates. I have fully customized it to my needs using the help of southernspeakers. They have a bunch of great CSS tips for modifying these dynamic templates.

I have added a bunch of new social media links on the right. If you enjoy my post, 3D printing, digital sculpting I encourage you to follow me on any of them you use. I know everyone has their preference for social media and some refrain from using it at all. If that is you, you can always follow the blog directly via email using the  RSS box.



I will be posting some exciting news regarding Makerfare coming up in about a week!

Happy Printing.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Live Print

Livestream print going on right now. From 9:00am 9/11/13 for 8 hours. Check it out here. After the print I will be able to edit the video down to a minute or so for a sweet time-lapse.

Update, Supports.

Update, some form showing up.







Saturday, September 7, 2013

How small can you go?

I often get asked the question, how small can your printer print? Well I decided to scale down that skull print this week and see how well it does. Overall quite well. The only part that did not come through all the way is the connection of the Zygomatic Process. That said, that part of the model was really thin to begin with, even on the full size print. I would probably have to thicken it up just a tad if I needed that part to come through properly. Pics below! The size of the "large" skull is 1" wide x 1 3/8" long (front to back) The tiny skull is about 5/16 wide and 6/16 long (front to back). Both skulls were printed @ 25 micron with clear resin. See previous post with pictures of the large skull here.



Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Grey Resin!

Formlabs have just released their Grey Resin. I just ordered mine. Cannot wait to give it a try!
Get it Here.


Monday, August 26, 2013

The Splash!

I opened up Mudbox yesterday and my Benedict 3D Print showed up as the splash screen, pretty cool!


Friday, August 23, 2013

Skull Final

After a second pass of cleanup I have some photos to showcase the skull print. This one came out pretty exceptional. The cleanup was pretty simple using the nail file. The primer was done on this one using a Tamiya Fine Spray Can. I think I will try doing another this time priming it using the airbrush so it does not spray on so thick (which is partially my fault, I did 2 coats of primer on this one). The next one I do I will try to make it a 1/6 scale standard as well as make the interior hollow for faster printing. I was also told by Formlabs that I should not need to print with the grey material setting while printing clear anymore to get better results, so I will be giving that a shot next as well.

Hand for scale.









Thursday, August 22, 2013

Skull Print Cleanup

After letting the model dry in the sun for an hour to let the resin fully cure. I gave it a light prime to really highlight the areas that needed sanding. Working on clear it is really difficult to see the imperfections and also difficult to see if the imperfection is on the surface or interior. I might try using something other than primer next time. So I can make the material opaque, sand then remove the paint and then polish.
Lots of cleanup to do on the back of the skull.
My tool of choice for this cleanup is a fine/rough grit padded nail file. I cut them diagonally in half to get one side with a point that works well in tight spaces.

Happy Printing

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Skull Print

Today I printed out a skull model with the latest form software/firmware. I printed using the highest resolution setting (25 microns instead of the default of 50 and set the material to the opaque instead of clear). I will have a follow up post for cleanup and paint in the next day or so. The print came out pretty great imo and I cannot wait to see it in matte grey. I attempted to do a time-lapse video of this but the software bugged out and failed on me. If I like the final result of the print enough I will print out a second one and record it going similar to my last video.

Happy Printing!


Saturday, July 27, 2013

Some new molecular prints.

So on the 3D front, I am currently creating some new models to be printed out in the next month. I think the next one I print is going to be an xtra large one that I will have to piece out into 4" parts. So that will take a while to complete. I will post the model when I am finished, then post a followup for the print and breakdown process.

This last week I printed out a molecule, well a model of one. It is a gift to my wife who is a chemist. This is a model of a Isoprene molecule that I built in Maya with primitives and parted and pegged in ZBrush.


This is the final print and has been primed. I will sand it a bit more and do a final paint on it next.


One of my failed prints. My first few attempts I tried the print the entire structure in one go. Some parts worked and many failed. Most of the failures were due to lack of supports or them bending while printing, making some of them fall off.

Isoprene part ready for printing with supports.


Isoprene parted out ready to print.

Friday, July 12, 2013

How To Train Your Dragon 2 - HD Teaser Trailer

I am happy to show off some of the work I was lucky to be apart of for the past year and a half. Check out the teaser trailer to How To Train Your Dragon 2. This is going to be one great movie, I hope you enjoy the preview! I recommend going over to youtube to watch it in full screen HD goodness.


Sunday, July 7, 2013

3-3D prints


Round one of printing is done. It has been an amazing learning experience to say the least. I am pretty happy with how the first batch turned out. There are lots of "little things" that could be cleaned up but it is time to move on. Working/sanding the prints themselves has been a difficult thing but I am starting to get the hang of it.

The prints are based off of these models here, here and here.