3D Printing

Learning As I Go 

I bought an Artillery Sidewinder X2 on 11/11/23. I was looking at a bunch of different printers with the thought of printing out cosplay weapons or outfit pieces. This one was on sale for 11/11 and it was big enough to print something like, a whole helmet. So I decided this was the one. The reviews aren't the greatest and it's surely not the best possible choice, but it's big and I wanted a helmet. 

I watched a tutorial for setting up the printer and pretty much just followed what they did. I levelled out the printer and loosened some bolts. 

Basically, the printer heats up plastic to create an object in .02mm layers. I ran into some bumps at first but found my way around them. I ordered some PLA filament off of Amazon because the Artillery PLA I ordered was going to take another week to arrive. So, the amazon order arrived after I already setup the printer.

Test Print

I started out by printing a test print that came with the printer. It was going fine until about halfway and then it just stopped working. The printer was reading the files from a usb stick that was plugged into it. It came with the printer. Anyway, it looked like the USB was just, dead. I don't know what happened, but it wouldn't read on my laptop either. I figured out a way to use an application on my laptop to print via a usb cord. I found the files on the Artillery website and tried again. This time, it did work, and my test print came out fine. It was like, a little vase. As I said before, I wanted to print a helmet, so I immediately moved onto that.

First Print

I found a file of the goblin slayer helmet already created and ready to be printed on CGtrader.com, it was done by Sonndersmith. I had to slice the file into layers using Ultimaker Cura. At first, it wasn't working because I didn't add supports to the print and it can't print in thin air, sooo, this was a fun learning process. I'll go into detail on another page, Goblin Slayer Helmet.

Now What?

With the helmet done, I wanted to try printing some smaller stuff. I got an application that lets me make my own 3D files, but it is a long process and will take me some more time to learn how to do it right. So, in the meantime, I'm finding files to print from the internet. I tapped into the Warcraft Model Viewer and managed to print out a fox from in the game. It turned out really cool but finding other printable creatures from the game might be harder. I tried printing something with hair and it just came out bald. Turns out some 3d models have thin sheets for certain parts and are not solid. So I'll have to try editing them myself if I want to print them. 

I'm going to keep working on the Goblin Slayer helmet for now and then probably paint that little fox to see how it looks. I'd like to do my characters from the game eventually but the program has to get some updates before I can do that. I want to make the whole goblin slayer outfit but I haven't decided if I'm going to print some more stuff or try using the EVA foam instead. The helmet is the hardest part and the coolest part. If it turns out okay then I'll definitely want to do the whole thing, after that, I'd like to make the Loki outfit from the end of Season 2. That would be less printing but more, figuring out how to sew?