Continuing with my series of graffiti 3D prints, next up is Plantrees.

For those that don’t know, he paints a tree! Of varying styles of course, sometimes it’s really complicated:

Sometimes it’s really simple:

And sometimes it’s juuuusst right (for 3D printing anyway!):

For this 3D Print I decided to model one of the middle-complexity trees between crazy complicated and throwie. I made half the model in Blender and then exported it to zbrush for detailing the trunk and leaves. When I modeled it, each branch was actually a separate mesh in Blender. When I imported the OBJ file into ZBrush I dynameshed which merged the entire thing into one solid continuous surface ready for 3d printing. Seen below is the final Zbrush model. I had to split the upper and lower sections into separate meshes to make it easier to print.

After putting it off for a few weeks, I finally got around to printing the two halves:

You can see above how I printed the actual tree part upside down. This has both advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, it was actually possible to print this way! Though I didn’t test it, based on my experience I highly doubt it would have printed correctly if I had tried to print it right-side up. But also, if I had printed it upright, the supports would have gone in the crevasses underneath the branches. This would have been much harder to clean out. As it stands, I only had to remove support material that is on the outside edges. One of the disadvantages though, is that the outside edges would look really sloppy until sanded. Speaking of sanding, below you’ll see the sanded and attached print:

I tried really hard to sand it, but there was always a lot of noise. Even in the final form you can see lots of rough spots under the paint… oh well. Speaking of painting:

In photos it comes out suuuper glossy looking. It doesn’t quite look that glossy in real life, which is good, because the glossy surface highlights the surface imperfections under the paint. It is glossy for sure, but looks a bit better in real life.

April 20, 2015 at 6:08 am | Art