Tomato To Model

[Tomato]

So those of you who follow me on tumblr might already know about this whole project, but for those who do not: About 2 months ago I decided to take advantage of Hasbro's "Super Fan Art" program, which allows the sale of 3D prints based on Hasbro's various brands, most notably that of My Little Pony. Since I already had a "base" model sitting around from a whole bunch of Minecraft-style pony avatars I did last year, I decided to take the whole thing a step further and make a whole series of official MLP prints available. Now, after a good 2 months of getting myself enrolled into the program, I am FINALLY able to make the prints available for purchase at my store, Tomato to Model.

I don't actually make very much money off of these, but it's something fun for me to do in my off time, and it helps give me a bit of spending money now that I'm finding myself restricting the money from my job to bills and food. I already made a whole bunch of them myself to ensure print viability, and I am SUPER proud of how Discord turned out (Seriously, that model took me weeks to put together). I'd appreciate any business I can get on this, and if anyone's interested, I do commissions as well.

Here are some examples of the final prints (Kazooie is missing part of her beak, but I believe hat issue has been fixed for future prints)



And with that, hopefully I've gotten this self-serving salesman garbage out of my system for awhile. Seriously, I feel kinda sleazy even posting this here... but I've put a lot of work into this stuff, and I know a few people here might be interested.

[Tomato]

So I haven't really posted this stuff on here very often (mainly because I don't really feel comfortable using this site to post advertisements) but I've put together a ton of new models lately, ones that I'm really proud of and I can't help but want to show them off just a little bit.

First of all, I've made a TON of different Minecraft mobs.

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I've modeled both the Minecraft Boss models (Including the freaking Ender Dragon):

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Upgraded my Steve base model so I can use skins created for 1.8:

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AND I've started putting together my own line of custom Minecraft blocks, complete with baseplates, multiple block sizes, and variant blocks that people can attach all kinds of nifty things to (paintings, picture frames, torches, signs,  ladders, etc)

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Even did a fun little video today just as an excuse to play around with the stuff I've already had printed. Seriously, being able to essentially create my own toy line has been such a blast.

[SickAlice]

Oh my golly I love them. Thanks, this put a much needed smile on my face today. 

[Tomato]

For those who saw my in-progress Waluigi amiibo in Showing off, this is related to that. I want Wario, Daisy, and Waluigi Amiibos.

[Cyber Burn]

Hey 'Mato, you'll have to forgive my ignorance here, my life right now is strictly about dealing with Work, School, and my Kids. I had seen your reference to the Waluigi Amiibos, but I have no point of reference as to what it is. Now after seeing this, my curiosity has gotten the better of me. Also, will this be something that you 3d print?

[Tomato]

I maaaay have already printed it.

Basically, the long and short is that I really wanted to have amiibos for certain characters that I knew Nintendo wasn't going to make (or at least wasn't going to make in a form I could use for SSB) so I opted to make a few of my own using 3d printed models.

[Cyber Burn]

That's cool, I had seen that thread, but I hadn't realized that it was a 3d print. Do you have your own 3d printer?

[Tomato]

No, I run through a website called shapeways

[Cyber Burn]

This is pretty cool. I'm checking the site out now. But essentially, you can Mesh the piece you want, send them the File, and they Print it for you?

[Tomato]

Pretty much, yes. There are stipulations to that though... it has to be in certain file types, you have to set things up to make the model printable, etc. It's a little more complex then just importing a model into the site and saying "K, done!"

Case in point, the Ender Dragon model. I just went through a whole thing where I had to hollow out the entire thing to cut down on printing costs... that's something you don't have to think about when you're making a model for a video game or for artwork (and it's often the reverse, because you actually shouldn't be hollowing out a model for video game, because it creates all kinds of clipping issues). Even with the SSB models, even though I basically imported them straight from the game, I had to do a bunch of stuff to make them viable to use for 3d prints.

[Tomato]

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I've been on a KH kick lately. I know it's hard to tell.

[Tomato]

So being an action figure collector, I've devoted a certain amount of my figure cash over the years just to buying stands just to keep my figures from toppling over, and I've even horded a bunch that came with figures I've long since given away (I LOVE the Jazwares Sonic stands, they work great for 3.75" figs). But when it comes to building displays, this can be problematic... Stands that work well for, say, a Marvel Legends Spider-man don't then work as well for a character like Rhino... or worse, they're so bulky they take up valuable collection space (Looking at YOU Mattel and DCC).

After fussing at it for a bit, I'm trying my hand at making a few of my own. It'll be more expensive, sure, but I'll be able to fine tune them for each of my collections. The one above is a prototype intended for the ML "Pizza Spidey" buck, though when I get a test print in I'll see how it works with several other figures. My hope is that, once I get the kinks worked out, I can make the final product available for anyone who wants it. For reference, the stand is 1.5"x2.5"

Note: The image above has been doctored to resemble how I intend it to look. The actual print will be one color (in this case Black) and I'll be painting the red segments on myself.



Edit: Made up a Superior Spider-Man version as well.

[Podmark]

Cool idea. They'll probably look great.

[Reepicheep]

Tomato, how much are you paying for these prints? If you don't mind a slightly cheaper material and painting them yourself, these would take about 20 minutes tops each to do on my own printer. I can do a whole batch of them and send them out to you, if you cover P+P.

It just seems silly to go to Shapeways when something like that only needs a hobbyist quality printer. And I have more PLA sitting around than I know what to do with.

I'm in the Netherlands far away from my printer until July, but I can help you out after that if you like.

[Tomato]

It'd be about $6 for one, and $40 for a 7 pack, so it's actually shipping which is the bigger issue. That said, my biggest concern right this second is just whether the print even works... there's no set measurement for pegs on figure stands, so I'm having to guess at it a bit here.. If you're up for helping me out though, I'm down with that too... my plan was to print the final stand in black, and then paint the red on myself anyway.

[Reepicheep]

Actually, that sounds pretty darn affordable. I was expecting to hear you paying around $15 - $20/print.

Measuring out that socket shouldn't be too rough. For a socket and peg we normally take the diameter of the socket and minus about half a millimetre for the diameter of the peg. I have no idea how you'd measure that out in inches, though. I've never used Imperial in my life.

It may be worthwhile tapering the peg slightly if you're worried about the measurement. So the top of the peg would be the smallest measurement you think it might be and the base of the peg is your largest guess. That way the figure will definitely fit on there, just maybe not flush with the ground.

[Tomato]

Yeah, that's why I've stuck with Shapeways for the most part. I have to take shipping into account too, but they also have a deal where if you're willing to wait a bit longer (and I'm moving, so I won't get it right away anyway) you get like 20% off on your prints.

I definitely erred in measuring in inches. I normally work in mm, but for the stands I was like "figures are scaled in inches, so I should do my measurements in inches" which was fine for just the general stand size, but that peg man... it's between 3/32 inches and 1/8 or something like that in diameter, and I sort of estimated it was a .05 in radius... whole thing was just a headache. That said, I definitely followed your suggestion about doing a tapered peg, it'll make my life so much easier.

Went ahead and purchased a 7 pack of the Amazing Logo stands, which should arrive in Las Vegas mid-june after my move.

[Tomato]

So part of the fun of personalizing these stands has been unifying my different collections. Right now I'm obviously trying to round out stands for my Spider-Man figures, but I'm running into a bit of a conundrum... I've been using logos for the different stands, but I don't really have Logos for the Goblins, the Sinister 7, or the Gangster/Street Villains. I've been trying to brainstorm some new ones, but if anyone here has any suggestions, I'm open to it.

Edit: Meant to post this too.

[Tomato]

Symbiote stands.

[daglob]

For the Goblin, what about making the design look like his glider?

[Tomato]

Actually, my thought process was actually to do something pumpkin related... I feel like the pumpkin bumb is much more iconic than the glider, its just figuring out a way to do it.

[Podmark]

There is the symbol used for Osborn's Goblin gang/cult a few years back:
http://static2.comicvine.com/uploads/original/8/84857/2647605-green_goblin_tattoo.jpg

The symbiote and Spider-Woman stands look great.

[Tomato]

I had actually seen that, and while I don't mind it, it's pretty specific to Green Goblin... my preference was to do something that evoked all the goblins.



This is what I came up with. Nothing too amazing here... it's a classic pumpkin bomb. Took longer than it should have, frankly.

As for the other 2 types... ehhhh? I've been playing with some ideas for the sinister 7, but the ideas I originally had forming in my brain revolved around some sort of stylized number 6... which died when I realized I actually had 7 members, not the classic six. I've been thinking about doing something specific to Doc Ock (I found an icon from the "Marvel Puzzle Quest" game that I might be able to jury rig into something), since he's the focus character the same way Venom is for the Symbiotes, but if I can come up with something evocative of the team, I'd prefer to do that.

As for the Gangsters... I got nothing. Puzzle Quest actually has a cool idea for kingpin, which is the little gem on his cane, but that doesn't really work the same way for Tombstone.

[Podmark]

I like it. And the orange sets it apart from your other stands.

I did a google search but nothing came up for a Sinister Six logo. Maybe something based on an S or SS? The Doc Ock idea can definitely work.
For gangs maybe a gun, or a ski mask? Or money?

[Tomato]

So I finally got my brain to click as far as getting a logo for the Gangsters (I went with a tombstone... felt like it was appropriate) which is currently being rendered. I probably won't have the final "render" ready to show off until I get home, but here's the pre-render for ya'll



Edit: proper render now, sort of. I'm at work, so I can't do it as nicely as I can at home, but its good enough for right now.

[daglob]

It's probably too cute, but what about putting "R.I.P." on the tombstone?

[Tomato]

See, I had considered doing a cross, but it ended up being a bit off-putting... plus, it felt sacrilegious doing a cross for a group of villains.

I may play around with a RIP.

[Tomato]

Hmmmm... not sure whether I like it better. What do you all think?

[daglob]

Might be better for someone who is a ghost.

[Panther_Gunn]

Is there any danger of the middle bits of the R and the P coming off?  The unadorned tombstone looks *too* plain, perhaps not immediately recognizable as a tombstone.