discussion Steven's The legend of Zelda, 3D printed figure

[Steven000]

Hi guys,
I'm starting a 3D printed figure named 'Link' from the Nintendo game "The legend of Zelda".
The figure is a Xmass present for my brother, as we used to play the game a lot in our teenage years on an old Nintendo 64...

What is 'The legend of Zelda'?
It's a game made by Nintendo, where an Elf-like character named "Link" has to rescue "princess Zelda" from the evil king Ganon.
(So it's basically 'Mario' for advanced players)


This is how the game used to look...


You start the game as a small boy (far right), during the game you become adult (center) and have to rescue Princess Zelda (left).



The 3D model
I searched online for 3D models of the character, and bought this one from CGtrader (link)


Printing the 3D model
The model is designed in multiple parts. A large 3D printer will be able to print all these parts in one go, but I have a small 'Anycubic Photon D2' resin printer with only a 130mm x 73mm (5.14" x 2.89") build-plate. So I could only fit a few parts for every print, spread over multiple printing days (which had a huge impact on the total printing time). In the above image you can see a base of rocks, unfortunately that part is way to big for my printer, so that will be something I have to scratch build...

I have to 'prepare' the downloaded parts for my printer, for this I use a free program called 'Chitubox' - To save on liquid resin all the parts are printed 'hollow'. To print the parts successfully they need a 'support' structure, which are the 'vertical strings' attached to the build plate you can see in the pictures below...

Printing the head with two fore-arms...


Printing swords and scabbards...


Printing the torso (largest part of the model)...


(typing 2nd post due to photo limit)

 

[Steven000]

Sprue shots
After a few days of printing I removed all the support structures, cleaned the parts with IPA and cured them with UV light...

The box : D...


I'm not sure about the scale, so I added good old 'Tamiya extra thin' as a reference.
I decided to print the model 2 times, since all the data was now stored in the printer...
(One for the Xmass gift and one as a spare/backup or myself)


The head...


Torso and fore-arms...


Shield and sword...


Scabbard and accessories...


Legs...


All the parts are now printed, but I had to add a lot of holes (printed with holes) so the liquid resin could drain out...
So the next step is to 'fill' all these drain-holes and clean-up the imperfections...

Thanks for reading and cheers,
Steven

 

[Jim R]

This 3D malarkey is a whole new world. It certainly looks very good, very smooth and nice crisp detail. It will be interesting to follow the next steps

 

[PaulTRose]

I think this 3d malarky will call the end to dodgy low quality resin stuff punted out by some one in his shed!

They look really crisp and detailed

 

[papa 695]

They have come out very nicely indeed.

 

[Steven000]

Yes 3d printers can do crazy stuff, but it's still a steep learning process and one big sticky mess... So I don't think the resin products will get whipped out soon, but still..."cloudy the future is, always in motion"...

 

[HAWKERHUNTER]

The detail looks incredible Steven. Looking forward to seeing how this one develops.

 

[john hutton]

Steven,
Those parts have come out brilliantly . Detail looks really good, motifs on the shield look very crisp. Looking forward to seeing this built and then a tickle with the hairy sticks if you please. Will you scratch a same/similar base or will your own imagination take a hand? Crack on sir .

 

[Steven000]

Thanks John, I'm not yet sure about the base. I think I will make something similar with rocks, as he's posed to stand on something like that. Perhaps a bit simplified, depending on my spare time... Cheers!

 

[Steven000]

Hi guys,
Have been working a bit on the figure this week, first filled all the drain-holes with putty,

Here I dry-fitted the parts to give you an idea of the scale,

​
I primed the parts with a spraycan (also gray), then used the airbrush for a few base colors,

​​​
A lot of details need to be painted with a brush, I’m using vallejo Air acrylics which gave me a hard time ‘covering’ well. I started with white as a base,


Then added yellow and red, it will take a few layers to get a decent coverage,


For the face I could use my airbrush, started with a dark flesh tone followed by a lighter sand color. Light gray for the eyes, black for the iris,


Next I added small light blue dots in the iris, a black pupil and a white fake highlight dot. At the moment I’m happy with the eyes, that’s always a scary challenge…


Some more details were painted, I might change the gray outline of the shield to silver as it looks a bit weird, but it’s a pain to redo all the lines again (sigh)…



Hope to paint some more this week…
Thanks for reading, cheers

 

[Jim R]

Painting is coming on a treat. The eyes are excellent.

 

[Neil Merryweather]

Wow I am in awe of your airbrush skills. I just don't have the patience

 

[Richard48]

Wow now thats something.Superb work.Jolly well done.
Richard

 

[Steven000]

Thanks guys,
Still blocking in the colors with thin layers of acrylic paint, it's a bit of a struggle to get decent coverage so it taking me a long time,


Also repainted the contour of the shield in silver, the red needs more layers


cheers

 

[minitnkr]

Wow, great job. Looks almost too pretty to be a guy. Does he have pointy ears?

 

[Steven000]

Yes he doesn't have a rough man face indeed, sort of a Japanese culture thing in this genre I assume. He does have pointy ears but they are a bit hidden between the hair pieces. Cheers

 

[john hutton]

Evening Steven,
Great to you have started the paintwork, all starting to look very good indeed. Really like the work you have done on the face, eye's look top notch. Looking forward to watching this move along. Superb printing in the first instance and the start of a quality paint job as well, bring it on mate.

 

[Steven000]

Thanks John
Still working on the base colors, tried to paint some wood inside the shield to break up the gray,


painted more details, some fingers as well,


The white is starting to cover, took a few layers and will probably have to tone it a bit down again with a gray wash,


Painted all the details on the body,


I think I'm done with acrylic paint now,
next I'm going to try to use oil paint for drybrushing and (pin) washes, bit out of my comfort zone here...

Thanks for reading,
cheers

 

[HAWKERHUNTER]

Blimey Steve. This is really taking off a treat. Top marks. The paint work is just incredible especially the work on the eyes and the wood effect on the shield. Its going to be a stunner.

 

[Jim R]

That is excellent. Very neat, precise painting. Looking forward to the oil work.