3D Design - Black Mirror's Metalhead

[von Lucky]

One of my New Year's resolution is to do some 3D design work and have it printed to use in a game. After procrastinating I finally settled on tinkering with Autodesk's TinkerCAD. So far it's been pretty good as an online 3D solid modelling tool with a basic, easy to use interface.

I thought I'd start with something small, but reasonably complex. The aim is just to get comfortable in designing something. After watching season 4 of Black Mirror, I settled on the Metalheads, robotic "dogs" that are influenced by Boston Dynamics' own robotic dogs.







Next up the bodies, and then I'll see what I need to do to get it printed. (I'm only focused on getting comfortable in designing at this stage, a workable design this early would be a bonus.)

Blog post here:
https://donnerundblitzenwargaming.blogspot.com.au/2018/01/3d-design-metalhead-1.html

[Elk101]

I watched that episode and thought at the time that the dog would make a good model.

[von Lucky]

Are you serious? Dude, I'm sorry. I figured you were going to do something way more complicated.

...

And I was now going to ask your help in reviewing the design to see if I am able to have it printed, etc.

...

Which I finished.





Seriously - I made the flipant request and then I thought, "don't be lazy".

...

It's really all your fault for being LAF's Martha Stewart of 3D design. (I am sorry.)

[von Lucky]

Reread your BSC thread, and I see you did flag it being high on your list. I just read the bit about it and drones.

I think you should take this as an extra kick to produce your own Metal head - with a whole lot of extra detail, etc that you'd be good at.

[von Lucky]

Yeah - I designed every part on the flat bed of Tinkercad to assist with having a flat bottom to each part. I was thinking 4 legs, left body, right body and head (third image in OP), but decided the head could just have a centre split. Okay, I'm going to polish it over the weekend (urggh - really need to paint for Cancon) and split at the leg bay level.

Do you think the legs are too thin at ~1mm thick?

[von Lucky]

Okay, thanks. I went back and polished the design. In particular I thickened the legs to 2mm wide (as suggested), cleaned the head/back connection and cut it up for ease of printing. Not sure when I'll be able to organise a test print, etc. but I'm pretty happy with the result.





This is how I've laid out two designs and exported the .obj and .stl files.



Maybe I'll make it to Eureka next week.