One of the things Kevin loves about creating art is its evolution. Especially playing with his 3D printer gives him plenty of time to not only use his his CAD program to create a design, but then use his Cerberus 3D 400 3D printer on his desk to create something like the small maquette, or model, he shows in this free how-to video.
The maquette is of a snake plant, which is a real plant. He was considering either creating the form he is showing out of metal or creating it on his 8-foot-tall Cerberus 3D Gigante 3D printer. But first, Kevin has to see how the form will look once he gets it out of the computer. Will the 3D printer actually make it correctly? What kind of changes does he want to make from what he sees on the screen?
Kevin then shows another, larger maquette – or a small sculpture, depending on how you want to look at it.
A change in filament becomes really important. The small orange maquette he showed was made with PETG filament, a kind of hybrid between PLA filament, which is the easiest one to print with, and ABS filament, which can go outside (PLA can’t go outside).
Kevin turns to the larger of the 2 sculptures, Viper Plant. He 3D printed it in a PLA translucent red or a ruby red because he didn’t have enough PETG filament to print the sculpture this size.
After looking at it, Kevin thought, “How can I play with this more?” He painted the base with brown and black to make it look like dirt, then just started working up the stems with a little bit of purple, a darker green forest green, and a little lighter green, and then just kind of faded up into the translucent red.
But Kevin wasn’t done. He added a little copper, spraying the paint from a foot, 18 inches away, giving it a little spritz of color. Still, if you take the sculpture outside, the sun actually still shines through it a bit. That is really cool!
He also took his original design and went back into his CAD program, tweaking and shrinking some of the some of the stems, making them a little bit smaller, giving them a little bit of a twist, a little bit of attitude to make them look like a real plant.
And then Kevin thought, “I love this! Now it’s time to do THIS!” and he points to his sculpture Seymora sessicus. This sculpture is printed in PLA filament. He had tried 3 different times to print this artwork, twice with PETG, which were horrible failures. Then he tried to 3D print it again in that same red translucent PLA and got within about 3 hours of finishing when the computer stopped working.
He started over with rainbow filament, which you can see on all the pads. He then painted on the bottom with a little bit of forest green and blended in 4 different shades of gray. Kevin points out that you can actually see the rainbow filament peeking through the green stems. He says: “This is this is exciting!” Finally, he added red tips to the pads.
But there are still some hidden treasures. Part of the difference between Viper Plant, which came out nearly perfectly, and Seymora is that Viper Plant was 3D printed with American filament and Seymora was printed with Chinese filament. Too, he blew up the design significantly. A slightly off setting created little voids, but Kevin loves those little artifacts.
When you’re 3D printing, you’re always messing with the settings and keeping an eye on your prints. But Kevin loves how this sculpture turned out.
Thanks so much for watching. Please leave your comments below, and Kevin will see you next time.
Before you go, don’t miss his helpful gardening advice ….