Saber's crown (Updated 30 June 2015)

Saber's character is inspired by the legends of King Arthur. A king need his (her?) crown so over the past couple of years I've been trying to find/make one. Made an attempt five years ago at trying to design one.

 

Didn't turn out that great:

 

SaberCrownTest_001_f by OneSleepyWolf, on Flickr

Didn't like the result and couldn't figure out what material to make the crown out of so I more or less gave up on the project.

 

 

Finding out about Shapeways early last year and reading forum member Somonul's posts about Hrist's and Lidia's 3D-printed armor over the past year gave me the inspiration to have a second go at the crown project.

 

 

After a few months work this is the new design:

 

 

The first test print turned out a bit too small so I'll do a second print of a larger version.

 

Still haven't figured out the best way to get the gold look though. I'm worried that gold paint will be too flat and dull. Did some experiments with gilding a few years back but I'm not sure Shapeways' FUD material can be gilded.

 

Not sure what to use as fake ermine fur either.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Guest

If you've got a lot of patience rub n buff can look amazing. But you have to be willing to work it for a while. For the fake ermine, look for a really nice qualify short pile fake fur trim in white. You can draw on the spots in areas that won't though your Sabers head.

Thanks for the suggestions! Couldn't find a supplier for rub n' buff here in Sweden but I did find some alternatives, including liquid gilt. I think liquid gilt might work better than rub n' buff since it'll be quite hard to polish all the tiny details.

Cool! Can't wait to see how it turns out!

The reprint arrived from Shapeways earlier this week. Looks promising...except I've cleaned the parts with soap and water countless number of times and still an oily liquid keeps seeping out of them. The material is slightly porous so I guess it has absorbed the melted wax that supports the parts duirng printing.

 

Saber's new crown by OneSleepyWolf, on Flickr

Excellent work on the 3D print! I'm really interested in what it will look like when it gets finished!

 

Not sure what to suggest about the oily(?!?) residue since I haven't had that problem with the couple of things I've made through Shapeways.

 

I totally feel ya about the first print being the wrong size. I still have to make some minor adjustments to Naiomi's glasses that I had printed through Shapeways, and the other pair I just forgot to check the scale and they are HUGE! I'm assuming the material you used was Frosted Detail plastic? How does that hold up over time? The reason I'm asking is the DD glasses I did were in White Detail and the ear pieces have warped over time by just sitting on the shelf. Even the front of the frames has bowed a little bit, but that's much less noticeable. These are the glasses I'm taking about. I'm assuming that if the parts were thicker that this would be less of a problem, but I don't want them to be thick enough to be out of proportion. I was hoping to be able to have them made from one of the plastics for easy modding (painting or whatever) but it looks like because of the warping issue that they will all have to be printed in metal.

 

Another suggestion about the fur is to cut short pieces of black yarn that can be folded in half, brushed out with a fine comb and sewn into the white fake fur. Then it can be trimmed to match the length of fur you use. And as always, doing it this way would also keep the dark bits away from your girls skin since you can choose where the color goes.

 

~Sister Kyoya

Excellent work on the 3D print! I'm really interested in what it will look like when it gets finished!

Thanks! I hope I'll finish it someday Who knows, maybe it'll take yet another 5 years before it's finished. Nah, let's hope not. This time around I have the 3D print and I've bought the most important and hard to find fake gems. I had to scrap two earlier designs because Svarowski kept discontinuing the gems I had based my designs around.

 

Not sure what to suggest about the oily(?!?) residue since I haven't had that problem with the couple of things I've made through Shapeways.

Which material did you use? The Frosted (ultra/extreme) Detail materials are printed using a support structure made of wax wich is melted away after the print is done. I suspect the FUD absorbed some of the melted wax. It could also be sunflower oil! Yep, you read that right. Sunflower oil is what Shapeways recommend one to use for cleaning FUD. Hmmmm...... not sure how I feel about that - feels a bit too much like a home brew solution to be the official cleaning method.

 

I totally feel ya about the first print being the wrong size. I still have to make some minor adjustments to Naiomi's glasses that I had printed through Shapeways, and the other pair I just forgot to check the scale and they are HUGE!

I'm surprised by how hard it was to actually judge the size/scale in Blender even though all the measurements were there. The first print model was made with properly scaled front and profile photos of Saber's head as backround images in Blender for reference. The base still ended up a bit too small. Hacked together a 3D scanner and scanned Saber's head into Blender for the second attempt.

 

I'm assuming the material you used was Frosted Detail plastic? How does that hold up over time?

Actually had to use Frosted Ultra Detail. Regular Frosted Detail doesn't have high enough resolution for some of the smallest details on the crown. No idea about FUD's longevity I'm afraid, I've never done any 3D printing before.

 

These are the glasses I'm taking about.

Yep, they're big! Reminds me of those purple glasses that brittish(?) guy on TV/movie (who's name I obviously have forgotten) who played an elderly woman used to wear.

 

The reason I'm asking is the DD glasses I did were in White Detail and the ear pieces have warped over time by just sitting on the shelf.

That's a bit worrying! I'm guessing it might happen because the White Detail is slightly porous so the platic particles arent bonded together as tightly as lets say FUD. FUD on the other hand is less strong than White Detail according to Shapeway (and I assume more brittle) so I'd be worried that long, thin parts like the ear pieces on glasses could break easily.

 

Another suggestion about the fur is to cut short pieces of black yarn...

Thanks for the tip! Have to try that too. Any suggestion on what sort of yarn to look for? I'd imagine I need something that is as soft as possible, almost like the softest cat fur possible.

 

 

Oooops! Wall of text

Finally some progress! Found some free time the past week to clean up the crown parts and glue them together. Also bought a fine-haired, white, fleece fabric (not sure it's fleece, I've always thought fleece would be alot more coarse) to be used as fake ermine fur, dark-blue velvet for the cap and guilding liquid.

 

Saber's new crown 2 by OneSleepyWolf, on Flickr

 

Saber's new crown 3 by OneSleepyWolf, on Flickr

Edited June 23, 2015 by Guest

Looking really great! What's the next step in the process?

 

Commercially made fleece fabric (compared to actual wool fleece) is really soft and squishy and one of the reasons I like it.

 

~Sister Kyoya

Thanks! I don't have a predetermined plan I follow but I think the most logical next step would be applying the guilding liquid. Need to do some experiments first though. Must test if, and how well, the guilding liquid adheres to the FUD material and if the epoxy glue I'll be using for the fake gems can stick to the guilded surfaces.

 

Aha, that explains it! I do remember the shop owner called it fleece so it makes sense now. It's so soft and fluffy and squishy it's silly. Urghf...must resist the urge to touch it

It's so soft and fluffy and squishy it's silly. Urghf...must resist the urge to touch it

 

I know what you mean! I have a box of fleece scraps my mom gave me that's about the size of 2 limited DD boxes. It's huge. I've been trying to figure out what to do with it and have considered a blanket once or twice. I can't deny that part of the reasoning was so I could run my hands over it all the time.

 

~Sister Kyoya

Finally some progress! Got super busy with Kanu's photoshoot so the crown project was put on the backburner for a while.

 

Gold!

 

Saber's new crown 4 by OneSleepyWolf, on Flickr

 

Saber's new crown 5 by OneSleepyWolf, on Flickr