So I seem to have an odd obsession with coasters. I'm not quite sure where it stemmed from, as I've never really made my own coasters before despite thinking about it since I moved into my first roommate-free apartment. I had actually forgotten about my plans until I was browsing Thingiverse for gift ideas and came across these bad boys. Yes, 3D printed video game themed coasters. The nerd in me felt like she had just seen the face of God when I beheld their 8-bit glory. However, they were not quite good enough for me. To be fair, nothing really is-- mayhaps that's why I feel inclined to make things. But I digress. After starting to play Ocarina of Time again, I could not resist the thought of turning the Sage Medallions into coasters. After a quick Google search to ensure no one else had already made them how I planned to make them, I dove right in.
This project is special to me for more than just my coaster craze. It's combining a few different processes I've been wanting to try for years-- 3D printing, molding, and casting. I've never been able to afford trying the latter two, as getting started requires a lot of materials and gear, so I'm super excited and terrified at the same time. On top of that, I credit Ocarina of Time as the game that got me into the world of video games, so this should be fun!
Part One: Modeling
The first step, naturally, was to create the models my Printrbot Play would turn into piles of plastic. After trying to get back into Blender and failing for the billionth time, I bit the proverbial bullet and shelled out some cash for a license to Maya LT. Some people feel you can't beat free, but those people obviously weren't forced to get intimate with Maya very quickly for a college modeling course and found themselves unable to learn any other program afterwards. You could make a Stockholm Syndrome joke if you'd like-- I won't stop you.
I decided my coasters should be approximately 3.5 inches wide and 0.5 inches tall, with the inner surface closer to 0.25 inches tall. Maya, like almost all other civilized creatures, prefers metric units, so I worked on a scale of 25.4 mm equals 1 inch. I essentially modeled it pretending the unit grid was in inches and then scaled the whole thing by 25.4 before exporting it to an .obj file for printing. I included a picture of the actual medallion from the game as an Image Plane as a reference while working, and decided to keep it all low-poly to better suit the spirit of the N64 era. (I might at some point make a video outlining the process I used for modeling these coasters, as it isn't trivial if you've never done something like this before-- if you'd like to see that, please let me know)
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| The first model took me ages-- I'm still pretty rusty! |
Unfortunately, I only saved a couple work-in-progress shots, one of which is of the first iteration of the Forest Medallion. After printing the above model out, I realized the inside was way too small to hold a normal-sized cup because I didn't bother measuring the inside. I guess I'm really getting into the "rapid prototyping" spirit with this project, eh? Iteration one also taught me the value of positioning your models properly to better suit the capabilities of your printer. For example, my Play is great at Z-resolution, but is kinda sloppy on surfaces at a small angle from the print bed. Since I printed this one laying flat, the precision of the Z-axis was wasted on the outer edge, leaving the inner detail rough and ugly due to imprecise surface printing.
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| So many splotches... why are they splotchy? |
Iteration Two-- where I had actually printed out all six coasters-- had an unfortunate mishap that I will go into more detail about in the next post. Well, it had several unfortunate mishaps in my ill-fated attempt to sand and smooth, but one of them was enough to actually ruin the coasters. Hopefully you can see the issue in the above picture-- splotchy bits across every surface of every coaster! Before I ruined them, these had a thinner outer ring than Iteration One, making them much better at actually holding cups. Printing them standing up improved the details, but left a few of the edges a little rough. Sanding helped with the outside, but it was pretty much impossible for me to reach any part of the inside. This leads us to...
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| The inner part of the Water Medallion in center, back-up pieces to the side |
Iteration Three, which is currently in the process of getting a much more thorough quality assurance pass than the previous two attempts. For this round, I've decided to print each coaster in two parts-- one for the inner detail, another for the outer ring. This means I can orient both to utilize the superior Z-resolution of my printer. Above you can see the inner piece of the Water Medallion-- this piece will be stuffed into, and glued to, the outer ring. I have again used the Forest Medallion as a test. This time around I'm actually able to properly sand the inner piece. Yay! Combine that with a smaller print resolution, and I've already got a silky-smooth tester going. There are a few small gaps between the two pieces, but I'm hoping a little super glue will fill them in instead of just sticking to my finger. If not, I'm assuming it'll just turn into a small blemish in the mold that I can just trim out. Hopefully.
Hopefully Iteration Three will be the last iteration, as I'm still trying to figure out what to do with all these failed attempts that are watching me with judgmental, non-existent eyes. For the next post, I'll go over some of the post-processing techniques I've been trying out and how exactly I've messed up each one. May the super glue be with you, not on you!
UPDATE 3 October: Iteration Three was not the final iteration, naturally. I'm now up to Four, which is essentially the same method as Three except I've added a little "foot" to the back of the inner models so they won't topple over while printing if the supports start coming loose. After the printing is done, I'm simply hacking off the little foot with a saw/ Dremel tool so I'll still have a flat surface for molding. Yes, I came up with this after I checked on a print and found it getting dragged around with the raft and supports still firmly attached to the print bed. Live and learn, I guess. I'm going to run out of filament soon!
UPDATE 10 October: Iteration Four was almost there. The way I modeled the two pieces left a noticeable gap between them when attached, so Iteration Five added a little ledge to the underside of the outer ring on which the inner piece can rest, that way I can actually push the pieces together firmly when gluing to prevent gaps. I'm going to try printing them lying down so I don't have to hack off that little foot anymore, which means it'll need more intensive finishing. We'll see how that goes.
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