1:6 Darth Vader 3D Laser Scan & Print Project

[Too Much Garlic]

Working on the scans and models for the v2 line. Better scans, reworked and resized models. Worked until the last minute of the trial on the software I was using with some additional tweaks to make things more accurate. As it stands now, I won't be able to save anymore, so I can't make anymore tweaks... so this is as good as it gets. I probably won't print the dome, but I am trying to find another source for some of the parts and previous scans, so this project isn't over yet.

The Nefertiti bust is a scan of the actual piece that has been shared online.

And in the last minutes of the trial I even worked up a 1x4x9 Monolith from 2001 just for fun.




This will probably be the last update in a while... these past 42 days have been rough as hell... so I need a break.

[Too Much Garlic]

Currently trying to replace the pictures since Imageshack nuked all free accounts. It is slow and tedious because Imageshack scrambled the links, so the name of the picture wasn't included... so I have to go through every link to find the right picture.

[Too Much Garlic]

Latest print.

[Too Much Garlic]

Been working on adding hair to Prowse since the start of February and just wanted to show the progress. Sorry for the dark and blurry pictures - lighting sucked and I couldn't hold my damn hand still for my phone to focus and get a good shot. The other pictures show the same issue, as they were all taken with my phone camera.

Here's a shot from February 5th when I started the basic hair "shell" made out of apoxie sculpt, as I can't sculpt directly onto the head cast due to wanting to save the scar detail on the back of his head. In order to do this and not have the shell grip the head and be impossible to take off I am leaving some areas off such as the temple and sideburns, which will be done in super sculpey, so I can mold it and then remove the hair for a reveal style Prowse for later.


Moving on to February 11th and I started adding in hair details, such as basic thickness and started working on the hair at his brow and chose the swooped up look he has in some pictures taken during ANH. I can't remember if I had started working on the area between his eyebrows and upper eyelids at this time, opening that up and making the eyelids more visible and not covered like most others and giving him that specific look.


February 13th I had been working more on the left side, bulking things up and starting to add swirls and alternate directions for the hair to give it that wild seventies look. Working on Prowse really shows what a large mane he actually has and it's actually fairly reminiscent of how Anakin was shown during RotS, just parted at the opposite side and not as curly.


Then we come to last night, February 18th where I worked some more on the hair at his brow and the parting line and I think I did a pretty decent job of making it look natural.

[Too Much Garlic]

Been working on the project some more to perfect things and try to find ways to start actually producing them. With the advance in 3D printing technology and near perfect quality that requires almost no work on the prints themselves other than priming and painting becoming more affordable, this route is preferred over getting prints made and then mold and cast those in the traditional way. More on that later.

This however means that the models has to be made print ready and this is what I've been working on for a while now. Most of the work is easy enough, just aligning surfaces so everything ends up creating a solid model, but some means I have to go down and manipulate the models on the polygon level (the points that make up the model geometry) and that is a bit trickier and I've had to learn new techniques and sometimes had to ask for help.

Basically, the parts I'm working on right now are the face masks - ANH, ESB, and the Truly Symmetrical version - fitting them all with grills and tusks. For the most part much of that work was done already, but some of the models or some parts of the models had inverted surfaces, so I had to go in and align things correctly and fixing excessive geometry and simplify things, as some of the previous work I did added extra unnecessary connection lines in the geometry. Still have a lot to do on that account. Though you can't see it in the picture there is a lot of cleanup still needed on the grill models, and I'll probably tweak the position and angle of the tusks as well, trying to get it as screen accurate as possible.

This is the line-up so far:
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Here's a glimpse of the Truly Symmetrical face mask in a more close-up view with tusks and grills attached. Though it could be cool to keep it clean, so ESB configuration is possible, I am not working on that - maybe some day.
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Next up is the ESB belt box. I'm not entirely done with it at this point as I would like to try and get the lines on the hose part more accurate (a mistake I made when I had them made originally to ask for them to be made farther apart than accurate - a decision I regret now, but I was afraid it might look weird once printed to go fully accurate. Unsure whether I can achieve it myself)
The first picture shows the box already in a state of rework. In the earlier version the edges of the box were sharp with no curve, but I always wanted to incorporate the curve to the edges and was helped by Paul Carson on how to achieve it, so thanks mate. But all the rest of the details on the box are still the earlier version.
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In comparison I reworked the green lights and the red light and the tops of the metal studs to make them more accurate. I am not done with the tweaks yet, but I'm fairly satisfied with the outcome so far. Of course, because I'm an idiot I didn't work on the same box, so sorry if that is confusing.
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Then I went on to the ANH belt boxes, in order to take a break from the "at what I thought at the time as being hard work" ESB boxes... to the "OH MY EFFING GOD I'M OUT OF MY MIND THIS IS DIFFICULT" type of work the green lights turned out to be. Those alone was a whole days worth of work. Mainly because I suck and am a complete newbie in regards to this kind of 3D modeling... but man oh man... I DO NOT envy 3D modelers and I bow down to their patience and skills. But... I'm kinda pleased with the result. Is it perfect? NO! Was it needed and will it actually be worthwhile in such a small scale print... hmm... tough question, but in my mind the answer would have to be yes. Frankly, my mindset has always to go über accurate, even if it won't even show up in the print, so I'm still debating with myself whether I should even put knurling on the metal studs or not. I'm aiming towards: absolutely. Will I be able to do it? At this point: unknown. Skill not learned yet.
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And here are the green lights on the belt box. Everything else is all earlier version - much of it all the way back from the Eric Chan days at the early days of the 3D project, with rework by Jesse McClear who's the guy who has helped me greatly with this project. Thanks man.
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Lastly, taking a stab at fixing some inaccuracies on the ESB chest box that I may have caused when it was being remade by Jesse and trying to incorporate some things that were pointed out to me after it was made that I really had no clue about, such as the sticking out light covers on the coin slots and when it was pointed out that the red and blue light covers might be too large. I made them a little smaller and more rectangular - they were more square before. Reworked the spacing between them and the greeblies above and between the lights. Will probably have to make the lights stick out more from the box, as they are currently pretty flat compared to the reference. I think it turned out looking okay.
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Let me know what you think and if you spot something that could need a fix, please let me know. I can't go super accurate, as I'm not skilled enough. Down the line I hope to scan all original parts or cast from original parts for these as well.

[DynamicMenace]

its all looking good man, coming together nicely. the Prowse head looks great. good likeness.
all other parts looking good as well.

and im interested in knowing this new "affordable" tech of printing where things are print ready and there is no post print rep needed.
my understanding is that those machine capable of that are in the tens of thousands of dollars, or maybe even 100k. i mean some you dont even need paints, they print them in color.
but nothing like this is anywhere near affordable yet, at least to my knowledge, so please fill me in

[Too Much Garlic]

Well, you need to clean the prints and cure them under UV light, but they hardly have any layer lines, as you can print in much smaller layer heights.

I'm looking into the AnyCubic Photon.

[Zeiram]

There's no such thing as "no post print prep," but the new generation of (<$1300) SLA printers is very close. You can easily print at 50-100 micron layers with nearly invisible layer lines. Support blemishes still need to be cleaned up a little though.

[Too Much Garlic]

Naturally, but compered to the Creality CR-10 I have, the work I would have to do on the print will be minimal.

More work on the ANH box. Worked on the grill, trying to replicate the look of the found part grill. Was damn difficult. Then I worked some on the metal studs. Think it looks much better now. I'll have to study up on how to do knurling on 3D models and I think that will be the last thing I do. Other than simplifying the geometry on the box I haven't really worked or altered that, as well as the red light.

Let me know what you think.

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[Too Much Garlic]

Okay... after looking at the reference I got annoyed with the red light. Will probably tweak it a bit more, but it's much closer to the found part now.

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[Too Much Garlic]

This has been in the planning stage for a long time, but I finally got the latest scans for the v2 scaled Vader project. I honestly never thought it would be possible, but talking with the owner of the pieces he was open to getting his stuff scanned, so I then involved Mike, vadermonkey on The Prop Den forum and other forums, to do the scanning for me, as I wouldn't be able to do it myself. A trip was planned, the scanning session took place, and the scan slices were meticulously put together to create the final models as they are seen below. I'm really appreciative of the owner and I can't thank him enough for being willing to get his pieces scanned and I can't thank Mike enough to go on the trip to scan them for me. I really appreciate it, both of you.

Anyway, on to the pictures. I will work on the scan models and make the shoulder bells separate, add edges where they are missing in the scan and make them ready for 3D printing along with the rest of my v2 project. Enjoy.

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[Too Much Garlic]

A little update. Haven't done much since I've been suffering from a stomach infection. Hasn't been a great couple of weeks. In the last few days I've been feeling better and started working on the scans again. I'll probably run the face mask through the fuse again as I may have set the resolution a bit lower than I would have been able to fuse it, so I'll take another stab at it. I also worked on the old print models, trying to fix them, and I think it turned out pretty great. Will need to run the ESB through the fuse again to see if I can get it just a bit better, so I won't be showing that off. Due to the new fuse I was able to set the mouth grill deeper in the mouth - more accurate - than I was able to do before, so that's a plus. Had to go back to the original grill models as I had butchered the ones I fixed previously and it was easier to start from scratch rather than trying to fix the mistakes I made.

First off is the DJ armor and helmet scans.
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And next is the v2 ANH print model fixed and looking nice.
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[Too Much Garlic]

The new fuse of the DJ face mask can be seen in the assembled picture. I quickly edited the fuse blob out of the dome to create this image. I trimmed a lot of the slices from unnecessary bits to create a cleaner version and re-aligned some of the additional slices to better match the model eliminating a lot of the previous errors. Also managed to fuse it in a higher resolution so the edges are a lot sharper - more in line with the other pieces.

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Now I just need to fix the ESB face mask fuse, as well as work some more on the ESB dome and chest and belt boxes.

[Too Much Garlic]

A small update: The DJ as well as the rest of the v2 project 3D models will hopefully be finished and prepared for printing in the early months of next year and will then be passed on to the printing company. Once I've gotten them back and after I've inspected it I will send everything as well as some of the already printed v2 pieces on to the new producer who will mold and cast these for me and make them available. I'm hoping the schedule holds, but delays can happen, but I'm crossing everything I have in order for everything to go well.

Expect updates all along the way as this is gearing up for finalization. Armor kits and busts first and then statues later.

[Too Much Garlic]

I think I'm done working on the chest boxes. I fixed the lights on both boxes and the greeblies on the ESB box. Can't say it's perfect and it may be difficult to see in the picture, but the lights are now extending out from the box a bit more and were narrowed vertically - I didn't have measurements of the original lights used, so scaled them by eye and re-positioned them on the box.

Though the original boxes were really wonky, which is something I simply don't have the skill to do with the models, I think I'm getting pretty close to how it should look. If you spot anything that could need more work, please let me know.

I'll try and get the belt boxes finished as well. Still need to try my hand at creating the knurling effect on the metal rods and perhaps tweak some of the other bits, but it's slowly getting there.

Old boxes are on the left and new boxes are on the right:

ANH:
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ESB:
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[Too Much Garlic]

Working on the ESB face mask. Am having a bit of trouble with the chin vent opening. I simply cut it open in the first picture below, but it needs to be fixed properly. Just not sure how to do it yet.

As you can probably tell it's a little different than the previous ESB face mask I had printed some time back. It no longer has the neck extension of the previous model. It is also a lot sharper and I was able to place the grill deeper in the mouth opening due to fixing the issue with the mouth on the model. All in all much better if I could just figure out how to fix the chin vent.

New to the left, old version to the right.
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And thought it could be fun to show off the TM based face mask models. ANH towards the left in the picture, symmetrical ANH in the middle and the ESB WIP towards the right. Currently the chin vent fix is very crude, so I'll work on making that look better.
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[Too Much Garlic]

Scans are being perfected for printing. Here's a little teaser, while we wait for things to finish up.

Going to try and finish up the chest and belt boxes soon.

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[Too Much Garlic]

Took a stab at fixing the hose on the ESB box. Originally the 3D modeler had sculpted it accurately, but since I, at the time, did not know whether it would show up in the print I asked him to make the ribbing pattern larger than it should be. Now having had the box printed it is clear that the pattern does show up, so I wanted to create a more accurate pattern.

I am not as skilled as the original 3D modeler, nor the other modelers who've helped me over the years, so I probably did it in a more complicated way than necessary. I used the knurling option I used for the ANH box and then simply embedded it in the basic hose model without the pattern and it created a somewhat pleasing look.

Anyway, the original hose version is shown on the left with my revision on the right.

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Also reworked the ANH chest boxes. Added details on the lid to simulate the wrap-down sides that doesn't sit exactly evenly - and I had to redo all that on the other box so they wouldn't be identical. I then rounded some of the edge corners on the lid and corners of the box, turned the screws on the sides according to the reference I have available showing some of them. Then I reworked the position of the metal studs, re-scaled the red light and green lights down and re-positioned them and angled them to more match the reference, and then I fixed the size of the grill opening, as the bottom edge sat down a bit too low, so that was pulled up a bit, to make it narrower. And lastly I curved the grill outwards a bit to replicate the look of the original grill being pressed out into the grill opening from the inside - this I gotta admit was a real PITA to do as I'm NOT a skilled 3D modeler, so it was a lot of polygon manipulation.

Furthermore, I noticed that the dimensions of the main box looked off when I did overlay comparisons, so narrowed it down a bit on the short edge and widened it a bit on the long edge, and noticed the grill opening and grill wasn't straight with the edge of the box, but was angled at tiny bit.

I kinda like the result. Just hope it's not gonna be a bitch to mold and cast.

Previous versions on the top and the new refined version at the bottom.

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I thought it could be fun to show the overlay to show how I try to make things as accurate as possible.

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Wanted to show a closer view of the finished helmet. It's a different face mask than previously shown. This one is reworked from the standard DJ shape with the neck and rear opening reshaped using the TM face mask as a guide in those areas, as well as replacing the tusk tubes, and lastly we exchanged the DJ lenses with scans of the VP lenses, for those who know these particular casts to make the best representation of the screen used ANH I could think of.

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[Too Much Garlic]

While working on the chest and belt boxes and going to fix the few issues with the mesh on the ANH dome and chest armor, and potentially being able to make a new fuse of the ESB dome, I wanted to show off the parts making up the whole v2 project. Some of these has already been printed, such as the two stormtrooper helmets. I had previously printed out Vader parts in the v2 line, but I improved all of them so have to print out all the Vader parts again.

Anyway, listing things from top to bottom:

- Stormtrooper helmet, ANH, SFS - Symmetrical Vader face mask (dome will come later and the face mask may be redone) - Stormtrooper helmet, RotJ
- DJ parts consisting of dome, face mask, chest armor and bells - ANH face mask (DJ+TM+VP) - ESB face mask (TM) - ESB dome (TM)
- Lightsaber ESB - Lightsaber ANH - Chest and belt boxes ANH and ESB - Shins
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[Too Much Garlic]

Been a while since I've last posted in this thread. Had a lot of new progress, but here's a first look at the printed parts.

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