So I watched the TF One movie when it came out and it was awesome, I also saw how small all the cogless miners were so I was hoping hasbro would make some core class figures to go with the movie but then I remembered that hasbro killed the core class line so I decided to take matters into my own hands and make it myself. I have made some great progress on the waist and chest but I want some tips on how to make: the face and helmet, ball sockets, and any other tips would be great anyways enjoy my WIP pictures.
For ball joints make sure to scale up the ball a little (a few micrometers) when subtracting it from the connecting shape. If the negative is the same size the tolerance will be too high and not work. For faces I would recommend trying out Blender instead of Tinkercad. Trying to chisel out faces with subtracting will be harder in the long run. The helmet will be easy with boolean objects (much like tinkercad’s join/merge). If you think in major shapes instead of details the designing process will go easier. It’s fine to have all the shapes separate until later in the process (one mesh may make modifying details difficult).
The absolute minimum for the socket's contact with the ball should be, for instance if you have a 5mm joint, 3mm. 3.5mm would be best, and at that edge of the socket, have it funnel back outward, for ease of snapping in. Also recommend a bit of stress release (that rectangular hole that is all too common with ball joints) as a 2mm*5mm hole, lined up with the mid-point of the socket's sides. If you're using FDM, depending on your resolution, the socket would need to be 5.1mm to 5.3mm, but with standard resin you can get away with zero-tolerance joints because of the curing process causing minor amounts of dimensional shrinkage. Edit: face sculpts are hell, honestly. Your best bet is to break it down geometrically, and then once you've gotten it as close as you can, open it in another thing to smooth it out, and shape it more to your tastes. My workflow usually includes SculptGL so that I can soften up face sculpts and get them a little more natural looking.
