Yeah, that's why I don't like resin dust printers. You can sand all the way through the damn thing, and it would still be pitted like that. That said though, have you tried investing in some of this? Given the size of the parts, you would have to take things slow and paint it on in increments to keep it from washing out your detailing, but i'm sure that would be preferable to the sanding something so small.

 

I actually do have some xtc3d that I haven't opened yet. I've been meaning to do some experimenting with it and I suppose this is as good a test as I can come up with for it. I've read that it can be thinned and the curing time extended with denatured alcohol so I'll probably try that. I was also thinking I'd experiment with using it as a clear coat over paint (provided I can get it thin enough) to make a bulletproof shell over the paint since scratching is a problem for transformers. Maybe I'll paint an old scrap piece and do both tests at once.

 

WSF plastic is definitely not the material you want to use for headsculpts. BHDA and FU/ED are much better (though also more brittle so be careful!). Still, the actual model looks excellent so once you have a good print of the head in BHDA I think it should look great.

In any event, this is an awesome project, I'm always amazed when people completely re-engineer figures like this.

I'm almost tempted to track down a WeiJiang Arcee KO and try this myself...but I have enough projects on the go as is.

 

Dude, hands down your progress on this is amazing

 

Not sure if this would help, but I know people smooth down 3D prints by melting them a little with acetone (I think) fumes, which removes some of the ridges at the loss of a little detail. It might be worth some investigation. That's a gorgeous head sclupt though; pity it doesn't look as pretty printed as it does on the computer.

 

I'm not sure whether that works on resin dust. I've heard it just makes the material dissolve. At least that's what I got from a recent [email protected] episode. So make sure to check that first.

 

AlanGarou is correct. As for the acetone steaming trick, it works, but messing with that technique is a lot of trial and error, as well as refining the 3D model itself to compensate for the loss of detail. On a piece that small, it need only be steamed for mere seconds, and a millisecond too long can make or break your progress.

 

For the colors, it really depends on the overall look you want.

I'd recommend Titanium White if you prefer the flat not metallic look.
Remeber, you can always mix the paints as opposed to just using it stock.
I tend to use Tamiya's acrylic. You should try it, hardly rubs off, especially for transformers.
Here's a paint chart to help.

 

Thanks everyone. I never intended the swf to make it to the final mod but figured since I had it in hand, I'd mess with it and see what I could do. I could probably get it good enough if I worked at it enough but I'm not gonna. Just using these pieces to refine the model and then I'll get it in bhda.

Yeah, I'll get titanium white next time. I wanted the pearlescent look but I'll get that by mixing some ghost pearl powder with the clear coat. I've got some of that in white and some in red: I'll have to see if red pearl dust over pink paint looks good.

Getting close. I've got the 3d printed parts for the wheel arms and all I need now is the final head print. Then I've got to remove the factory paint, sand all the parts and apply my paint. I've got a week staycation coming up and the weather has been perfect for painting: maybe I'll get this project all finished then.

 

To be honest, I think the original headsculpt could work fine just by stripping the paint and redefining the lips. Something to consider if these new heads just aren't working out.

 

It could and Neurowing showed us here Minor/Repaint: - Simple Weijiang Alcee face fix that it can actually look pretty nice. I still think the face is too narrow compared to the rest of her head and, even with a repaint, the mouth just isn't there. I'm still in the process of tweaking the headsculpt: gotta' do s'more modifications so that the faces can easily slide in and out of the head.

Sorry I've slowed down with updates. Still working on her but most of it isn't really the kind of thing worth reporting. Trying to get the 3d printed wheel arms to work but one of them snapped, which is annoying. I've tried gluing it back together but it just isn't holding. I'll give it one last try with a thick layer of epoxy before I give up on it and have my friend 3d print another one. Won't see him for a week, though, and I kinda' wanted to get started on painting before then but we'll see.

I've created the false back kibble for bot mode. Not sure I'm in love with the false hood. It came out a little thicker than I intended and it just kinda' looks like a boring rectangle on her back there. I'll try sanding and painting it and see if I like it any better. It's also heavier than it looks: apoxie sculpt is kinda' heavy; so it has a not insignificant impact on her balance. The false hoodscoop that forms the back of her torso is nicer I think. It still looks pretty rough 'cuz I just de-molded it and it's still too soft for sanding but tomorrow I'll do that and install a magnet for it to attach to her back. I'll have to see how it looks on her once it's painted. Not sure if I'll keep it white so it better resembles the hoodscoop from her alt mode or if I'll paint it pink so it fits better with her torso.



I've been doing some paint testing. I'm disappointed with some of the paints I got so I'll have to go get some new ones but I got a white I'm happy with and a dark metallic grey that came out amazing and should look great for her abdomen. I also tested out the pearl powder and I think it's going to look great. I was concerned with how the red pearl powder over pink paint would look but it's actually really nice: the pearlescence is pretty subtle but it's enough to give the paint a little more wow factor and should make her look really nice. I'm trying to get the wheel arms finished so that I can get them installed while she's fully assembled and I can line them up where they need to be in her alt mode and after that I'll be ready to take her apart and punch out the remaining pins so I can start sanding and painting all the pieces.

 

Dat ass.

 

What are younusing to sculpt??
Looks solid!

Have you thought about using that to smooth out your printed head?

 

Apoxie sculpt. Love this stuff. It's a little hard to work with at first 'cuz it's more sticky than most modelling clays, but once you get used to it, it works really well. Yeah, I use it on 3d prints all the time to patch holes and scratches and make other repairs. Some layer lines are harder to sand off than others (particularly the top few layers of a round surface are hard to get rid of), and I use apoxie on those as well. It would probably work alright on the head print (since it seems like it stays gritty even when you sand off the outer layer) but nothing I could do is ever going to be as good as just printing it in BHDA.

Apoxie sculpt is pretty tough once it's cured. It's a little brittle or at least it seems like it would be, but I haven't had it break unless it was an extremely thin piece. It sands really really well and can be made almost glassy smooth if you work at it enough. It is slightly translucent though that's only noticeable when it's really thin. It also takes paint really well.

 

I don't normally get this excited with a WiP, but given the amount of work you've done and the lengths you've gone to to achieve your results has got me chomping at the bit for more updates! 16 days without new material is torture, lol!

 

Heh. Sorry. I'm still working on her but there just hasn't been much to say. A few fine tunes here and there, some paint tests: haven't found a suitable pink yet (bought and tested two but didn't like either). I'd rather get a spray can of Tamiya or Testors or something but I might just have to get some red and white and mix it myself for my airbrush. I have a white Testors spray that I've tested and I just love how smooth it goes on and I got a good gunmetal grey for her midsection that is just an amazing color and sheen. I've also been tweaking the 3d model for her head but I'm not quite satisfied with it yet.

I got a RG Gundam kit that I'm cannibalizing the hands from. I still wanna give her the fully articulated hands but I'm betting that some fingers will eventually get lost so I want the semi-articulated ones to fall back on. It also came with some gun grip hands. I need to modify her guns to fit the hands and then I figure I'll just glue them into the grip hands and just swap her whole hands when I want her to wield. I'm not bothering with the swords or the pink gun since neither are from g1 but, since I got a spare Arcee for parts, I've got two of her black guns, so she'll have a right hand and a left hand with a gun for each.

[Edit] In lieu of a more substantial update, here's a pic of her current status (still with the grainy 3d printed head) with the Gundam hands. Note that I haven't sanded them down to look less Gundam'y yet since I wasn't sure which ones I was going to steal (I've since decided to steal all of them since the Gundam doesn't really mean anything to me).

 

This is really looking great!

 

Tiny tiny update. Just wanted to let everyone know I haven't abandoned this. I can't remember if I mentioned it before but I got a 3d printer. I've been modding and tuning it to get it working as good as possible and printing various fun things and I finally took a stab at printing Arcee's face yesterday. I messed up on it (forgot to apply the cuts that let it actually fit in her head) and the supports got in her eye holes so it's not usable but the level of detail and the smoothness (printed at 40 micron later height) are promising. It'll need sanding but not much. A little 400 grit and then 1000 grit and it'd be ready to paint.

I'll remember to apply the head cuts and I'm designing my own custom support instead of letting the program create it for me. I'm optimistic that when that's done, I'll be able to print a usable piece. Got a few other things to print right now (don't let your friends know you got a 3d printer - everybody wants you to print stuff for them) but I should be able to get back to this in a few days.

Also I think I finally found a good pink paint for her. I'll need to do some test painting but it looks like it'll be better than the other ones I tried.

 

Glad to hear that this one is still happening. I can't wait to see what you do with your new printer!