Animal Crossing: New Horizons Christmas Gifts

Last year, my husband and I started playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Nintendo Switch.  This was influenced by a co-worker of mine, and then our other co-worker joined the fun as well. 

The game is very simple, which is probably why it became a national obsession this year; that and the Covid lockdown with lots of time on everyone's hands. The game is so easy to play that your grandma could do it. Basically, you move onto an Island of your choosing, build your house floor by floor, and fill the island with flowers and trees and residents and homes, and a museum, general store, etc. 

So, for Christmas, it was only fitting to gift my fellow obsessives with AC (Animal Crossing) themed gifts. 

As long as I can remember, my mother has given my siblings and me little Whitman's Samplers for just about every holiday. I always save the boxes with the intent to create little dioramas of them, and this was the perfect occasion.

I had my husband print with his Elegoo Mars 3D resin printer, two beloved characters from Animal Crossing; the sibling owls, Blathers and Celeste. 

Blathers is the Director of the Island Museum and part of your daily tasks is to dig up "fossils" buried throughout the island and donate them to said museum. So, I printed Blathers and one of his fossils and placed them in the museum entrance, where he greets you. 

Celeste, Blather's lil' sis, only shows up randomly on the island, and when she does you might just see shooting stars that night and find "star fragments" on the beach the next day. 

We found the 3D print files for Blathers, Celeste, and the fossil on thingiverse and my husband designed the star fragment, which is now also on available to download on thingiverse. 

For the backgrounds I took pictures of my game screen and then printed them out on shipping label stickers to stick into the boxes. I then used gold rub 'n buff to paint the edges of the boxes for a nice finish.

Thank you for visiting!

🦉🦉

3D printed Moon Illuminated from a Vintage Paper Lantern

JC made the coolest 3D print of the Moon. He found the moon design files, as usual, on Thingiverse.com. He said he made it because the light from this paper lantern shone right in his eyes every time he walked to the front door to let Mollie, the dog, out.  

It is hollow inside, but you can still see the relief of the surface of the moon. 

Now, for the first time, there is no "dark side of the moon". 

🌔

Thanks for visiting!

3D Designed and Printed Snowman and Snow Topped Trees

JC designed and printed these trees and snowmen for our family members for Christmas.  

I painted them with acrylic paints. 

The snowmen are what we like to call "interactive" because he included holes for arms that they can insert twigs into, or even toothpicks, if they wish.  

They each received one snowman and two snow topped trees.  They are so cute. 

I forgot to have him print a set just for us!

I hope you had a Happy Christmas, and here's to a peaceful New Year. 

☮

Thanks for visiting. 

3D Printing Backlog! My Husband is on a Printing Frenzy!

He's on a roll, but he needs to slow down! 

I have a line out the door of 3D prints waiting to be painted!

The website My Mini Factory has a category called Scan The World: 

"Scan the World is an ambitious initiative whose mission is to archive objects of cultural significance using 3D scanning technologies, producing an extensive platform of content suitable for 3D printing.

Through collecting scan data from the community and museums alike, Scan the World serves as a public effort to bring art to the masses in a way more tangible than ever before, all in the wider context of a meaningful contribution to education, preservation, and accessibility."

JC found this Scan The World 3D print design of a Julius Caesar sculpture on Thingiverse.com, 

which was modified into a pencil holder. 

Et Tu Brute?

3D Darth Vader print. Come to the cute side? 

Below are three 3D designs created for me by JC. 

A hedgehog, turtle, and armadillo. 

So cute. 

He was inspired by the originals he saw on the gift site, Uncommon Goods. 

It's probably gonna be awhile before I can get to them. 

We are having Thanksgiving at our house again this year, 

so we'll be busy cleaning this weekend, 

and cooking and baking all next week. 

🦃

Thanks for visiting. 

3D Printed Garden Urns, Water Feature, Dalek, and Much More.

I am thrilled with these garden urns that JC designed and printed. We were sitting around brainstorming accessories that he could print for our Dickens Christmas Village one day.  

Garden urns was one of my requests. I think that got his creative juices flowing. 

I LOVE them!  They are just what I envisioned. 

Here they are after painting with acrylic paint. 

They go great with this fountain he printed from a design found at Thingiverse.com.

Here is the Dalek in progress.

I had to look up what mixture of paint colors to use to make the bronzy color. (burnt sienna and cadmium red light with more burnt sienna). 

Here is what he's supposed to look like and hopefully will at some point.  

It looks a bit dark in the above picture, but that's just the lighting. 

Here is Mister Dalek with some other items in progress; British Post Box and dogs, and cat. 

And then there is this lil' lady. 

If you don't know her right off the bat, don't worry, I wouldn't have either. 

 Though, I probably have seen her hundreds of times since the early 1980s.  😉

Thank you for visiting. 

🐍

{All 3D Printing Designs found on www.Thingiverse.com except the garden urns, which were designed and printed by JC}

3D Halloween Printing Fun!

JC has been getting into the season of Halloween. 

He's dusted off the 3D printer and given me a lot of work to do painting things. 

These are magic pumpkins, before being painted. 

See the magic? When you put a light inside, a jackolantern face glows.

Below is a short video of a skeleton in the process of being printed.

 Pumpkins are all painted. Now to paint the skeleton votive holder. 

Looking spooky!

Below is a skull JC printed last year, which I just got around to painting. I did it in phases, and I just told him with this last shot, that this skull is getting scarier and scarier. I think that means I'm done with him. Pretty soon I won't be able to be in the same room with it.

I think my favorite is the coffin and mummy. 

I have yet to paint them.

Next to a cap for scale. I love miniatures, maybe that's why this is my favorite. 

 And here is one of the above pumpkins sitting on top of a lamp to demonstrate the glowing. There was a blip in the printing process, that is why you see the line through his noggin. 

Thanks for visiting!

💀

{All the 3D printing designs were found on www.thingiverse.com}

foobella.blogspot.com

Rome Was Built In A Bit More Than A Day And A Half: 3D Printed Colosseum.

Hello World! In yesterday's post, I showed you the beginning of the Rome Colosseum being printed. It started printing Thursday evening at 7:15, and was done today (Saturday) around 10:30am. So, a bit more than a day and a half.

Here it is still in progress yesterday at about 4:00p.m. It's pretty cool to see the layers as they build up....slowly. ↓

3D Colosseum digital file from Thingiverse.com user CausalJoemama7

And here it is completed!↓ 

It is so cute, I can't handle it. 

It still has to be cleaned up a bit. It has a lot of hairy bits stuck in the arches.                   

But overall, for our printer, I think it did a great job. 

I told Jason we should just dunk it in a bucket of paint. He said, "Oh no. You have to paint inside each one of those tiny little arches." My brain hurts just thinking about it. 

Up next. Can you guess? ↓

Here it is with the Colosseum for comparison. This one is even more teeny tiny!↓

⚜

Thanks for visiting!