3D Printout of Cornelius

This project is now finished as the 3D printout of Cornelius has just come through and here is the outcome.  Click on an image to enlarge.

It probably doesn't look like it in these photos but this model is pretty tiny and very delicate.  In the end, he had to be printed out without the glasses because that was causing problems with his geometry, so they went in and fixed a few problems before they made this printout.

Overall, it is quite a clear representation of Cornelius, his face is very visible and his pose came out quite smoothly.  The downside of this model are that two of his toes on his right foot broke off and the tops off two of the fingers have also broken off.  The linear detail around the waistcoat and t-shirt is not very visible, but I could perhaps paint this on.

From doing this project, I have brought many of my skills up to standard and I have improved in many areas that I struggled with last year.  Although I was initially anxious about modelling his face, I feel that I managed to shape it into a recognisable gorilla face by rotating faces and translating many of the edges.

I was already fairly good at designing textures in Photoshop; but until this project, I had no idea about UV mapping and I was therefore not very good at applying textures to models.  During this project, I got various help from fellow students and tutorials on UV Mapping and I was able to use this to texture my own character.

As for the 3D Printing, I have learnt that if I do it again, that I will make sure that think more carefully about the outcome from the beginning; especially during the modelling and posing stages.  I have learnt that I must make sure that no areas within the model are too thin as this could make it more brittle.  I have also learnt that I aim for poses where there are not too many gaps (i.e. gaps between the fingers) and that I must make most of the geometry close together.