Hello shapeways community First time here. I'm creating a knight action-figure which consists of several individual parts. The goal is to have a knight with moveable arms, torso, head and removable shield/sword. I'm pretty much done with the modelling part in blender. Right now it looks like in the attached image. Since there are several individual parts, I was wondering how you would recommend printing this? Print each part on its own? Or join the parts with some geometry (thin cylinders?) to create one single object? Do you see any problems that could arise when printing this model? I'll be using White Strong & Flexible material. Thanks a lot for any feedback. Image (figure and individual parts):
Your thin cylinders option (properly called SPRUES) is the best choice. Remember that WSF is first cleaned with an airhose.. <grin> If this model is under 2" tall, then the individual peices will go flying when they first hit it with air. Be kind to the operators.. add sprues so that it's a single assembly. I commonly use 1mm sprues, even when the minimum wall reqs might allow something thinner.
Thanks for the advice. Do you have any recommendation on how to connect the parts? Is it better to try to flatten to one axis (eg. all parts lie in one axis, similar to the screenshot in the first post) or to try to minimize the volume? Attached you'll find an attempt to pack all the parts closely together (bulkier parts protecting the "weaker" ones) and only using sprues at locations that will be hidden once the model is assembled. What do you guys/gals recommend? Also: What happens when using the WSF polished material? Will covered parts be polished as well? Will polishing decrease the thickness/volume of the parts?