Kerbal Space Program 3D figurine prints (Image Heavy)

This is still a WIP project, ie I have a couple of bits and pieces to still print out (mainly one character is still to be printed), but because of the response Ive gotten I thought Id have to post here sometime soon!

Kerbal Space Program is an in-development indie game which Ive become quite fond of, it involves launching little green 'Kerbal' characters into space in dodgy rockets you build yourself (half the game is about building rockets, the other half about trying to fly them without everything catching fire and exploding)

I set out around about the mid-end of last year to make the first ever Kerbal figurines, using of course Shapeways for the 3D printing, and the newly improved Full Colour Sandstone material for full colour prints. I particularly wanted to have the figurines printed in 3 parts to be assembled - ie the character, the helmet and the visor. This means the character can be viewed without the helmet on, or with the helmet on but no visor, and so on.

Modelling and texturing was done with Blender, texture editing with GIMP, and final preparation for printing with netfabb.

Over the past couple of months Ive had 2 separate shapeways orders arrive which contained prints for this project. It took a few test prints to get the models working properly, for example the visor was printed in Frosted Detail originally, but that wasnt transparent enough. Reprinting in Transparent detail worked better. I also had to modify the Kerbal character model to have little 'plugs' to hold the helmet better.

I have a more detailed description of the process behind making the models, which can be found on the instructables site - http://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printed-Kerbal-Figurine-K erbal-Space-Program/

And on top of that, the instructable mentioned above has been featured in the Tech section AND on the front page of the site! (http://www.instructables.com/)

Ive also had a great response from the KSP community, I have a thread in the forums over there as well [link]

Anyway, some pictures:











The full album (a ton of pictures) for this project is here - http://imgur.com/a/Q2gdD

Enjoy!

great model/print. and now i'm off to check the game out.

Cheers! And yeh its one fun little game, very challanging at this stage since theres not much in terms of 'flight systems' to help you reach orbit or other solar bodies.


I should also mention that I entered the instructable mentioned above into the 'Make it Real' contest over at Instructables.com, after receiving an email from one of the community managers who informed me about the contest and asked if Id enter it.

First prize is a $30k 3D printer, and theres 10 or so smaller printers up for grabs as well
(http://www.instructables.com/contest/makeitreal/)

No more feedback?

I'm afraid feedback can be slim to none sometimes, even after hundreds of views. Don't take it personally

Oh, and well done on the design!

I took a look at the Instructables competition - some INCREDIBLE stuff submitted there! It's nice to see great minds in action and that not everyone is turning into cholesterol blobs!

Glenn

A spacecraft export tool would be super-fancy, albeit maybe a bit impossible

Heh, not impossible. Ive already looked into it. The .craft files are human readable so its just a matter of writing a script to import the data and position/add objects. I already have a bunch of the KSP rocket parts modeled too.

I can't wait

A basic export tool sure would be possible, but you'd probably have to check for constructions that are too ambiguous to be printed.

That it can fly to the Mun doesn't mean it can be printed!

Yeh there would be parts (like struts and fuel lines) which probably wouldnt be printable due to thickness.
Im considering putting a test print together though, see how it turns out, then maybe talk to the guys who made KSP about whether theyd be interested in working on selling these things.