I couldn’t resist. I bought a 3D printer.
A tiny one. For tiny prints.
The original plan was to use the MakerSpace at my university which is graciously made available to the university community — but once I researched the time it took to actually do a sample print, I realized it was not… convenient.
Could I have done it? I’m sure I could have. But I don’t live next door to where I work, and having my own 3D printer was so appealing. So seductive. So crafty.
After the first little boat test print (which came with the printer), I modeled a few 1:12 scale kitchenware items in Blender. And the adventure began.
For someone who isn’t friends with numbers, I have been doing a lot of math (thanks, Google and various online converters), but pretty soon I added to my handy scale chart for when I had to think too hard about what numbers really mean in the real world. As in, what the digits signify as to actual size.
In the meanwhile, I’ve been having a great time learning tricks in Blender (it’s a great, powerful, and free program, but maybe not the best starter program if you’ve never done any modeling).
My first spool of filament was white, so of course I had to paint and properly finish my prints.
I’m still working on the size/scale and proportions of some of my models, but if you’d like to follow me in this new journey, I will share some of the miniatures I’m happy with for free. This may be for a limited time, so grab them while you can and enjoy!
