A very fun project! Great for stop-motion, drawing figures, photo posing, fidgeting with the articulations, dressing up, modeling props, etc.
I’m even working on a board game designed around the gimmick of posing two figures engaged in a fistfight – more on that soon.
The culmination of a lot of work. I’ve always wanted a figure that was:
Fully 3d printed (no need to glue, use screws, etc)
Can be easily be printed with FDM
Highly articualted (180deg bends, poseable toes, etc)
Easily swappable hands, with several poses
Free files
One thing of note, this project requires two filaments:
a TPU (or other flexible filament) to provide the friction and reduce joint creep
a PLA (or petg or other ‘norma;’ rigid filament)
I used a cheap, 95a-hardness TPU for most of my testing, which worked great – but the design should work for several TPU types.
For a single figure, will need to print:
~ 12 joint-posts
~ 30 TPU-caps
All STLs in the ‘default’ or ‘thin’ body type ZIP folder
Might be good to print a few extra of the joint-posts and TPU-caps just in case.
I’ve also included an arrow-holder and ball-holder that should make assembling the double-barbell-joints easier. Makes it nicer to assemble the joints with your hands, or to lay them flat on a table to press fit.
Other projects like A.D.A.M., 3d printable bionicle, modibot, etc – they are all fantastic projects (and may fit your use case better) but did not quite fit my wants.
(Though, of course, I’ve not tried every action figure project out there.)
Brims are recommended, but and a few pieces will require supports (the hands and insertion-hips are the only ones that come to mind). Most everything will print flat, and in an orientation that gives its hinges enough strength.
This design is not perfect – the ‘wrist’ post on the hands should likely be elongated a few mm to allow for a tighter wrist bend, different filaments may have different friction and thus different ideal tolerances, etc – but the design should give you a great starting place.
I’ve included:
the blender file with rigged hands (for making your own hand poses)
the blender file with a rigged body (for VFX combining your prop and a digital scene)
the OnShape CAD for designing new bodies
(The long, short, shortest segments are not for anything in particular – just for you to test with, play with lengthening your people, or use in your own remixes)
I’ve also worked on a stand (for stop motion and more control of posing) and a magnetic hand system – so follow for those projects as well.
Yeah – like with all my projects, I’m no engineer – but hopefully this works for y’all well as it has worked for me. Thanks!
Credits:
ugly_robot