Scan & 3D print face at 90% of clay model. Do-able?

rubherkitty · Post by **rubherkitty** » Mon Apr 21, 2014 4:21 pm

OK, here's my idea.
I want to build a "18 yo" silicone doll at 56" max height using a female girl mannequin as the body model. She will have nice "enhancements". I plan to replace the girl head w/a more mature female fiberglass mannequin head. I want to do some modifications on the mannequin head, plus it may also need to be reduced in size to match the 56" body height. I do not have the head yet to gauge the size and they don't provide detailed measurements on the website.

So, here's the basic plan with mannequin head in hand.
Make a thin shell face mold of the head w/ bondo or fiberglass.
Press clay into the face mold to make a positive to work from.
Make the adjustments I want to the clay face.
Send the clay face out to have it scanned, printed and possibly reduced.
Make a rebound 25 mold of the 3D printed face.

MannequinFan · Post by **MannequinFan** » Mon Apr 21, 2014 7:17 pm

Do-able? Yes, but I'm not sure why you'd want to scan and print the clay sculpt. Is it just for the size reduction?

You could probably buy your own printer for what the cost would be to have the sculpt scanned and printed.
The printing alone will probably be in the hundreds. Places like Ponoko and Shapeways charge an arm and three legs for printing services.
Also, scanning could miss or alter some fine details in your sculpt so you'd end up having to touch it up on a hard plastic print.

BTW Abby's head is 92% full size (reduced from 7-5/8" tall to 7").
Have you seen this YouTube RK?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PE7LHqGkyQ

rubherkitty · Post by **rubherkitty** » Mon Apr 21, 2014 7:58 pm

Sorry, had not caught your videos yet. Just did. Looks good.
Can't post any comments on Youtube as I'm not a member.

Here is the head I'm getting from Roxy for $29.00 shipped.
It bust is supposed to be 19" OAH so I'm hoping the head will be fairly petite.

Yes, all the 3D scan and print would only be IF I needed the head reduced. Otherwise I will just make a rebound mold of the clay sculpt when I'm done w/ it. I could possible just reduce it all in the clay process? Maybe coat the inside of the thin shell mold w/ something to reduce the size when the clay is pressed in?

ETA: Here's another idea too if I don't have to reduce the size.
Make the face modifications in clay as discussed.
Make a mold of the clay face only.
Make a fiberglass shell casting of the new face.
Cut the face out of the MQ head and graft in the new face.

This way I can make a 2 piece rebound mold of a whole fiberglass head. If I try to make a mold of the new clay face I will have to make a complete skull out of clay too. Or try to attach the clay to the existing head. Not very do-able.

I would also be nice to have the head/s around in fiberglass as the rebound molds only last so long and a new mold will need to be made eventually.

MannequinFan · Post by **MannequinFan** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 5:43 pm

rubherkitty wrote:ETA: Here's another idea too if I don't have to reduce the size.
Make the face modifications in clay as discussed.
Make a mold of the clay face only.
Make a fiberglass shell casting of the new face.
Cut the face out of the MQ head and graft in the new face.

Lots of times artists will simply make a plaster cast for use as a mold master for future molds.
Might be easier than trying to patch in the face.

rubherkitty · Post by **rubherkitty** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 6:01 pm

What I'm going to end up w/ is the original head and just a clay model of the face modified to the new look. I need a way to put the modified face back on the complete head. Otherwise I'll have to sculpt the complete head out of clay to make the rebound mold. Not that big of deal cause it just a round ball +/-. Just takes time. It all takes time.
If I have to reduce the head size, I'll have to make a complete new clay head anyway. Probably will as I'm thinking of going back down to 51" tall. Got to keep her light! W/ 4" heels she'll be 55" anyway!

Thanks for the plaster master head idea too.

MannequinFan · Post by **MannequinFan** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 6:42 pm

rubherkitty wrote:What I'm going to end up w/ is the original head and just a clay model of the face modified to the new look. I need a way to put the modified face back on the complete head. Otherwise I'll have to sculpt the complete head out of clay to make the rebound mold. Not that big of deal cause it just a round ball +/-. Just takes time. It all takes time.
If I have to reduce the head size, I'll have to make a complete new clay head anyway. Probably will as I'm thinking of going back down to 51" tall. Got to keep her light! W/ 4" heels she'll be 55" anyway!

Thanks for the plaster master head idea too.

I guess I'm a little confused (getting old, lol). I thought you were just going to make a clay cast of the original head and make changes to the face.
You could probably just do a quick alginate mold to make the original clay cast to save time/money. You'll need some soft clay where the ears go so you can press the plastic ears in place. This way you don't have to alter or destroy the original fiberglass head. Also, alginate tends to shrink some so that might actually be a help.

rubherkitty · Post by **rubherkitty** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 7:10 pm

No problem. I probably didn't think the whole thing through when I first posted anyway!

I was just thinking of working the face in clay. Open the mouth slightly, tweak the nose and eyes. Nothing radical. Took me awhile to realize I had to get the new face back on the head somehow.

I'll study into the alginate system tonight.
Thanks

MannequinFan · Post by **MannequinFan** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 10:13 pm

Looks like Smooth-On has a new liquid alginate product...
http://www.smooth-on.com/Life-Casting-A ... index.html

The pint kit for $15 mixes 5:1 with water so you'd get 6 pints of alginate. 1 or 2 would probably do a head mold.

Agalmato · Post by **Agalmato** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 10:56 pm

Alginate is nice to use but be careful, it can copy cracks and wrinkles!!! If you're reading up on it, you'll probably come across suggestions to use plaster bandage to reinforce it. Look around for this stuff, there's a craft store here called Michaels and I can tell you, they are charging a lot more than the pro stores.

opendolldesign · Post by **opendolldesign** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 11:22 pm

Shrinking or expanding can be done with Hydrospan resin. It's pretty cool stuff, check it out: http://www.industrialpolymers.com/categ ... ing-resin/

MannequinFan · Post by **MannequinFan** » Wed Apr 23, 2014 12:22 am

Agalmato wrote:Alginate is nice to use but be careful, it can copy cracks and wrinkles!!! If you're reading up on it, you'll probably come across suggestions to use plaster bandage to reinforce it. Look around for this stuff, there's a craft store here called Michaels and I can tell you, they are charging a lot more than the pro stores.

Smooth-On actually has a fiber reinforced version, but it's mainly for brush-on application to vertical surfaces instead of pouring.
http://www.smooth-on.com/Life-Casting-A ... index.html

Alginate is only good for 1 or 2 casts - it has about a 4 hour life and then it deteriorates quickly. Best used for quick pour molds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=145TDzTXluU

rubherkitty · Post by **rubherkitty** » Wed Apr 23, 2014 12:52 am

Thanks
I'll keep all this in mind.
I have to get the head first to figure out what size it is exactly.

If I make a mold of the mannequin head, I would think it needs to be a hard shell as I want to press clay into it. I could probably just mold the front half of the head and sculpt the back half.

yokel · Post by **yokel** » Wed Apr 23, 2014 2:38 pm

3D scanning is a bit of an arduous task I'm afraid. Once you've bought a scanning system (£800+ for a decent one) and learned how to use it you will be left with a lovely high resolution point cloud. This point cloud describes the surface but needs to be converted to a closed polygon mesh before it can be printed. Software/hardware that can automate this process tends to produce nasty meshes. The upshot is that once you've retopologized (yup, we've got a word for it) the point cloud you can edit the model to your hearts content without worrying about mistakes.

The tools you will need will be pricey and also you will need to learn to use some kind of 3D modeling software like Blender (free!).

An alternative if you're not massively concerned with accuracy is to use something like Looxis Faceworks to generate an approximation from two photographs then edit and print that instead. Much cheaper and quicker and could yield pretty good results if you work hard enough.

Good luck with the project!

MannequinFan · Post by **MannequinFan** » Wed Apr 23, 2014 6:51 pm

Hi Yokel and welcome to the forum!

If you have an X-box Kinect you can actually so scanning with it. I used it to make my avatar.
There are a few programs out there that are fairly inexpensive that will work with sensors like the Kinect, Asus or Primesense.
Skanect is 99 euro or $129. They have a free version but the file export is limited.
http://skanect.occipital.com/
Check this out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbcnRgVNsZk#t=16

[youtube]nbcnRgVNsZk#t=16[/youtube]

Autodesk Meshmixer http://www.meshmixer.com/ is a really cool free program for working with meshes that's a lot easier to use than Blender.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m9SG9C_lUo I used Meshmixer to refine this scan I made with the Kinect and a free console version of Reconstructme software.
http://reconstructme.net/
Reconstructme is 179 euro. Unfortunately they no longer have the free console version available.

: sammie-bust.jpg (322.15 KiB) Viewed 1176 times

opendolldesign · Post by **opendolldesign** » Sun Apr 27, 2014 6:27 pm

rubherkitty,

I just came across this instructable from a silicone provider (Alumilite) on how to make silicone molds that shrink up to 15%. It has video instructions and a commenter also says that you can soak the silicone mold in odorless mineral spirits and reverse the process to grow the mold as well.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Shrinki ... one-Molds/