BearShapes - Wanting to learn Artisan creation!

[donhonk]

Hey there, I'm a 3D artist by day but I love my mechanical keyboard stuff! I wanted to make a keycap by sculpting digitally first without much consideration with how to actually make that a physical object. (3D print -> make mold from that?)  Either way I figured if I made a solid enough design I could get it into any medium needed with some persistence.


http://bearshapes.com/pics/2018-09-08_17-18-01.mp4
Here's a Pops! Or maybe I call them Daddy caps to be cheeky.

Right now I've just got it sculpted based on this Topre model from Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:995398
I've also ordered an L2K adapter for whenever I'm casting mold stuff!

I've never 3D printed anything or anything of this type so I'm open to any advice on where to take this next, thanks!

[donhonk]

So I have no idea if this is feasible to print really, used various booleans in ZBrush as cutters to form a really crisp underside. Dynamesh to fuse the top sculpt with the keycap shape. Again the geometry I used was linked in the OP.  With a final pass of decimation master, its around 900k tris, gonna see what shapeways does with it!

EDIT: 900k tris was too hefty for Shapeways so I decimated it again

[donhonk]

Glad I did this print cause only when I do that do I realise JUST HOW SMALL stuff is! Was very easy to lose sense of scale when in zbrush.



Its cool but ultimately not very readable in real life I think, but I learned a lot. Mostly that resolution is NOT a limiting factor, but instead readability! I may remove the element of the chin and hair and scale up the winking face. Got some more keycap ideas too!

[suicidal_orange]

That's not half bad, though the split chin is kinda lost.

The hardest thing to get right due to tiny tolerances when 3D printing is the stem so you might want to use a standard cap for the back mould and your print for the front.

[donhonk]

Hey thanks! And yeah, the stem doesnt *quite* work right. What I've done is grabbed L2K Adapters and I'm gonna see about experimenting with reproducing some Topre stems from real Topre keycaps. Thanks again for the advice / feedback!

[TheGlyph]

If you're planning to cast these, I'm happy to chat with you about internal designs and various delivery methods!

If your aim is to print full caps you'll just have to do a lot of trial and error to dial in the specific tolerances of the printer you're using =)