3D Printing Doll Things

I was debating what I wanted to post next on, now that I'm back to everyday blogging, when Mr. BTEG presented me with a couple of doll items that he made for me with his 3D printer. That made me happy, and my choice of post easy. But I'm going to start at the beginning of my experience with 3D printing for dolls, for those of you who haven't been reading me for years, or don't recall previous posts.

In January of 2016, I tagged along with Mr. BTEG at a technical conference he was attending. The conference happened to conveniently be held at a large indoor waterpark, which especially in a NE Ohio winter, is very appealing. Mr. BTEG had already started exploring his interest in 3D printing, and he pointed me to a website called Thingiverse, where I discovered that the late lamented Makies Lab had put up several free downloads for prints, including a tea set. The conference offered free 3D prints, so Mr. BTEG had them make the tea set for me. As you'll see, the set is very primitive compared to some of the other things that I'm going to show you, but just being able to have something printed for your doll like that *snaps* was still very exciting. Here's Meg, my only Makie, holding the tea pot from that set.

Then Mr. BTEG invested in a lower-end 3D printer of his own in January 2018! I had no idea how hard it was to set up a 3D printer to make a suitable print. It can take hours to make sure the printer lays down filament correctly, so that the filament doesn't get shifted, and throw the whole print out of whack. Here's a couple of examples of common prints made to test your 3D printer.

The above are blocks printed out to test the X, Y and Z axis of a print. The background is one of my Barbie diorama walls, so you can see that the blocks are fairly small. I hope you can also see the "shadow" of the Y on the middle block, which meant the Y axis needed some work on that particular print.

The piece above is called a "benchy," and is also apparently known as "The jolly 3D printing torture-test." Obviously, you don't print this out until you're a bit more confident in how your printer is configured. You can visit 3DBenchy.com to check out all the creative things people do with benchy prints. It's also the source for my quote above.

Come see what else he made below the fold!

3D Printer!

Even though I have other stuff to post, I wanted to share my big news, because Mr. BTEG bought a 3D printer, and today he got it working! He's spent hours researching, at least an hour putting it together, and suffered a couple of setbacks, including the printer not having all of the required parts! The printer took some time to arrive here from China, so getting the right pieces from the manufacturer would not have been easy, either. Mr. BTEG, being the wiz kid he is, produced new pieces at the maker's center at one of our local universities. (Edited: he used a 3D printer to make the pieces that  he needed. How meta!) If he wants to share more information in the comments, that'd be great. I'm pretty sure one of the pieces is the bright orange one next to the black rectangle with the colored wires coming out of it. What he ended up making with the printer is a small rectangle with low sides, kind of like a mini tray. You can see the outline of the rectangle on the bright orange flat working surface.

I'm sure Mr. BTEG has a whole list of stuff that he wants to make, but I'm hoping there will be some time available to make me a few things too. :) He did buy a spool of blue filament since my favorite color is blue. I have a whole bunch of stuff that I downloaded from Thingiverse in anticipation of having access to a 3D printer. Never thought it would be at home!

Makie Shoes

I read on someone's doll blog, I'm sorry to say I don't remember whose, that an eBay seller in the UK is selling off the last of the Makie items made by the company. I saw some shoes that are not available as a 3D printing design, and honestly, I'm afraid for the future of Makie dolls, and for getting more Makie items. I decided to pick up some shoes for Meg while the opportunity was there.

The first pair of shoes I bought was a pair of black high heels. They're not a shoe I would normally associate with the Makie doll, since she seems like more of an older girl type doll. However, I think they look pretty nice on Meg.

They were a very tight fit. I had to remove Meg's feet to get them on, because of the angle at which I had to push the shoes. As you'll see, they also left black marks on the backs of her feet.

I also picked out some pink flats that are the same style as the black ones that came with Meg. Again, these were rather tight. I'm not entirely sure I get the shoes on the feet all the way. On the other hand, the black shoes are relatively loose and fall off easily, which can be a pain when photographing a doll outside.

It was at this point of the photography that I noticed the black marks on the back of Meg's feet. I will probably be able to get the lines off with a Magic Eraser; I just haven't tried it yet.

Next, I moved on to Meg's regular shoes, just to compare them to the pink ones.

As you can see, these shoes are too low to have been the black line culprits. Meg's feet do fit farther down in this shoe than in the pink ones.

The last shoe I want to share was actually made for the Mattel We 3 Friends dolls line. I discovered that certain shoes and boots from this line will fit Meg, although not all of them. And then, I don't have all the shoes that came with those dolls, either, to test them all. Anyway, I thought these shoes would be great for Meg, if I had gotten the chance to take her into the waterpark with me. The flowered dress was not a good match for these shoes, so I put her in Curvy Barbie's dress instead. The high backs of these slip-on shoes helps them stay well on Meg's feet.

Lastly, something about Meg that I noticed the other day. I was looking at her face about eye level with mine, and realized that her pupils are slightly off from each other! I went back and looked at her de-boxing (de-tubing?) pictures and yes, they were just the same back then.

I'm not sure if it's worth messing around with them or not. I just noticed the other day, so how bad of an error is it really?

As I said above, I wonder if the Makie company will be able to achieve a comeback. They're certainly nice dolls. Perhaps the 3D technology is not quite cost effective enough yet? I would love to see what else the company might come up with.

Makie Doll with 3-D Printed Body

Honestly, when the Makie dolls were first debuted, they were ugly to me. I also had no desire for an alien, elf, or troll doll, which is what Makies looked like to me. Since then, the doll has gotten a new face mold, and I've seen a lot of pictures who looked more like Blythe or Pullip dolls: big heads, big eyes, a stylized look for certain, but also cute and human. Since each Makie doll is custom made on a 3-D printer, based on the look you design online, my doll didn't have to have pointy elf ears that stuck out, or an over-sized mouth. I could get something more aesthetically pleasing to me.

At the same time, recently I've been looking for a travel doll, one who would pose nicely on trips and outdoors, not too large, and also one who wouldn't demand a lot of furniture and clothes and room for herself indoors. (Do you know how demanding some dolls can be?) A Makie doll was on the possibilities list, but it was a post from Ghouliette at Dollsville, USA, that made me decide. Makie doll bodies are no longer 3-D printed, but instead are injection-molded plastic, which is sturdier and less expensive. So they were selling out the 3-D bodies, within the space of a couple of weeks. Even better, if I ordered in time, I could try a 3-D printed body for the new, lower price. I can always order a Makie on the new body, but I decided to give the 3-D body a try before they were gone. I designed my doll on the Makie website, and placed my order. I haven't been as excited to get a package in a while as when I got the FedEx envelope and realized that it was holding a tube, and that my Makie doll must be inside. So now, meet Meg.

She came packaged in a sturdy tube.

Hi! I have the feeling I'm not in England anymore.

Just hangin' around...

A mane of soft red hair

More pictures, include nekkid dolly ones, below the fold.