Creating a 16mm scale posed engine driver
Entry posted by Fen End Pit in 3D print projects
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Commercial 16mm scale figures tend to be a bit cartoonish and rather limited in terms of style and pose. My tiny new locomotive requires the driver to tuck his knees in to be able to fit in the tiny foot plate, in a mine he'd probably also be fairly hunched to avoid bang his head. I found myself following the same route as Mike Trice in the 3D Printed Passengers thread.
Makehuman is an impressive bit of free software and is not too difficult to use. It is obviously intended mostly for the creation of 'game assets' for computer gamers and features a full range of figure and clothing options aimed at the 'sexy super hero' market. Still there are some clothing options of a more 'traditional' nature and you can create figures that won't look like extras from a Game of Thrones. There are times when some of the options, particularly those around the female form, feel 'NSFW' (Not suitable for Work) but we will pass over those...
Without too much difficulty I created a fairly average looking man in fairly standard work-wear.
Once created the figure is exported in a format which includes the 'rigging' which is the technical name given to the bone structure which can be moved around to pose the figure.
Action now turns to Blender, another free application but this time a tool with so many options and possibilities that it is quite impenetrable at times. I had to watch a lot of Youtube tutorials to make any progress at all and still get horribly lost in the interface much of the time. However after quite a bit of swearing I was able to import an .STL file of the assembly for my narrow gauge locomotive. This would give me a reference to pose the figure around.
The man was imported next and then scaled to be ~6' tall. The rigging can be seen in the screenshot as he is standing in the default pose from MakeHuman.
Each of the rigs can be moved to give a suitable pose. It doesn't appear though as if the 'bones' are limited to human movement (knees can bend up for example) but after a bit of work I was able to position him seated, with legs pulled into the foot plate and his right hand on the throttle.
The models have no solid form so it is perfectly possible to stick his foot through the floor. I found that the resolution of the model in blender was a bit lacking for 16mm scale so I also used the 'subdivide polygons' option in Blender to smooth the surface (basically it creates more triangles over the surface. Once happy with the pose the man was exported from Blender as another STL and loaded into Chitubox for slicing for the 3D printer. At this stage I decided he'd benefit from a hard hat so found one on the thingyverse and positioned it on his head.
I printed him out and the result was pretty good. The only thing I wasn't happy with was the area at the top of his thighs were there was an unrealistic crease. I'm sure I could have fixed this in Blender but sometimes filler is so much less hassle!
I'm not great at figure painting but I'm quite pleased for a first attempt. He still needs some better skin tone and facial features picking out.
I will probably have a second go at the posing too, I thought I positioned his left hand to rest on his knee but I was obviously a bit off there. I'm also tempted to edit the model to add a hole though his body which would allow wires for a light on his helmet to pass down and then out through the post of the seat. It could be rather fun to give him and the locomotive separate lights, probably not much use on Fen End Pit but vital if we were to ever go underground.
I hope this gives others encouragement to try modeling their own figures.
David
Edited by Fen End Pit
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