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It's Winter. I'm bored
I was watching Monster Jam the other day and saw this truck. It's crazy complex body intrigued me...I thought..."Could I make that in lexan?". I really like a challenge, and biting off more than I can chew, plus I have a fascination with Monster Jam 3D bodies for some reason. What can I say...monsters period.
Monster Jam official rendering:
Obviously this thing is way too complex to create a unified shell, has to be done in parts and assembled(which btw, is how they made the real thing, more later). I spent a couple of days pondering the construction, then came up with a plan, and started on creating a 3d model. Luckily for me, the guy that created the concept 3d model for Monster Jam has pictures of this thing from a bunch of angles, so the references were really good and helpful.
So I started on a low poly 3d model in Blender:
Next I chopped it into several sections that I would create forms with, and created forms which I pulled into Meshmixer.
Note that the head, shoulders, and wing/arm are pieces that are forms, but the main body is a mold. The mold is a four piece design that will be used to create a form using water putty. The smaller pieces I'm printing myself, with 50% infill, which given that they are small, and far enough away from the lamps heating the lexan than they should not get deformed when doing the vacuum pull(I could always fill them with water putty if that is an issue anyway). The body mold I've farmed out for printing and it should be done in a few days.
After I did all of this, I saw a video of how they made the real thing, it looks like they 3d print the smaller parts and sand it all down then paint and attach...quite similar process in some ways!
I was watching Monster Jam the other day and saw this truck. It's crazy complex body intrigued me...I thought..."Could I make that in lexan?". I really like a challenge, and biting off more than I can chew, plus I have a fascination with Monster Jam 3D bodies for some reason. What can I say...monsters period.
Monster Jam official rendering:
Obviously this thing is way too complex to create a unified shell, has to be done in parts and assembled(which btw, is how they made the real thing, more later). I spent a couple of days pondering the construction, then came up with a plan, and started on creating a 3d model. Luckily for me, the guy that created the concept 3d model for Monster Jam has pictures of this thing from a bunch of angles, so the references were really good and helpful.
So I started on a low poly 3d model in Blender:
Next I chopped it into several sections that I would create forms with, and created forms which I pulled into Meshmixer.
Note that the head, shoulders, and wing/arm are pieces that are forms, but the main body is a mold. The mold is a four piece design that will be used to create a form using water putty. The smaller pieces I'm printing myself, with 50% infill, which given that they are small, and far enough away from the lamps heating the lexan than they should not get deformed when doing the vacuum pull(I could always fill them with water putty if that is an issue anyway). The body mold I've farmed out for printing and it should be done in a few days.
After I did all of this, I saw a video of how they made the real thing, it looks like they 3d print the smaller parts and sand it all down then paint and attach...quite similar process in some ways!
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