# 3D Design / 3D Scanning / 3D Modeling > 3D Printing Gallery >  Full Scale Storm Trooper Mask

## Geoff

Since someone actually got round to printing the Imperial mask, I thought I might share the other Star Wars mask I put up on Thingiverse, and of course before I got the chance to finish it on my teeny weeny machine, Ericpark went and printed a full one!

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:391664




Here is a picture of his son wearing it..

..really made my day

erik2.JPG

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## cokreeate

Going to attempt to print this out this month thanks.

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## jimc

i gotta say geoff, you are one busy guy. i was keepin an eye on your stuff on thingiverse. you were pumpin out one to two models a day for awhile there. was this accumulated work you decided to post up or were you actually modeling these that fast?

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## Geoff

> i gotta say geoff, you are one busy guy. i was keepin an eye on your stuff on thingiverse. you were pumpin out one to two models a day for awhile there. was this accumulated work you decided to post up or were you actually modeling these that fast?


Since I was made redundant in November last year, i've had alot of free time! and living in the country now so many things that would normally take your time do not exist anymore, most of them modelled at the time,  I just go in radical spurts sometimes, I am one of those people that has too many hobbies for their own good lol (guitar, R/C, robotics, painting, making a 3d printer, making a giant 6 foot terminator 3D print, hexapods, tricopters programming a game engine... argh the list goes on.) 

So I will sort of get fixed on one area and go hard for a few weeks, then another then come back to it, so check in a month and you will prob see another 100 things up there on thingiverse, or I think I am moving to CG Trader so more likely on there.  The only time I actually will change the schedule is if someone pays for something  :Smile:  then it's pretty much all on that.

 The kids are in bed at 8:30pm, my wife likes watching those english murder mysteries on TV which I can't stand lol, so I generally escape to my man cave and work on something.

My vacation is nearing an end tho, I said to myself once I eat into half of my redundancy payout, I will go for a new job and it's been now nearly 9 months lol..  as good as it sounds can get a little boring lol, I need to work.

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## jimc

i can pretty much relate to all that stuff geoff. well in any case man you doing some real nice stuff so keep it up. wish i could do that sculpting style of modeling.

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## Geoff

And there has been 4 made so far..

The best I think was magicksticks, he did a great paint job. It really makes the whole thing worthwhile when you see someone print one of your models out, this isn't a small print job.

fvvv.JPG

ccv.jpg

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## Marm

Well damn Geoff.

I have liked about a dozen of your designs without even realizing it was you.  Now following!


AHHHH YOU MADE KERBALS!  LONG LIVE JEB!

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## LambdaFF

Impressive.

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## Hugues

Hi Geoff,

Impressive work.

I will have to print large parts for my bike. I don't see any seam on your parts. What is your technique ? Is it due to postprocessing ? Do you simply cut the parts straight with your CAD or you model the seam as well to hide them into the object ?

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## Geoff

> Well damn Geoff.
> 
> I have liked about a dozen of your designs without even realizing it was you. Now following!
> 
> 
> AHHHH YOU MADE KERBALS! LONG LIVE JEB!


I love meh kerbals  :Smile: 
I have made many mods....
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/...hlight=wayland





> Hi Geoff,
> 
> Impressive work.
> 
> I will have to print large parts for my bike. I don't see any seam on your parts. What is your technique ? Is it due to postprocessing ? Do you simply cut the parts straight with your CAD or you model the seam as well to hide them into the object ?


Thanks, I use blender,  model it first, then use a feature where you can slice through your model (at given angles). I create a duplicate of the object, slice it and delete the respective half, leaving two split pieces. Then I do an Edge loop and fill that gap, it's a pretty rinse and repeat technique (like keyboard shortcut easy... press K for cut... Z for cut through to the back of the mesh and C for constrain to axis either on off.

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## curious aardvark

what's a kerbal ?

Helmet is amazing :-)

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## Marm

I've used your ring pack... well tried to, never figured out how to get them out of the VAB :P.

CA:  www.kerbalspaceprogram.com

It's just pure joy.  And quite educational too.

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## Marm

Well that wasted 3 hours of my day.   Sat down to watch the video of your RCS wheels (very very cool by the way), and ended up on a Scott Manley Marathon.

Sometimes I hate YouTube.  You stop to watch a 2 minutes video of how to change an oil filter, and 8 hours later you realize you're watching a animated documentary on the mating habits of the Northern Saharan Giraffe.

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## Serena

Geoff this is really first rate modeling. I am going to work on getting these plated and on my sd card so I can start prints whenever I have time. It always impresses me that people share their work like this. It's one of the best things about this industry.

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## Geoff

> Geoff this is really first rate modeling. I am going to work on getting these plated and on my sd card so I can start prints whenever I have time. It always impresses me that people share their work like this. It's one of the best things about this industry.


I often release things before I have printed them (because let's face it.. you can only print so many things per day! and my list of 'things-to-print' fills an entire A4 notepad! 

So when someone prints one of your models out and then actually does the finishing on it, and does it so well to the point of it looking pretty much like you imagined the end product when you are modelling it... it gives me a great buzz.  I just wish I had more physical time to do it, since I started selling printers all my time has been taken up printing parts  :Frown:  been a bit sick lately and also as of tomorrow back to another full time job so will have even less time to do the fun stuff - but it might work out for the better. Sometimes having too much free time can be a bad thing  :Smile:  instead of getting focused on one thing, I get scattered across 20 projects and nothing gets done! at least now the time I have I should spend a bit more wisely. I have more helmets coming out, mainly the Robocop helmet (taken me 6 months almost to do... so many test prints.. hundreds... ) Scout trooper helmet, Darth Vader , Boba Fett and was going to attempt a Yoda Mask.

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## Serena

I am with you on the scattering across too many projects thing. I tend to be ridiculously ambitious with my to-do lists anyway, and there is something about these printers that is addictive. It's all I want to do. 

Good luck on the new job- hope it goes well! If I print the helmet I will post pictures for sure.  :Smile:

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## Serena

Progress so far.... I have 5 or so parts to go. A little bit of cracking in the ABS on the front face plates but should be able to fill them. I love how its turning out. The pieces fit together perfectly. I haven't ever finished something like this before. I'm doing some overall sanding to smooth it all out on each piece. Wondering what order to do this though- should I glue together before I prime, sand, fill? Or sand, fill, prime, etc...then glue together? 


Will update new pictures once I get all the pieces done.  :Smile: 


Photo Nov 23, 11 33 21 AM.jpg

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## Geoff

AWESOME!! 

In all my multi-piece prints, I always do all the Gluing first. 

I glue them all together, then I fill all the holes with whatever I can find... Wood putty, plastic putty... basically anything that can be sanded easily - I find just about all of them stick to plastic fairly well. 

Once that's done then I sand it all off, get it super smooth... fix any holes I missed and then finally get it ready to primer spray. 

I use a black or grey Matte undercoat (acrylic) then work on top of that. Since I dry brush nearly all my models by hand, I do alot of layers but for a storm trooper helmet, a nice white gloss and black gloss spray would do nicely.

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## Serena

> AWESOME!! 
> 
> In all my multi-piece prints, I always do all the Gluing first. 
> 
> I glue them all together, then I fill all the holes with whatever I can find... Wood putty, plastic putty... basically anything that can be sanded easily - I find just about all of them stick to plastic fairly well. 
> 
> Once that's done then I sand it all off, get it super smooth... fix any holes I missed and then finally get it ready to primer spray. 
> 
> I use a black or grey Matte undercoat (acrylic) then work on top of that. Since I dry brush nearly all my models by hand, I do alot of layers but for a storm trooper helmet, a nice white gloss and black gloss spray would do nicely.


Great! That helps a lot. Printing number 13 now. Excited to put it together. My son and his friends are super excited about this project- they have me giving updates to them as well. So this will definitely earn me some cool mom points from the teenagers. ;-)

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## Geoff

Looking forward to seeing the finished result! 

Don't worry about cracks in the print. I got a few in mine too, mainly because I was printing at super speeds and some of the parts are rather tall and tended to split on me during the printing process (I imagine the wafts of air or anything else causing the plastic to cool prematurely and buckle caused most of it) But I left them as is, glued all the parts and filled those cracks with the putty before I sanded. Since the whole helmet is going to get coated I figure you shouldn't notice the repair lines.

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## Serena

Starting to glue together! Printing the last two pieces tonight. :-) You can see the size of it in this picture- it looks so cool all ready.

Photo Nov 24, 5 22 22 PM.jpg

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## Geoff

excellent stuff!   I hope it doesn't turn out too big for a head  :Smile:  I am just looking at the eye sockets in comparison to yours so I hope it is wearable when done. 

What software have you been printing it on primarily?

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## Serena

The size is great- perfect for my teen son. I have it glued together now and it fits good. But even on me I can see out of the eyes no problem. I've filled the seams and waiting for it to dry then I'll sand and prime.  I'm amazed how well it fits together. Considering all the various things that could have changed how each piece printed, etc... It fits like a glove. 

I use Simplify3D -printed everything as is- no scaling, no supports. It had a little trouble with the rounded rim on the last two back pieces but the roughness is underneath and won't show. I was able to print two pieces at a time on a few of them, depending on what fit on the bed. 20% infill and 2.00mm layers. 

Once I get it all done I'll post them on a thingiverse with the print specs. Hopefully it will encourage others to try a bigger project like this if they haven't before. :-)

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## Geoff

> The size is great- perfect for my teen son. I have it glued together now and it fits good. But even on me I can see out of the eyes no problem. I've filled the seams and waiting for it to dry then I'll sand and prime.  I'm amazed how well it fits together. Considering all the various things that could have changed how each piece printed, etc... It fits like a glove. 
> 
> I use Simplify3D -printed everything as is- no scaling, no supports. It had a little trouble with the rounded rim on the last two back pieces but the roughness is underneath and won't show. I was able to print two pieces at a time on a few of them, depending on what fit on the bed. 20% infill and 2.00mm layers. 
> 
> Once I get it all done I'll post them on a thingiverse with the print specs. Hopefully it will encourage others to try a bigger project like this if they haven't before. :-)


Once you do one big one I think they become less daunting as you go, and I don't think I've ever made anything that's much bigger besides the Imperial Guard mask, but that's some 30 odd pieces and has slowly gone backward on my to-do list... as you know now, time is really the only downside to 3D printing really  :Smile:  Even if I could print at double speed it would make the prototype process alot easier and faster, but I guess we still have some years to wait, as I've been waiting 3-4 years now and really, the home or consumer 3D printers really have not gained much in the way of speed, at least not in the way laser printers did, ie  increase the amount of copies per minute for each new model, etc.

I'm glad it's all going well, I sure wish my Mum would have printed me a Storm trooper mask  :Smile:   but then again, I am 38 and for Christmas she got me a full scale Darth helmet, which wasn't a bad choice for a 80 year old lol

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## CheerCreator

Hey Geoff, nice stuff. What 3d printer did you use to print this?

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## Geoff

> Hey Geoff, nice stuff. What 3d printer did you use to print this?


I'm printing mine on the Flashforge and mainly because it never ever crashes on me - ever. It has never stopped mid print. 

I have a kossel and an I3, but unless you print from the SD card, I have found that if you use your computer alot when it's printing, the thing actually skips a bit and you can hear the printer actually stop and think... this isnt good. 
I thought it may be a thread issue, but I am running an Octocore CPU, and have only 2 threads assigned to the print - but anything that runs in 64bit mode and uses multiple threads seems to adversely affect the print. 

Long story short... If I print on my Flashforge, I know I can happily use my PC to it's fullest while sending a print to the printer and the print will not fail... if I print with the kossel or I3 prusa, it has to be SD card otherwise there is a chance the print will just completely balls up for no reason... this is via both pronterface and repetier host. 

People dislike Makerware for many reasons, but there is one thing I do love about it - the background service is very reliable. You can crash your PC to white screen and as long as you don't reset it - the print will keep going. You can close makerware.. and the print will keep going.

You can queue another job with makerware.. .with the print still going (so you can create an auto wipe system to clear the bed and print a second object automatically.. etc..)

While printing from SD is no big deal, nothing beats sending it direct  :Smile:

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## Serena

All done!!! I'm so happy with how it turned out. This is by far my favorite thing I have printed so far. It's also the biggest project I've tried but I learned a lot working on it, particularly about finishing pieces. Some pics of the finished Mask:

DSC_1307.jpg
DSC_1309.jpg
DSC_1308.jpg
DSC_1311.jpg
And one so you can see the size on a guy which I think is perfect. I added some foam to the inside for comfort and better fit. I would like to find some cheap sunglasses to pop out the lens and glue in to the back of the eyes. 
Thanks again Geoff for sharing the model- it's the showpiece in my collection.  :Smile:  I've even been inspired to work on designing my own large scale model- the Master Sword from Legend of Zelda. Looks like it will end up 11 pieces and not nearly as tricky as this one but still fun to have in life-size form.

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## Marm

> I'm printing mine on the Flashforge and mainly because it never ever crashes on me - ever. It has never stopped mid print..
> 
> ...........
> 
> While printing from SD is no big deal, nothing beats sending it direct


Hmmm thats interesting Geoff.  My Davinci is the first printer I've owned, so I have kind of assumed some features were industry standards. After slicing, the file is uploaded to the printer, and off it goes.  I can literally unplug the the printer from the USB and it will continue to print.  I still have control of the printer through the menu system (pause, cancel).    Why do you prefer sending it direct?  Isn't that, as you have stated yourself, more error prone?

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## Geoff

> Hmmm thats interesting Geoff.  My Davinci is the first printer I've owned, so I have kind of assumed some features were industry standards. After slicing, the file is uploaded to the printer, and off it goes.  I can literally unplug the the printer from the USB and it will continue to print.  I still have control of the printer through the menu system (pause, cancel).    Why do you prefer sending it direct?  Isn't that, as you have stated yourself, more error prone?


First, Awesome work Serena!!! that looks very well finished, much better than my first attempt ever went that's for sure! and such a big job, my hats off  :Smile:  A bit lost for words really..

@Marm...  Pronterface seems to buffer the job to the printer, as it goes.. like replicator G.. whereas from the SD card, it has less opportunity to fail.. I assume from your comment the davinci(being a bit newer than my old flashforge) has a bit more memory and stores the job onboard, much like a common bubbljet or laserprinter converts the print job to PJL, then sends the job and it queues on the device where it's stored locally as it prints... 

No my old FF is a bit archaic for that.. but as I said, with makerware and its background service, my old flashy has never really skipped a beat, I gotta say I have made many times over what it cost me to buy.. like, we're up to about 8x my money back, so really I can't complain at all, it's been an awesome machine.

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## curious aardvark

> I thought it may be a thread issue, but I am running an Octocore CPU,  and have only 2 threads assigned to the print - but anything that runs  in 64bit mode and uses multiple threads seems to adversely affect the  print.


yeah I pretty much just install 32 bit os on the machines I build. It's faster, everything that worked on xp works, right click menu items work and it's a lot more stable. 
Why the commercial bods use the 64bit os is beyond me. Given that 99.9% of software is still 32 bit and has to be run under a 32bit emulator.
 Hell there's even a 32 bit version of windows 8, and if microsoft haven't scrapped it by now, then there's a good commercial reason for it. 

The helmet is amazing serena !

But you do realise it's useless without the REST of the stormtrooper costume ? :-)

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## Serena

> The helmet is amazing serena !
> 
> But you do realise it's useless without the REST of the stormtrooper costume ? :-)


i know right?! I posted a picture to show my friends and people said the same thing- when is the rest of the costume done.....I did see this though- how funny would that be?!!!

http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/1d4...FY_m7Aod6yMALg

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## Geoff

> But you do realise it's useless without the REST of the stormtrooper costume ? :-)


Just because I haven't posted it on thingiverse, doesn't mean I haven't finished it here sitting in STL files....  :Wink:   Can't give out all your easter eggs at once or people might get a belly ache  :Stick Out Tongue:  Quite often I wait and see how many people download or print something to see if it's worth doing the rest, and when I saw the helmets start coming out, I thought ok, time for the rest of the suit.

I have been debating just dumping thingiverse and making my own site (which is another hobby and I havent made a site in a while) and starting to host them myself. The analytics on thingiverse are way out of whack and the place sort of gives me a really bad vibe... for many reasons.. 

Anyway, the storm trooper helmet.... You know what takes longer than modelling it? creating instructions and organizing all the parts.. it's so time consuming... 

It's not just the model, or the cutting, its the trying to make it for all build platforms... SO...If anyone is lucky and reads this message and wants the full suit, you are welcome to email me at solidtrek@gmail.com  I won't be hosting it on thingiverse for some time, or until at least all the instructions are completed.

BUT 

you need to tell me what sort of printer you have and how big your build plate is.. I will cut the pieces to suit your machine. If you own a Flashforge, you are in luck because that's pretty much done already, or have a build plate of at least 20cmx14cm and can print to a height of no less than 12cm (I keep it a bit lower than max scale to allow for printers that go crazy at the max heights... like mine... )

Whats not finished:

The Boots. Don't ask. Pain in the A**   Put them on the back burner to be re-visited at some point...

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## curious aardvark

lol love that stormtrooper onesie. 
I think that would be the way to go. Can't imagine printing out an entire set of stormtrooper armour. 
Or modelling it in cad ! 
You have had a lot of free time, haven't you geoff :-)

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## Serena

Aha! I should have known you would have been working on the whole suit. You do seem to be a bit of an overachiever, eh?  :Big Grin:  Haha! 

I have been wondering about Thingiverse myself. I don't know if it's just a situation where it's gotten too big- since I wasn't using it when it was smaller. But I do feel that having a site like that being run by the makers of a certain brand of printer may be a conflict of interest just on principle. The "featured" model choices are questionable at times. I have found such amazing models (like the stormtrooper helmet!) that print perfect and I only found by specific searches but the ones that are given prominence on the home page are sometimes unprintable or require so much repair that I don't bother.  Some are posted by people who didn't do the design work but they get all the credit. I do like the concept of MyMiniFactory in that they don't put any models up that they haven't printed. So it weeds out a lot of crap. 

Personally I am working on designs I hope to sell in the future so I don't intend to post a lot of my personal stuff anywhere since I don't trust people not to take it and sell it. There's a lot on etsy and similar sites that is pretty blatantly ripped off. But I am glad that people do share their stuff so I can have fun printing things for my own collection that I didn't have to try to model on my own.  :Smile:

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## Geoff

> You have had a lot of free time, haven't you geoff :-)


12 months to be exact  :Smile:  But too much time can be a bad thing as I found out, lost focus on certain projects and flip flopped between dozens more..  I'm glad to be back to full time work, helps me think during the day about what I need to do and then when I get home there is no crap going on, so yeah should actually pump more out not or at least more consistently.. but not on thingiverse as I will reply to Serena below...




> Aha! I should have known you would have been working  on the whole suit. You do seem to be a bit of an overachiever, eh?  Haha! 
> 
> I have been wondering about Thingiverse myself. I don't know if it's  just a situation where it's gotten too big- since I wasn't using it when  it was smaller. But I do feel that having a site like that being run by  the makers of a certain brand of printer may be a conflict of interest  just on principle. The "featured" model choices are questionable at  times. I have found such amazing models (like the stormtrooper helmet!)  that print perfect and I only found by specific searches but the ones  that are given prominence on the home page are sometimes unprintable or  require so much repair that I don't bother.  Some are posted by people  who didn't do the design work but they get all the credit. I do like the  concept of MyMiniFactory in that they don't put any models up that they  haven't printed. So it weeds out a lot of crap. 
> 
> Personally I am working on designs I hope to sell in the future so I  don't intend to post a lot of my personal stuff anywhere since I don't  trust people not to take it and sell it. There's a lot on etsy and  similar sites that is pretty blatantly ripped off. But I am glad that  people do share their stuff so I can have fun printing things for my own  collection that I didn't have to try to model on my own.


Over-Ambitious is probably a better description lol  :Smile:  if I said how many things I have sitting either half printed, half modelled... or bits of these and bits of that you would think I was quite mad...  As I said to Curious above, I did have a considerable break from work... I worked pretty solid from the age of 18 to 38.. and was made redundant... so after 20 yrs, 2 kids and working my a** off... I decided a good break was in order.But... as I said, too much can be a bad thing.. after a year I actually just got so scattered with projects and a random sleep cycle I went back to full time work to get centered again and back to routine, and since i'm working this time around because I _want_ to and not because I have to (which is always the opposite) i'm much more relaxed and good stuff seems to be coming out of it. 

Thingiverse, I am loathing for all the reasons you stated above.. The featured items are very often from makerbot distributors, like LefabShop.. no matter how good or crap it is, they will still feature it to give them coverage and in turn try and raise sales for them... it's incest at the corporate level.

Also, model thieves are a big pain... but I won't go into them, not worth the rant  :Smile: 

I have alot of content that is original that I do wish to sell also, hence the reason for getting my own site organised. I have become a little overwhelmed by all the CGTrader, Pinshape, thingiverse.. blah blah... so many 3D marketeers now it is insane.. and this is NOW... imagine how bad it's going to be in a year or two..

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