Dragon egg project (wip)

WIP Project: Dragon eggs

(Note: W.I.P stands for Work In Progress. Posts tagged with WIP can be voted on here in order to encourage me to re-prioritize what to work on)

The Dragon egg project consists of trying to make a mould for wax casting cool fantasy candles. The first idea I had is of a simple candle wax egg, hence the name. 

First attempts at a dragon egg model.

First attempt at a mould

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Mould with tabs to ease opening, holes to line up the pattern, and notch to see how the parts are oriented.

I expect the first version to have a few problems, mainly the pattern might be too detailed, and when trying to remove the candle from the mould I expect it to be stuck, I may have to print the model itself and do a latex cast of it instead of 3D print it directly. I want to 3D print and test it to be sure however, I won't know if it has failed before it has failed after all. Another problem is that it has overhangs and can't be printed in the orientation I wanted.

The next version I am working on will have arched legs stuck to a larger surface of the egg body, for strength and avoiding overhangs when 3D printing.

Learning a new skill: 3D modelling

(part 0) (part 2 here)
A little while back I mentioned on tumblr I was starting to learn 3D modelling. After much time-consuming and perhaps -pointless- deliberation, I settled for learning Blender. Despite it's bad reputation, the updates to the program in the past year has made it much more appealing. It's features are many and versatile, and most importantly: open source with a great community and learning material. I put it down shortly after I began, but now I am back on it again, and thankfully have gotten past the *head to desk* stage of initial frustration. I'm learning with the book called "blender for dummies" this time around while supplementing more and more with youtube, manuals and general googling the further I get. I underestimated the book due to it's name, I never expected the "For dummies" series to be more than "sell-bait" however, using it has been a un-frustrating and productive experience. I'm on chapter 4 so far, and am starting to get very close to my goal of making my first 3D print.

Blender screenshot: My first 3D model, how sentimental (Babys first extrude)

Blender screenshot: The Skyfish logo imported from .svg (illustrator) to Blender. (I have no idea what I'm doing.) There appears to be a problem with some of the vectors facing the wrong way or maybe crossing. I'm still working on figuring this one out.

The goal is to make a stamp with my logo on it using 3D model from blender and some sugru (for the stamp surface) It's 3D printer weekend at the Oslo makerspace Bitraf this weekend, so I'm hoping I will have it all figured out by then.