Frock Chick

I took a day  this week to make sure all my projects are easily found and while initially it was overwhelming, I think I am not just at the inspired stage 🙂

I have a lot of current projects, but having them nicely divided into clear containers mean I can actually see them 🙂

I really want to finish my Cleves research this year. Or at least be at a point where I can say “yes, I can talk about this.” Because let me tell you, I have a heck of a lot of info for Cologne but there is very little for Cleves, Jullich and Berg. It’s a larger geographical spread and lots of archives are just gone. I have looked for donor portraits, any portraits and they are just.. not there.

Later yes.

Anyway. I now do have a pretty Cleves dress, a beautiful Cleaves dress, and a working kirtle type garment. I’m mainly working on accessories. But my red velvet gown is at the same stage my pink and black Cleves dresses were a few months ago so I can definitely work on the hand finishing of that this year.

So that least the later historic and modern media recreations.

I want Mina finally finished. That has been a struggle for fitting the bodice as my fabric has zero give. So the lining has to have zero give. I may have finally managed that but I need a bit of time to work on making it all tidy and transportable.

And I want my Elissa costume done. I should have left it alone but well… I wanted to wear it where accuracy is still prized so… but it’s okay. I think I’m just not wanting to face the rope skirt. It’s about 8m of velvet and while I have cut the pieces I have to pull and roll them and somehow make sure they don’t unroll. This is easier with velour but these are clearly velvet.

And Ahsoka. I am now happy with where Rebels has left her (in fact it’s exactly what I hoped and thought was the most logical outcome) so feel a lot happier in investing in the project again 🙂 It’s been intense and nothing is even close to finished due to just not having any luck with any material.

So that leaves Marie Antoinette as my other must finish project. It’s hard because I really do need a metal frame. Luckily the original is very short so it’s possible I can find support material for it. I am very disappointed with the plastic stuff now available. It’s not at all like the older stuff with an oval cross section. That had a fibrous property that made it really quite firm, and the oval cross section helped curves maintain shape. I get a greally nice kidney shape but that is not at all the shape of these things.

This may be a project for next year. I have all the fabrics, it’s a matter of boning for the stays and hoops. I think I have an idea for making the hoops solid and transportable though.

I’ve had to put a limit on this, and today my not be the ideal day- weird inflammation along top of radius- but I do need to put a pin in this! So I have some nice weight card to work with and will set up my netbook with some media and just start and see when I stop.

There may be a bit of experimenting going on.

I started by preparing the joins I created in the model. This allows the hilt to have the printlines as horizontal as possible and allow for very secure joins.

I sanded the extended end smooth and to remove the excess. I used a knife to tidy the recesses sections of the other end

Once these fitted well I used acetione and a tiny bit of ABS to weld the ends together. Pressure was needed for some

Once each hilt was assembled I was able to start sanding.

Much more sanding later I was then able to use a mix of acetone, silver pigment and clear abs filament dissolved together. This acts as filler and paint. But as it’s applied y hand and uses the solvent that will dissolver the plastic entirely it’s a process of applying, sanding back, applying thinner coat, and so on.

I used copper pigment for the copper pieces.

This was the antique silver. I have been using regular silver in subsequent passes. The difference can be seen below right.

I have decided on a Rococo theme for my birthday as an excuse to wear my Marie Antoinette Rocket Gown because a picnic in a pretty garden sounds perfect 🙂 So I need all the undergarments and I also need to test the pattern for the swag drapes 🙂

To do this I’m finally starting to use a stash of about 14 metres of of a shot freen and white mystery fabric. The colour it looks in warm light wis qtute silvery and in cool like quite dull aqua. It handles like cotton but feels like a bast fibre. So it may well be a mix. But it is totally perfect for a 2m wide petticoat and ruffles that I need for this frock!

So I’ll grab photos as I promised to share how I make my tubular wonder skirts (they can be used for paniers, a bell shaped rin, and even a bustle!

It’s very simple but a really good stable 🙂

These will need to be twice the size I normally make them of course..

And I also have glue to see if I can also do some more work on Ahsoka.

And then see about how to cut this lace into strips of a good size. So first, to the printer! I need a reference image or two if I’m going to work on this away from my comp 🙂

I figured I should work on projects where I already have materials for a bit 🙂 Also I do need to make a modern-ish set of stays to be able to wear the frock. And that will mean boning past the waist and controlled on the hips. So probably a gored hip with a bit of bust shaping given this is the shape of the original.

So basically this. Which is from the film 🙂 I know the plain piece on the lower back is acting more like a plackard but I’m going to make mine in two pieces, waist through control and a skirt of padded tabs to tack on. It gives me a lot of room to wear this under the Wilting Flower costume for instance and maybe even a Glinda if I decide to go that route again with my epic amount of bubble fabric.

So ideally ballet pink.

I had left the hilts and greeblies looking good 🙂 But then… today as I was arranging all the parts on a stand in plate… well I found that I needed to cut one hilt section in half, and also find an emitter end cap.

But this is how it all looks now so it should be good 🙂 Okay I know it’s good as I error checked and used Cura 🙂

If you look closely I’m printing at draft quality because I don’t really want to have my printer going for a week. I just don’t trust power/machine combos atm ever 🙂

But it’s really not that bad as I can just sand and acetone wash as planned. So it shouldn’t be extra effort to save a little filament and a lot of time 🙂

It looks like I only have photos of the previous sets of hilts over here. Yes. I had to rebuild my hilts from scratch as bending the hilts slightly early lead to something being off by about 1mm over the whole length. I managed to do so in a much shorter time frame but… it was still a lot of work. So to find the hilts still needed work today… ugh.

But, yes, all in parts.

I believe this is actually of my final set 🙂 The emitter got lost so I have put it back in the file here (with all the pieces nested) and in the file at the top (all parts in areas about the size of the plate of my printer) and are in the three files for each print job.

I used LIPID object exporter plugin for Sketchup and opened them in Cura to make sure they were all aligned correctly.

I do really enjoy this. Well most of it. Once the order is sorted and I don’t have to work in the air as such.

But I am nearly back to where I was. I decided that I was too annoyed by the short back lekku to be happy. Side track to making a new stand for sculpting and I now have wiggly lekku- one attached two on the floor.

And so much mess.

So much.

But the back lekku has a layer of latex, there is latex grouting on the new montral seams (actually an older cast that was still in pieces) and I also templated a headband for her.

The site will default to your WP login but if you aren’t logged in you can use FB, or Twitter at the very least.  Woo!

After using the shape bender I used hidden geometry to work out why the end looked blunt and then added lines.

And then used Solid Inspector2 to check for errors. It actually fixed some things that were meant to repair, but not my edges which I did expect.

And then I found trying to slice through horizontally just did not work. The model is perfectly horizontal but as soon as I intersect faces it doesn’t. So lots of short pieces like for Ventress 🙂 I know that worked so this should work too 🙂

I started making fairly the overlaps to help join those pieces once printed but I’m not so I like them, so I’ll spend a little more time today on making ring supports instead.

Each hilt is more than 10 pieces. This is to better reflect the different materials (copper, silver, black) Also to allow the same print to be used as non functional and functional by having some separate blade holders able to be used simply as support, the end cap being functional with the D ring holder and screw. I kept getting errors using the bolt making plugin so I’d rather just not use that atm. It should work at a larger scale but I did find scaling could be unpredictable with curves,

These also have to be arranged in correct alignment for printing. which I will do once the connecting sections are added.

I find this quite painful and painfully slow work. A lot has had to be drawn by hand even after using tools and plugins. For example the supports I’m making can’t be just extruded as they connect into pieces on a different angle. So I have to copy from one piece and add to the first and then measure and draw to size. Luckily 5mm seems to work well so I can at least be fairly consistent with that 🙂

It’s seriously fiddly work, lots of copy paste and drawing on the inside and outside

It takes 10,000 hours to master something? Maybe an exaggeration but it is many many hours of making good progress and then bad and then good, and then even worse…

But I have hilts actually curved and tidied fairly reasonably.

I have so many in progress images but none of this particular set. Anyway. Tadah!

I have actually had to redo alllllllllllll of this. Luckily it’s going much faster now. Note: use right click to reverse faces. Trust me you’ll need it a lot.

But this is why I have been so quiet online lately. Relearning the skills I used for Ventress after not using this for a year or so? Tough! Especially when some of the guides are a bit incomplete.

For example for cale? you click the tool click the diagonal and start typing. No right click, no typing into a text. It’s a bit counter intuitive but I think it’s a bit more accessible this way too? Anyway. Saved me at least a little work- by allowing me to copy components from this file into my at true scale new hilts. And then using them as a guide because I change so much!

As in the so called definition of madness. Yes I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to do something expecting it to work. In part because the tutortial I used did not really make full use of SKUs component and group features.

I want to make my hilt fool proof for printing and so I’m dividing them up into shorter sections to print only so high- they are hollow so too tall and there is the risk they will skew. This has to do with Z axis (though my machine has a steel frame- less of an issue unless there is a flaw) and cooling/heating issues. I have a heated plate so that is good.

Anyway. to make a slice. Make a square on the green axis make it a component. And then you can merrily place it through your model and it won’t move anything. Then select everything, explode curves, and intersect selection. Then you have the slices in place.

But keep them all as separate pieces before then.

On the right is me using the guide and this shape stretched some interior planes. No idea why. But I didn’t notice until I have all my hilts divided and ready for adding internal support for snapping the pieces together.

So….. I know now. I have had practice now and it means I should., should, be able to do the last tidying of proportions today.

I have been working to the limits of the resolution my printer can manage (apparently 100microns, 0.1mm) but I need to test my machine. PLA at 0.2mm is a bit chunky. I have seen how fine 0.1mm looks on the standard owl model but I don’t know it if was PLA or ABS.

I now have 1.75mm ABS so can test the machine again. And at 0.1mm

I want to make it easier so I’m trying to round all my measurements to full mm so that’s what I’m doing today. Except for anything to do with the emitter. Though I guess I do now know how to cut through a little more easily…

Oh man. What took a couple of days to get “mostly done” for a solid print is taking ages because I want a fancy one that can hold a blade.