As mentioned before Autodesk's 123D Make was used to get from 3D digial to the actual model. The software offers different material options. You can either simply stack slices in one direction or interlock them in as a kind of spaced stack in multiple directions, just as a skeleton.
Above image shows stacked, lower one interlocked example versions. The right column shows the cutting patterns.
We were only interested in the section including ears, eyes and frontal hair, 50x40x30 centimeters approximately. We added three holes that go through to whole model to simplify alignment of the slices.
As resolution is a concern we wanted a thin and light material with good cutting characteristics. The local DIY market turned up 5mm thick plates of Extruded polystyrene foam (XPS) normally for sound dampening under parquet flooring. We didn't regret this choice.
50cm at 0.5cm thickness means 100 slices. 123D Make returns a .pdf containing the patterns that can be printed out to scale. Each slice is numbered and has markings to Unfortunately one third of the slices didn't fit A3 paper and as A2 printing would have costed way to much, had to be stitched together after rough cutting.
Process was as follows:
- Rough cut slices, cut out the quadratic alignment mark
- Stitching together those that didn't fit a single A3 paper
- Arrange multiple slices on an XPS board
- Fix them with tape strips, most especially at the quadratic hole
- Precisely cut along the edges
- Cut out alignment marks
- Check edges and if necessary, clean them up
- Engrave the number of the slice
Took us about three weeks, but as progress was visible all the time, motivation wasn't an issue.
Building the Model Part 1 on Vimeo.
After finishing, the model was filled and sanded to get a smooth surface. But we'll get to that later.
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