I put a pause in the project cause I ran out of material, but I decided to post this one up because it is the most complete of the two. In fact, she was 3D Printed at the time I posted up the 4 Ednas picture (almost a month ago!), but I ran into a lot of issues and problems with this one!
I mostly use Wood PLA to make an item either flesh colored or extremely light weight. eSun Wood PLA (used in this model) creates a light skin color, and Alfina Wood PLA (used in the other model) creates a dark skin color. If one is making dolls, this is great if one does not want to chase for flesh/skin color paints. But it is very hard to work with!
The Yellow/Gold/Cream color in the picture is the naked material.
Problem 1: It's Still Wood!
Looking at her face, it looks like she has a lot of acne. It's the material failing. Though it is Wood Pulp (almost like a paper slurry) mixed into a plastic resin (Polylactic Acid, aka PLA), it is still permeable to water. When painting her, the water in the paint reacted with the wood in the resin, causing it to swell and lump up. It should not have happened but it did. Same thing happened to her arms and panties. It happened to the sox as well, but I spent 4 days sanding the lumps down and repainted, only to sand again, which brings problem #2
Problem #2: It's Plastic Resin!
For some reason this plastic resin hardens into something that is almost impossible to sand. It is not "cuttable" by regular sandpaper, I had to use Emory Cloth; and metal files did not work either, I had to use my Diamond Files to file things down. But something about the resin used, it allows water to seep into it and react with the wood. So it is not "water proof". Not by any means!
Other PLA plastics and even other plastics like ABS and HIPS (High Impact Polystyrene - used used in car bumpers and other automotive parts) that I used I can sand and file down with regular tools with ease as needed. But this eSun Wood PLA? I swear! nothing short of powertools is one going to get any action out of it!
In fact because of the resin allowing water to seep into the wood, when I painted her base, the base warped and shrank in some areas, putting cracks into the base! So I need to make a new base for this one in the near future.
Similarly, this is the second body for this Edna because the first broke and crumpled apart during inspection. Why? Sometimes when printing, air gets into the melted resin and creates thin spots within the object. Thus when giving the object an inspection where one gives a gentle squeeze to it, the first body for this Edna broke apart.
What I should have done.
On the 3 of 4, I sprayed some ClearCoat Acrylic paint to the base surface. There the plastic smoothed out a bit, and I was able to do some touch ups before painting them. Those who got their Edna's say that I did excellent work, though I know I could have done better. My first Edna (My Edna) I painted first and then clear coated later. The differences shows. But hey! I'm learning the art and science of the craft before I can sell my services of 3D Printing! : I already have a "customer", a religious organizer who uses "Yogi Bear" like characters for his truck troupe. They go about the neighborhood preaching the bible stories though a cartoon/puppet show from the back of his truck which is set up as a stage. Children who stay for the whole show get candy and treats, and a lot of parents send their children to the show when the truck comes around the block! This person wants me to draw up characters and print them up in 3D! I told him that I'm not ready for this but will be sometime next year and it would be $300 per character (he has 4 or 5 characters he wants printed and painted). He said that it is not a problem and that he wants to sit down at the end of each stage and pay me for each section done.
But I digress. In working with other plastics, 3D Printing is easy. Working with this (eSun) Wood PLA is not. it is great for a lot of things, but not everything. Figurine and model 3D printing, issues comes up in and are hard to deal with.
When as soon as I get some $$$ and buy some material (ClearCoat Acrylic Paint, Acetone, etc.), I'll finish up this Edna and see how it looks. As is, it needs a lot of clean up. And a new base.
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Edna (c) \r\n\t\t\t\t\t
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Edna 3D Plans (c) \r\n\t\t\t\t\t
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This 3D Printed Edna by \r\n\t\t\t\t\t
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