I made some time in the spring to finally finish up the 500% Minimate. I went with automotive paint for the metal flake appearance. After multiple coats, I topped it off with a couple clear coats for protection. Unfortunately before I was able to apply the clear coat to the head, I dropped it on my patio. It chipped out a sizable chunk and I went back to the fill-sand-paint routine for a while. Now I can't even tell where it chipped.

The printer is back in operation, so next I'm going to see just how big I can make one of these suckers. Two Internet points if you can figure out the scale.

Time to get back to the large printed Minimate. All of the major pieces are printed (or reprinted) and I've done some heavy sanding and filling to get a smooth finish. Before applying another layer of paint I took these photos of the cleaned up prints.


Look at all that texture.

In early 2013, I purchased a consumer 3D printer. Not one of the industrial types that Shapeways uses, but an open source, plastic extruding, home model. Specifically the Ditto from Tinkerines Studios. After assembly and many hours of refinement I started printing Minimate parts. Large Minimate parts.


Using the models I created for animation I was able to produce a scaled-up version of the basic Minimate.


Like anything new there are bound to be problems. I printed many versions of the various pieces to get the fit and feel just right. I've also had a couple controller chips die so I end up waiting for replacement parts.


Print lines are very obvious in these early prints. It seemed whenever I would print a torso, about halfway through the printer would get off track just a bit. It would either skip layers or go over the edge a bit. It's gotten better, but still not ideal.


Also you can see the little blobs that indicated the starting point of each layer. These have been minimized quite a bit with recent prints. But I'm still sanding and filling to get the finish I want.

I've also purchased the Ditto Upgrade Kit that should improve prints as well. Unfortunately it uses a thinner plastic filament so I have to use up my stock of plastic before upgrading. I've got about three spools to go.

This is still an ongoing project. I don't yet have a fully assembled jumbo Minimate. When I do, it will be posted here.

In the summer of 2006, the Minimate Multiverse message board held a contest where you would take a cover or scene from a comic book and replace the characters with Minimates. It was inspired by the first Marvel box set which replicated the Giant Size X-Men cover in the Minimate style. Thankfully there were no restrictions on the choice of comic so I went with a less mainstream title from 1948.
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