Brownnoize and I were recently approached by a friend of ours looking to surprise her partner, Jeff, with an awesome Star Wars-related gift for Christmas. She had recently had the opportunity to have his head 3D scanned and had a great idea for how to incorporate that into a gift he would appreciate. She asked me if there was any way to make a figure of Jeff frozen in carbonite like Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back. I knew it could be done, and that it would require me to learn a new piece of 3D modeling software that I did not have an experience with, Blender, so I jumped at the opportunity. Brownnoize helped with the initial concept and logistics, and then I did the final modeling, printing, and finishing. Learning to use Blender was very different from the Creo that I’m used to, but thanks to some terrific video tutorials I was up and running much quicker than I expected. From there, it was just a matter of transplanting Jeff’s head onto the model, and engineering the model for detail and affordability using a combination of high-detail SLA printing from Shapeways and good ol’ FFF printing for the larger, less detailed parts. The result came together better than I had hoped, and after some paint work based on the original film prop, Jeff in Carbonite was ready to go. I provided the figure and display stand, and my friend produced a custom backer card in the vintage Kenner style of the original Star Wars line. By all accounts it was a slam dunk on Christmas day, and I am happy to have helped!
I also had a really good time with the photo shoot for this project, so read on for many more fun pics!
Leave a Reply