MrObsessive

I posted this over on FB where it's got (and still getting) a TON of buzz. Some of you don't do FB, so I thought I'd post this here. I started this file as a clean slate back in late January, and it started literally as a single line in Blender. I had no official blueprints to go by, just good orthographic pics I could find on the 'net, and a bunch of other shots of the car. Here it is all printed up in the Mighty 8k, as this printed the other night with no issues at all. I'd like for this to be a transkit of sorts for me as I'll see if I can use one of the AMT '67 Mustang kits as a chassis donor, as the real car was essentially a stock Mustang underneath. A bunch of pics-------I don't plan any more copies of this, and no I'm sorry-------I do not sell files or prints of what I do. A comparison with a '68 Mustang CS I created months ago. I got the wheelbase pretty much exact on the Bertone, so I at least did the scaling correctly. Some file pics as it was being created.................... The 1:1............... Thanks for looking!

More power to you Doug trying to straighten out somewhat dense mesh! For me personally, I've just taken to redrawing the entire section if needed, as dealing with tight meshes can drive me crazy. Such was the case with the '64 Corvair I did when the front end from the '60 needed changed as they're different. Yes, I gotta switch up on projects too from time to time------I might have five or six going on at the moment. I'm in no hurry to print, as I'd be overrun with cars after too long, so I'm limiting printing any to maybe once a month now. The Plymouth looks great! Was that originally Dan's file? He does such really nice work! I got his '53 Woodill Wildfire not long ago, and it's a VERY nice file. ❤️

Been just a minute since I last posted here. I've had a LOT of files done in the last couple months or so. I can't list all of them here----the page would take forever to load, but I can say that I've been doing a lot of my own design work lately, and not as much buying ready to convert .obj files. Some pics of what's up...... A 1964 Corvair Monza four door sedan. The file started as a '60, but the front ends are different, so I created a new front end for it to suit a '64. The print .stl file does have the gas door on the driver's side front-----I didn't add that in the .blend file seen here as the file size was already rather large. 1965 Bertone Mustang Show Car. I just worked on this today, and it's soon to be done to be printed somewhere along the way. The base file before wall thickness.......... The print file which is soon to be done............ Lastly, a 1963 Aston Martin DP215. The blueprints for this are rather wonky, but I've got a ton of pics of the 1:1, so some changes were made, particularly with the roofline as that's not quite right. Thanks for tuning in! 😁 P.S. I have to add like I do on FB that I do not sell any of my files are prints. This is strictly a hobby for me, with no intentions of trying to make money at it, or getting tied into some sort of obligation or deadline. That's a hobby killer for me.

It's one of the reasons I've stressed to newbies that they really need to get familiar with the 3D programs out there, as that can go a long way in spotting and correcting bad files/prints. Sadly, there's some fraudsters out there like any other field----people staring at the ceiling at midnight, beating their knuckles at the headboard trying to figure out what they can do to beat someone out of their money. I've already gotten my fair share of complaints about X person and files/prints via emails or PM's, so I can definitely believe there's a lot of nonsense happening in the 3D world unfortunately. The latest trick are these fraud "3D designers" who will put up a post on FB for example saying they can design a car to anyone's specs. The problem is, you go to their profile page (many don't), and there are no examples whatsoever of any of their WIP's or any printed product that they ostensibly designed. Yet............I keep hearing stories over and over again how this person was taken by such and such, and they lost a bunch of money over it. Eyes and ears open folks-----the hustlers are out there as I've met 'em, and have had to get quite nasty in the recent past with a few very obvious frauds.

The files I have were from a video game------I think one of the Forza series. I don't recommend trying to retrofit a printed part to a model kit, because I can almost guarantee the part will not fit. We're talking two very different design origins.........same car and scale notwithstanding. Unless the designer has the kit in hand and can do measuring and possible scanning, I wouldn't take a chance on a part fitting because it'll be a real crapshoot at best. Frankly, it'd be better to get a 3D file of the car (they're out there, but might be pricey), and start with a new model of the car as an entire print. That's the route I would go. I can say that the particular file I have would need a TON OF WORK before it ever saw the inside of a USB drive. Because the file was meant for a video game, there's a lot of work to be done on its surface as it's what I'd call very low poly, and would not print well at all as is. Doing that type of work is not for the faint of heart, and one would need to know the 3D programs out there to not only fix the surface, but then to make it printable afterwards.

You're welcome! 😁😁

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?????????????????? Uhhhhh...........just on the previous page I posted what the "latest" is?? ⏰

I'm a fan of Andrey's files, and while some of them aren't "quite correct", they do print VERY nice as I've never had an issue with anything of his I've printed. Interesting little back story about the Hudson-----I was talking back and forth with an eBay seller as he has that print up for auction, and he made some extras to go with it that weren't part of the original files. He tells me that both the two and four door Jets were special requests of his, as Andrey will do them if he has the time. He said it took about three months for them to show up, so he must be super busy now as it used to only take him a couple weeks to get a particular request done. I told him that if Andrey really want's to knock the socks off a bunch of print guys, he could take his '53 Studebaker file and turn it into a 1957-'58 Golden Hawk. I can betcha that file would sell like CRAZY. He said he'd mention it, and while the file wouldn't necessarily be for me as I have files of that car, it would really tickle the fancy for those that are not familiar with turning base .obj files into printable .stl files.

Brian, I would get a grasp of the basics of Blender first before jumping into the more complex things. Getting to know which hotkeys do what, basic tasks and functions of the program, etc. I'm on different forums on FB, and one of the common complaints I see is someone is trying to do something with either Blender, or one of the other programs, and I can tell almost immediately they don't have the basics down, because what they're asking is rather elemental. It'll definitely save you a ton of grief and frustration, as Blender does have a steep learning curve.

I use strictly Blender for all my 3D work. I'd recommend if you have the program, to go on YT and take a look at the many tutorials that are on there that show how this can be done. There are probably other 3D programs out there to do that, but it still would take some knowing of what's involved to do that type of task for what you need.

Drawing up car bodies once you get familiar with orthographic views and blueprints, you'll find it gets easier as time goes on. Right now I've got several files "Under Construction"-----the latest is a 1958 Chrysler Ghia Super Dart that I was working on just today. I had no blueprints----I had only to go by some very good front, side, and rear views to work with. I've still a ways to go yet, but I'm learning something new all the time working with Blender, and there are some sections that were tougher than others.

While a bit nicer than the Esci, that one always seemed too "wide" to my eyes. MFH made an EXCELLENT 250 SWB a while back, but they're pretty much unobtainium, and if you come across one, you can betcha they'll fetch a mighty pretty penny. Other than 3D files of the car which I have, there really have been no other good 1/24-25 scale glue kits of this car sadly.

I was never a fan of the Esci kit, as I swear whoever had a part in tooling that up, they must of worked off their (bad) memory, and not the actual car or blueprints. I built the Italeri kit many years ago which I still have, and IMO it's faaaar superior to the Esci kit in many ways, especially with the body shape. The one I did I tried to make a reasonable facsimile of Sterling Moss's 1961 car, and to date it's always been in a case away from my nosy cats. 😁

I couldn't resist doing this one. The 1965 Bertone Mustang is a car that has not been seen since the '60's, not long after it was shown, and no one seems to know if the car even still exists. Of course, being a show car, there's no 3D files of it out there, but I have seen 1/43 scale models of the car sold in the past. So---------I decided to gather up as many pics of the car as I could, and I decided to make a 3D drawing and eventually print the car myself. Some pics below of what's up, and I have quite a ways to go yet as I'll be eventually drawing up an interior, which is very different from the stock '65 Mustang.

Another one I'm working on is a car I fell in love with at first sight. The 1999 Dodge Charger concept was a car that more than a few enthusiasts would hope would be the new Charger that Chrysler had planned, but as you know what showed up was VERY different than the show car, and to many not in a good way. This angered a LOT of Charger fans to the point that Car and Driver had to say that a couple months after they showed spy renderings of what was coming (mid 2004), they got more angry letters about that car than any other car they ever wrote an article about in all their years of publishing. It even made the "GTO vs. GTO" article they did in '64 and the angry letters they received over that seem super mild by comparison. It was VICIOUS, as I remember the article, and the firestorm that erupted for a couple months after the article came out. Anyway, why this car was never made as a glue kit is beyond me. Revell for instance had been very good about doing models of concepts for quite a while, but they totally ignored this one. I've only ever seen Hot Wheels of this car-----not even a 3D file I could find...............UNTIL very recently. I was cruising the GameModels site which is now on Discord, as they were taken off the 'net, and I happen to run across a thread where that car was being talked about. Someone was looking for a file of the car, and someone else responded with a link that took you to SketchFab. I was BLOWN AWAY! This was the very file/model I've been searching out for some time, but came up with nothing. The model itself was still a WIP, as it was missing the rear bumper and rear window, but no matter as I can draw those items up in Blender. Best of all, the fellow that made the car was not charging anything for the file, as he was just letting anyone download it. So-----it's now on my SSD card, and I have a number of pics to show what I'm doing to it to make it print ready. The first thing I do is scale out the entire file. I didn't have a wheelbase, but I did have an overall length, so the file was scaled to that and I went from there. I then started to separate the body panels out, and then had them converted over to the .stl format. Since the rear bumper was missing out of the original file, I wanted to create and get that out of the way first. As can be seen, I started with a very basic wireframe skeleton, and shaped the bumper from that. I've yet to make taillight housing for above the fascia, and also the middle section that goes above the fascia, just below the deck lid. The above pics are showing the wall thickness done to make the car printable. Some tough areas on the body to deal with like the firewall and inner fenders for example. They were created very low poly with triangles galore, so I spent a fair amount of time turning the mesh into mostly quads, while still keeping the part with a very low quad count as I needed some reshaping done. I have a program called QuadRemesher which is a Blender Add-On, but it wouldn't work well in this instance as a lot of the quads were coming out misshapen, and I wanted them to be a square and true to form as possible to keep oddities at bay as I was running Blender's smoothing modifiers also. So--------those are just two-----I have a number of others that have since been done, but time doesn't allow to make posts out of all of 'em.......I'd never get done. 😁 Thanks for tuning in!

It's been a little while since I lasted posted here huh?? 😁 Well, since my last post showing the '57 Olds wagon, I've converted/designed quite a few cars since, so I thought I'd post my latest two that I'm working on. I should say first that I'm building a print of mine at the moment----the 1964 Pontiac Banshee Convertible I printed near the end of the year, and right now I'm doing chassis work on that. I may try to do a post about that one in another section later on------lots to that car was done just to get the file converted, as some things I did change from the original file from CGTrader. Ok........right now I'm in the middle of designing a car from the ground up as there are no files whatsoever of this car, except for a rather crude example on SketchFab. Crude is maybe a bit harsh as the final rendering is nice, but it misses the mark in a number of ways as far as the body shape, namely the glass roof panels and such. The 1956 Buick Centurion show car was one of GM's MANY show cars they made during the '50's, and some of its design features did eventually see the light of day, such as its windshield shape, rear roofline design, and tailfins. I found as many pics as I could of the car, mostly the side, front and rear views, and literally started with a single line, and just kept going. I scaled the car to 1/25, as I did find out what its wheelbase was at least. The following pics will show the progression of the body creation, as I still have much to go, and that includes creating an interior for it as I have a bunch of pics of that. The wireframe "skeleton" I like to create first, as this is giving me a good idea of how the body shape should look as it's being done. Some have the faces made as they're moving along, but I don't like that particular method, as it hides things a bit too much due to the smoothing modifiers I have running in the background. It's a little more work to add the faces later, but it's what works for me. The body is looking good in the slicer so far, but obviously it's not print ready as it needs wall thickness yet. That's a long ways off as I have other parts of the body to create yet, such as the front and rear glass to make bucks for vacuforming, as well as the roof section which is all glass and will need vacuformed. I'm satisfied with the car so far-------many, MANY alterations had to be done here and there to get the body to this point, and no doubt I'll probably do some more tweaks as I go along. Stay tuned as I'll have another one coming up----a car I've been wanting a model of for YEARS.

Nope.............not at the top of the totem pole at the moment. Maybe during the coming year. I'm building a '64 Pontiac Banshee Convertible concept at the moment that I printed, which I'm making a "what if" had GM made it for the '67 model year.

There's way, way, way too much to try and explain in a little text box here. I do have a YT channel where I go over some aspects of converting files to print. Not video game files per se, but .obj files. The vid game files need to be in the .obj format first before anything can be done to 'em. That's a whole 'nuther kettle of fish as there's certain programs you need to convert a lot of those, and that can't be explained here how those programs need to function. Here's one of my vids............

Andrey's file are weird in that Blender will open them on my end, but for whatever reason I have to "drag them in" to the zero point on the X/Y axis. I dunno know what program he uses to create his files, but each one I've gotten from him I have to do that. Also, because the files are not to the "zero point" when you import a file for the car (to build it digitally), the files don't pop into position like they should. They print very well, but they do strange things in Blender for some reason.

I should add that regardless if it's a video game file, it can be formatted for print, as I've converted quite a few files and printed them that were once in a video game format. I can tell you though that most video game files are loaded with "texturing" which must be deleted before any wall thickness is to be done, and also a lot of parts can be "floating" on the file. This means you have to doubly check and make sure the part is fully meshed before doing any printing, or it's a guaranteed print failure. As an example------this file originally came from a video game...................... 1970 AMX which started out as VERY crude '68 file----MANY changes were needed to make it printable. So yeah.............video game files can be made printable, but they do require a bit more work to make 'em cooperate.

Ok..............I have to ask.......was the one file that you showed (Crown Vic)......was that from Andrey-Bezrodny? I ask because one thing I know for sure, once you download them, you CANNOT move them from their original file location. In other words, if you modify a part and then try to move the file for use in another folder, the file may not show up properly either in Blender in my case, or look strange in the slicer. I dunno why that is, but I do know that the problem I had was with a '70 Chrysler Hurst file of his that I did some changes on. Even copying the file, and relocating the copied file to another location----it did some weird things. Also, how much RAM are you running? I can tell you that his file sizes are REALLY BIG (over 1GB in some cases, and if there's not enough RAM to handle the file, you'll end up with issues like you're having. I'm running 64GB's on my laptop, with a very good graphics card, but some of these files are so geometrically heavy (MANY vertices), that it takes a LOT of computer power to handle them. One reason I'm not a fan of using a smoothing modifier on bodies........I'd rather have the body smooth enough to be reasonable with its basic geometry, as I've had issues with way too much geometry on a body, which using the smoothing modifiers (in Blender for example) adds to. Blender says that to run their program you need at least 8GB's minimum. I beg to differ with that because as much RAM power that my laptop is running, I've still had the program crash without warning, and it happens right after I try to export something which I like to do right after a part is modified. The last time it happened was a couple days ago when I used their Boolean modifier, which adds a significant amount of geometry to the file, and the program crashed. Thank goodness I had saved it before it crashed! 🤯

You can try that, but just be careful that you don't cut or burn into the metal itself. As you know the Zymak or whatever type metal they used is not as tough as your standard stuff, so I'd try the high speed wheel with a bit of caution. I remember trying that for a quick second I think on the back of one of the wheels, but my better sense told me to do it the slower way as I didn't want damaged parts that can be tough as heck to replace-----especially from DeAgostini at the time. Frankly, I don't know why they painted the wheels in the first place. Every '67 Shelby I've ever seen whether it was live and in person, or in a mag never had painted wheels. They would have looked better just leaving them in bare metal IMO, and leave the option up to the builder whether or not they want to polish 'em.

That Buick looks FANTASTIC Doug! Dan does excellent work as he finished up last week the '63 Corvette Rondine for me, and I've since formatted that to print. I may run that in the machine over the weekend, but there's another file I may do ahead of that. I asked Dan about doing another car for me, but I don't want to mention it until he's able to see it through. All I can say is it's a car you hardly ever see at a show, let alone on the roads, especially here in the states. 😁