Background
I have been working with polymer clay (a clay that solidifies in the presence of heat, resulting in a somewhat flexible vinyl, depending on the thickness of the clay) as a hobby for two years now. One of my favourite designs is my bear cupcake charms. It was inspired by the many crafters I follow on the internet and, like them, I wanted to open an online store and sell charms. However, after a little math, I decided it would not be worth my time. I underestimated minimum wage as being ten dollars per hour. One bear cupcake takes about two hours to sculpt, one hour to bake, 2 days of curing to attach the paws and tail, and another half hour to glaze. Additionally, including materials, my underestimate would be about $30 which is not a lot considering how long it took me to develop my skills and the strain it takes on my body.
One of my interests had been 3D modeling and printing, leading me to website called Shapeways, where you can upload a model and get it 3D printed in a variety of materials. The website also has a marketplace for people to sell their models and allow consumers to print them. I thought this would be a good place to sell my designs, but first, I needed to learn how to 3D model.
The images below are of one of my handcrafted bear cupcake charms. It is about 2 cm tall.
The Design
I wanted to stick with my bear cupcake design but, since the end result would be a product on Shapeways, I wanted to make the design easily customizable for a variety of skill levels.
A few of my other random ideas influenced this project. One of them was miniatures for table top games. I was inspired by the idea of classes in role-playing games (RPGs) and ended up brainstorming how those could be applied to a bear cupcake. In the end, I wanted the consumer to be able to buy one kit and have parts that could be changed based on the class they wanted. The rest of the bear RPG (BeaRPG) story is for another day.
I also was inspired by fidget cubes and action figures so I wanted to add a few joints that would give the bears some mobility as both a fidget toy and a BeaRPG character.
Progress
I decided to use Autodesk Fusion 360 for this project since it is free for students and is good for sculpting curved objects. Starting simple, I played around in the sculpt environment to get familiar with the tools. I made a rough model of what I want the bear cupcake to look like and got it 3D printed to compare it to one of my handmade ones. However, I am not completely happy with the proportions so I will be doing some drafting of the front, right, and top views.
After learning more CAD, I remodelled the bear cupcake with all of the expected joints. Since I plan on 3D printing it with Shapeway's Strong and Flexible Plastic, the clearance between interlocking parts is 0, and no supports need to be modelled. Whether or not the parts will actually fit together and work is to be determined. Below is the render I did of what the assembled parts should look like.
Below are the drawings I created from the CAD model. Dimensions have not been included because I have not decided on the final size of the product. These proportions are the same as the ones I use on my handmade charms. The left paw parts are a mirror of the right paw.
