How to 3D Print Your Head

by Christopher Lannon May 8, 2020

Hey, what's up Makers?

Today, I'm going to show you how to 3D print your head. In this example, I do a little mesh mixing session to mount my head on a bust of Superman that I found on Thingiverse.

What You'll Need

So what you’re going to need for this is an iphone X or later. These models have apple’s TrueDepth camera, which combines an infrared emitter and infrared camera to scan your face. You’re also going to need to download and install the Bellus3D face app from the apple app store. And, of course, you’ll need access to a 3D printer. In my case, I’m going to be printing this on an Elegoo Mars Pro resin printer.

The Scanning Process

So, I’m opening the app here and I’m going to wait until the app recognizes my face. This is indicated by the green outline around my head. I’m then going to select the “full head” option at the bottom and begin scanning by pressing the scan button.

Now, follow the directions for scanning… [turn left, turn right, etc.]

Now, press “save” and name your scan. Once your scan is saved, you can now unlock exporting features for the file. As of this recording, the one-time unlocking fee per file is 99 cents. Once this model is unlocked, you will always have access to the unlocked features for that particular file. These features include:

* Exporting a high resolution face model in OBJ or STL format.

* Selecting a mesh resolution for exporting.

* Create a water-tight model for printing.

* Remove the watermark

* Change the model orientation (Y axis up, or Z axis up).

* Create a shareable link.

* Share the model to facebook.

When you export the model in OBJ format, the provided zip file contains an STL file, an OBJ file, and a jpeg texture file. It also includes the material (MTL) file for mapping the texture to the OBJ file.

Mesh Mixing

I decided to use Autodesk Mesh Mixer to do a mix of my head with a superman bust that I found on Thingiverse. I put a link to that file in the description. And with that, here’s a timelapse of my meshmixer session…

I used Chitubox heavy, platform only auto-supports and then added medium supports manually. This worked out OK, but the model didn’t cleanup as well as I would have liked and I probably wasn’t as careful as I should have been while removing the supports. I was really happy with the detail and you can see how the Elegoo gray standard resin really shows that off. This is, by far, my favorite resin.

After filing off the nubs, I applied Rustoleum Painter’s Touch gloss black spray paint as a base and then a coat of DecoArt Interference blue acryllic paint. Adding some UV clear coat really made the blue metallic color pop! Although you can see a little bit of damage on the model, it’s minimal, and I’m pretty happy with it.

Also, check this out! This is the completed skull snail model that I was working on in a previous video about using Prusa auto-supports with Chitubox. I used the same painting process on that model, using DecoArt Interference blue, and the detail is absolutely amazing! I was really surprised with how well it turned out. Check out the full video here.

If you’re interested in more detailed videos on the Mesh Mixer techniques or the painting process I used, please let me know in the comments. Also, check out the description for some useful links relevant to this video.

Thanks for watching! Please don’t forget to like, comment and subscribe! It helps me grow my channel.

I’ll see you in the next video. Until then, go make 3D!