Thank you for this very interesting making of poboyross! (I will answer to your pm soon :))
Thanks for sharing everything about your process. I’m looking forward to working with the software mentioned and am even playing around with the idea of purchasing a polyjet if possible.
Amazingly helpful walk through. your workflow gives me tons of ideas. Thanks 
Great walk-through.
Thanks a lot!
Poboyross! Thanks so much for sharing the whole process!
That’s so cool to hear it all layed out like that.
Now if I can just scrounge up the $93k for that Pro-Jet…
Thank you for taking the time to post our process up for us all to see.
I do have one question for you, how much longer do you think it will be until there is no restrictions to print resolutions? I know you talked about how your new printer does a much better job, but the build lines are still there. (I guess what I am asking is when you see the prints matching/going beyond a traditional sculpt.)
I’m sure that you are waiting for the same thing that I am waiting for, sculpt, paint, create and print all out of ZBrush! How cool will that be, one day you can stay in your one stop package for creating a digital sculpt and then stay in that package to have your sculpt digitally printed.
I was in the toy isle yesterday with my kids, I see all these toys that could all benefit from having higher quality sculpts as their starting point. One thing I think could be really cool is small scale toys that have all the rich detail and attention that is built into a larger sculpt/toy. Just scale your model down. (I know, won’t work in all cases…but)
Thanks again!
Peace-NickZ.
Thanks for the questions, Nick
As it relates to MJ, the build lines off of the XT aren’t as bad as they appear in the photo, the white residue from the mold release made them look quite horrid. However, considering that piece was turned out from nothing to reality in less than a month is still equal to or faster than many traditional sculpting pipelines. Add that to the fact that includes tooling copies and the ability to send the digital files over to China where they will cut it directly into the molds and you’ve got a win/win situation.
Regarding the print resolutions getting to the point of obscurity, I think the ProJet is as close as we’ve come, too bad I couldn’t show you one of those parts. I should be able too fairly soon. Once you see that you’ll probably come to the same conclusion that I have; within the next year or two we should be to the point of almost no visible build lines. On the other hand, we’re quite some time away from an end all solution when it comes to printers.
Another thing to keep in mind, the pros for using RP over traditional sculpting isn’t as obvious at the beginning of the cycle, but more so into and towards the end. Doing the models digitally enables for much more rapid revisions and moreso when they’re on a drastic scale. The problem with build lines is also disolved when you take into consideration the production process in China. Most pieces are pantographed up or down and during this process the lines do not carry over. As I mentioed before, you also don’t even have to print your figures out anymore, as China can mill your 3D files directly into the steel molds!
You can easily end up spending a portion more on the process at the beginning, but the money you can save down the line by getting a piece exactly how you want it in an earlier time frame can be priceless.
Regarding the smaller, more detailed toys…I think you’re close to the truth of things. As the price of oil continues to rise, so will plastic. That, in turn, will create the situation you mentioned…smaller toys with greater detail to maintain the consumer’s perception of value.
Best!
Adam
Thanks for the explaining on proccess…i wish i could do things like this here in Athens…no way to find a descent workshop for this here.
By the way Sweet Mary Jane is some serious kick a$$ model and very sexy by the way. Congrats , beautifull work …
How do you tell it what scale/size to print at, like you mention the pin holes being 1/8 to 1/4 in. how do you ensure accuracy like this and which software do you use for that process? and BTW thanks for taking the time to put up your making of and ansewer all our silly questions
I love it when I still learn things of value. Thanks for all this wonderful insight, might just have to give this a try on a few things, looks like fun! 
Thanks everyone for the continued compliments, I’m glad that so many are interested in this corner of the “model-verse”.
Shrader: I use two approaches; the first is knowing how tall I want the character to be standing up, so I scale her correctly in Maya (always in mm or cm because Magics is metric). I then do all of my sculpting and posing in Z, and bring it back into Maya to create the fittings. I’ll then remeasure the character in Maya to make sure I didn’t stray from the original T pose height. This rarely occurs, as I’ve gotten pretty good at maintaining my mesurements…most of the time
The second approach is doing it entirely in Magics, rescaling as necessary to fit the specified overall height of the piece. Most places want the character to be in a certain scale, so I use the first option more times than not.
I create my pins in Maya, which you can also do in Magics (but it’s much easier in Maya). I then export the pins separately and use them as boolean objects once I get to the tooling phase.
There are no silly questions…
I’m always amazed by the fact that besides being in the position you are in that huge company you work for, you always find time to share your knowledge on technical and practical aspects of the toy industry.
You have no secrets. You answer everyone about everything.
That’s something rare and you have my respect for it.
Keep it up Adam.
ah, and i’d almost forgot… these 3d print market is growing extensively, eh? Seems like a bunch of companies are heading this way. Sigraph will have at least 4 different companies showing printing portfolios and some of my models will be there. I’ll send pictures of my Hulk statue as soon as i get them. It seems to be a HUGE print
Hey Fabricio! Send me some pics of that Hulk ASAP!!! Did you get to do the tooling on the model? What scale did they print it in and on what type of machine? Details…I NEED details MAN!
check you inbox then… 
That thing looks AWESOME!!! You’ve GOT to post those here in the forums…it’s going to blow people AWAY!!!
BTW, I think it’s a ZCorp 510…prints in color. I didn’t know it could print in metallics, though.
hah, thanks bro. after sigraph perhaps…
now back to your incredible post
ps - hummm, i dodnt know for sure, i’ll ask them… but i’m sure they did some finish after the printing.
Hey Adam. AMAZING WORK!!!..but you already know that, as you should.
I’m new to 3d modeling and have been lurking for a few weeks, but what a perfect time and place to register and say “hello” than on this amazing piece of work from Adam.
There is so much talent on this board, but this piece inspires my mind in the “I can’t sleep tonight” kind of way. Get’s the brain firing in all directions.
Thank you for the educational tips as well as the creative. This old brain is alive again.
…and hello to all and thanks to all the talented people for the inspiration.
best,
Jason
PS-I’m just getting started, so it’s going to be some time before I can contribute, but one day it will come.
Pretty model.
Hey Poboyross,
Great thread and thanks so much for going in depth with this process. I hope to one day move into the figure industry. Currently I am a character artist at a game studio, and I’ve been researching a lot into this pipeline as well some of my co-workers. I had some technical questions for ya if you dont mind.
Just to be clear, you bring in the crazy high poly object from zbrush that has been converted into an STL file into Magic? And it handles that much information? I have experiance with MeshLab, and it didnt have a problem with really heavy meshes but I’m just wondering if Magics will be able to handle it also. If not I’m wondering if you use any optimization software that retains detail and information.
Also, again just to be clear. You created the Boolean objects to cut the mesh for printing. And you made these cuts in Magics? or were they cut before hand in maya or zbrush THEN booleaned in Magics?
I will probably have more questions as I delve deeper into this stuff haha. I appreciate the posts, thanks!
-KP
Hi KP,
Glad you dig the thread! In response to your questions:
-Yes, Magics can handle meshes with that high poly density, and it also has a point-on-curve decimation tool which allows you to adaptively cut the poly count without losing detail. Knowing what these values should be is a balance between scale of the final part and what you know you can get out of the printer.
-The boolean objects were created in Maya after exporting the final ZTL as an OBJ. I then created them by selecting edge loops and extruding to create a plane to build off of. I subdivided these disks so I could create the first recessed key, then extruded the resulting plane to give it a minute thickness. The wedge keys and pin booleans were created, merged, and exported for use in Magics where they were cut from the ZTL which was converted to an STL. I usually use a lower level version of the ZTL in Maya when creating the booleans just so I’m not dragging on my computer too badly.
Hope that answers your questions…if you have anymore or if I wasn’t clear enough, just let me know!
Best,
Adam