I love Halloween and I love 3D printing, so, in my life, the two are a natural fit for one another. When I decided to get a 3D printer, one of the things that excited me most about having one was all of the awesome Halloween costumes that I would be able to make for myself. It wasn’t until getting it and having the chance to play with my Replicator 2X that I realized the impracticality of printing human sized costumes on a smallish build volume. While it can be done, it’s not without its headaches. Luckily for me and my costume-making desires, I have two small dogs, so I have the perfect-sized subjects for 3D printable costumes.
Last year, I dressed my dogs up as Ghostbusters, so, this year, I decided to stick with the childhood nostalgia theme and turn one of my dogs, Lex, into Optimus Prime from Transformers. The goal for this costume was to create one in which the dog could be Optimus in both bot and vehicle form. I’m not much of a designer, so, after some crude sketches of what I had in mind, I got to work on the design.
I modeled the costume in MoI (Moment of Inspiration), which I like a lot. I’m mostly self taught and I find MOI to be user-friendly and easy enough to model for 3D printing. Once I was finished modeling, I used Simplify 3D to slice the files, before printing them in ABS.
Once everything was printed, all it took was gluing some pieces together with ABS glue, and connecting a hinge to the cab so that it could lift easily. Next it was time to try it out. I must admit, while the costume fit well and looked good, I couldn’t help but feel bad for my dog. He hates wearing any clothing and didn’t look thrilled in his Transformers costume. He did get lots of treats, though, so things seemed good.
This year, we took the dogs to the Tompkins Square Park Halloween Parade, which may be the largest Halloween parade for dogs in the world. There were thousands of people and hundreds of dogs. We had a great time seeing all of the amazing costumes, but Lex made me carry him the entire time. The costume was a hit and we took tons of photos, but, next year, we will try to come up with a costume a little less unwieldy.
