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Fan Creations: Horns You Can Toot About

Passion inspires great artwork, especially in fans. That’s why we let fan creators loose with 3Doodlers for a project of their choosing.

Previously, we recorded Gina B’s initial impressions of the 3Doodler and the early stages of her project. Now, we take a look at the finished product!

Gina B wound up executing her vision of believably organic horns, complete with a headband to make them easily wearable. By mixing two shades of plastic she gave them a natural look and a more pronounced texture. She’s quite pleased with the outcome, but found that her project presented some unique challenges.

“It was more difficult and more easy for a couple different reasons,” Gina says of her project. “Using the device itself was insanely more easy and proves that all the issues I had with the first horn just came from my inexperience. I’d say that if you tinker about with it for a couple of trial pieces then you’ll feel a lot more confident when you venture out and try something on your own.”

In attempting to get the symmetry of the horns just right, Gina found some new wrinkles in horn production. “It was a lot more difficult in one sense because I was trying to replicate the mirror image of a geometric shape. I started out the same way as before, but the shape wasn’t exactly the same although I used the same pattern. I actually found it easier to follow the pattern, but the first horn kind of developed a shape of its own that looked really organic and natural.”

"If you tinker about with the 3Doodler for a couple of trial pieces then you’ll feel a lot more confident when you venture out and try something on your own." Share

That unintentional change in the first horn meant that the better execution the second time was actually a drawback. So Gina got creative.

“First I tried to build it up with extra plastic, to try to alter the shape, but the structure underneath was actually wrong. So I sat down, thought about it, prayed to the crafting gods, and had an epiphany: the whole thing is plastic, so what if I hit it with a low heat setting from my heat gun to make it bend to the shape I want?”

Gina experimented with different heat settings and was able to make the second horn malleable enough in the right sections to give it the same curve as its partner. A hot glue gun and some fabric to increase the surface area allowed her to easily attach the horns to a headband, making for a ready-to wear accessory for a horned character. Making, modifying and attaching the second horn took her two and a half hours, for a total project time of five hours.

After working with the 3Doodler, Gina is convinced that it is able to fill certain niches in cosplay design, with the potential for brand new use cases. “It’s something to explore, all new mediums have unique cases where they fit really well.”

Gina says she enjoyed exploring how to create a 3Dimensional shape that was largely freehand. In the future, she will look into using the 3Doodler in more fine-detailing roles.back to top image

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