Hand-painted figure of an artist's cartoon character

At Additive Inn, our 3D printing studio in Singapore, we made a figure of an artist's own cartoon character: a black, big-headed creature with a wide grin, seated with both hands raised. She sent her drawings and a turntable video of the character and wanted it as a painted display piece.

We turned her drawings into a 3D model with an AI-assisted process, then showed it at two sizes. She chose the larger one, 200 mm across the raised hands, where the teeth and fingers keep their detail in resin.

Three changes went into the model before printing. The teeth, first cut into the surface, were rebuilt to stand out from the mouth, keeping their pointed shape. The engraved lines on the palms were taken off, to come back as painted strokes. And because most of the weight sits in the head and the raised arms, we built a flat base into the model so the figure sits steady on its own. She approved the model on the third day.

The figure and its base were printed in resin as one piece, then sanded and primed, so the grin, the teeth and every finger showed clean before paint.

The finished figure sits with its hands up and its grin wide, steady on its base. It was packed in acid-free paper to keep the paint safe and collected from our studio.