Blender 3D
Blender since May 2018: simulations, an IK-rigged six-legged mech, a character from sculpt to rig and a short film, then from 2024 the CAD for the parts I print.
| Since | May 2018 |
| Renderer | Cycles |
| Simulation | FLIP Fluids, rigid body and cell fracture, soft body, cloth, fire and smoke |
| Rigging | IK rigs for a six-legged mech, a full character rig |
| Also | camera tracking, photogrammetry and OpenStreetMap data, Geometry Nodes |
| CAD | printed parts around imported board models, from 2024 |
| Public | ArtStation (2021 to 2023), YouTube |
I have worked in Blender since May 2018. To the end of 2023 that meant animation and visual effects: fluid and destruction simulations, an IK-rigged six-legged mech, a character taken from sculpt through retopology, rigging and texture painting, and a short film of T-34 tanks in a snowbound city, rendered in Cycles. Since 2024 it is also my CAD tool: the printed enclosures of my hardware builds were modelled in it, around imported CAD models of the boards they hold.
Simulations and the first scenes, 2018 to 2021
I started in May 2018 with a modelled coffee cup (in April 2024 the same model was the first print on my printer) and with particle, rigid-body and water simulations.
In 2021 most of the work was simulation: liquids in the FLIP Fluids add-on, particles with the Molecular add-on, soft bodies, and rigid-body destruction of a house and a car. From March 2021 I published finished pieces on ArtStation. In May came the first version of a stage set I designed for a theatre production, and in July the rune sword, a cave scene lit by volumetric light.
A stage, a character and a six-legged mech, 2022
The stage set came back in May 2022 as a second version. I modelled everything in it, down to the chandelier, the roses and the chairs. The same month I began bringing measured geometry into Blender: meshes I scanned with photogrammetry (an electrical box first, a garage in July), and in August a Dutch village imported from OpenStreetMap with the Blender-OSM add-on.
From 14 June to 20 August 2022 I built a stylised character end to end: the sculpt, her clothing, retopology of the sculpt to a low-poly mesh, a full rig, texture painting, hair and shoes, then test animations. The turnaround sheets followed in September and November 2023.
The mech started on 20 August 2022 as a small crab robot; a week later it had six legs and the shape it kept. Each leg is its own armature with an IK chain: the motion is keyed on the foot targets and a body controller, and the solver places the joints. The glowing materials came in September, and the final render and the video on YouTube are from 28 December 2022.
A night town, abstract pieces and the T-34 short, 2023
The night town, a street of old plastered houses, ran from November 2022 to March 2023. In February and March I made two abstract pieces, and a potion bottle whose liquid and smoke are procedural shaders rather than simulations, which I later turned into a fifteen-minute tutorial on YouTube.
From 30 June to 4 July I worked on camera tracking: solving the camera from phone and stock footage and compositing CG objects into the shot. The T-34 short took July and August 2023. I modelled the tank from blueprints, split its tracks from the hull and animated them to follow its motion, and built the snowbound streets with the Buildify building generator. The 26-second film was rendered at 2560×1440 and published on 30 August 2023.
Blender as CAD, from 2024
From 2024 most new Blender files are parts to print, and the first predates the printer: on 29 March 2024 I turned the 2022 character into a printable sculpt and sliced it. For an enclosure I import a CAD model of each board it holds (a Seeed XIAO RP2040, an ESP32 T-Display, an SH1106 OLED, an HW-504 joystick) and build the shell around it.
From 15 to 18 May 2024 I modelled covers for a standard 120 mm PC fan, for the summer heat. On 21 May Noctua published a printable airflow amplifier for its own 120 mm fan. In June and July I modelled the electronics bay of my RC aircraft, inside a photogrammetry scan of the fuselage it had to line. It was printed on 31 July, and the aircraft flew with it on 8 August.
The body of the laser pointer followed in August 2024, and in October the case of the sensor display and the bottom plate and cases of the RC car, whose body started as the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X by BadKarma™ (CC-BY 4.0): I scaled it over the chassis and reworked it to be printable, with fan mounts and brackets inside. The shell of the radio controller went around the T-Display and the joystick in February 2025, and a replacement crank handle for a factory machine took April and May 2025.