Alien Skull - First Print Result

Hi everyone!

I’m excited to finally receive my Form1+. Amazing printer to have at home.
I know we see a lot of skulls but, I thought this would be a simple test to knock up for my first print.

I’ve always liked the crystal skull from the Indiana Jones movie so I thought I’d do a similar piece at .05 resolution. The clear resin should lend itself to the effect.

I am happy with the results. I work for Propshop at Pinewood Studios UK where we make a lot of hero props. I intend to use this awesome printer to make a few of them and show you the results here.

Anyway… nice to meet you guys and join the Form1 club!
Regards, Jet




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Hey that’s pretty awesome. Is that hollow? How much resin did it take to print?

That’s a beautiful piece of work Jet. Show us more!!

Hi Aaron,
Yes the skull is hollow - I made a cavity inside this one. The piece is about 80 mm in size and used only 58ml of resin.

Thanks for the kind words Aron. 8 )

I am thinking of either a scaled version of Thor’s hammer I made for the Dark World or the Orb from Guardians of the Galaxy. I have to be careful as I only bought 1 lt of resin with my machine and costs to order more to the UK make printing some of the props quite a decision.

Nice I think there are now 3 of us on here that make props for TV and film .
Seems to be a quickly growing group

Hi Skinnydog,

It’s a real shame that my machine just sits there under a mountain of dust. I stopped using it over a year ago as the technology behind the product was flawed. We had a little success with small items but, had peeling problems over and over again.

We followed instructions and tried many things… We have machines that use similar technology.
It’s not like we are novices with 3D printing as that is one of the things the company that I work for specializes in.

It appears that Formlabs has addressed this design flaw with the new machine and the new peeling process.
However, after investing in the Form1 plus machine - with the small upgrade offer - I felt that Formlabs had sold me a machine that was NOT ready and the ‘exchange/ upgrade’ was not good enough.

I had thought that being in such a high profile placement for the machine, (I was working on Force Awakens at the time), that Formlabs would have offered more to fix the problem - but, they were not interested…

A shame …

Regards, Jet

You are aware that resin ordered from the EU store is shipped from the UK…?
(Ah, just seen the original post date; might not have been the case at that time)

I have been using different forms of 3d milling and 3d printing for almost 20 for years for jewelry store clients as well as Hollywood props for 16 and I am very impressed with the new Form2. machine. Didn’t you know that Form Labs was a crowd fund startup? You were crazy to think that what they sold you in the Form 1 would be a perfectly working machine or that upgrades would solve design flaws that are always in the first generation of any device from any company. Which is why I didn’t buy one and would never buy a first generation machine of any kind. As far as “high profile customer” yea… FormLabs was not interested in any form of “cutting me a deal” on price in trade for the publicity they could get based on what and who I design and create for. Maybe the fact we can’t actually show anything we make for months till it shows up on screen is kind of a bust as far as publicity for Form Labs. I don’t know. Personally I would have tried harder to make you a happy camper and used the crap out of the Star Wars connection… That being said…I must admit I paid the full $3500 for my new machine was quickly refunded more than that to my bank account with one prop job for Hollywood, So even if you got just a few pieces from the Form 1+ I’m sure you broke even or it made you a bit of money doing props for StarWars on the Form 1. If your still in need of a desk top micro printer buy the Form2 and use the Form 1 as a door stop.

Hello Skinnydog - your work is very impressive. I have been looking at your work for a while now. It is great for artists to see what can be achieved.

I understand your point about a Gen 1 and it’s shortcomings - what I purchased was the Form1 Plus with the issues ironed out?
A far cry from the redesigned action of the Form2. I would have been ‘crazy’ to expect a Gen 1 to be a perfect machine?

Mate, a standard business model, in my experience, is to R&D and test a product extensively before release. Any manufacturer that I know, that has issued a flawed product, usually recalls them. What I am not happy about is that I invested in the 2nd Gen that still had the same flaws.

I am just saying, that when I release my future products, it goes without saying that I would accept a return of a faulty product in exchange for one without fault. I have spoken to others who invested at the same time that feel the same way and experienced the same issues.

It’s not about breaking even money wise… it’s the principle and the disappointment, mate.

As you said though - it makes a unique doorstop and results in interesting conversations in the studio.

Keep up the great work Skinnydog.
Regards, Jet

When I saw the results of the first printer, they were very poor, after messing around with a few other printers I came back to check things out and the results had improved a lot, which was early last year. The Form2 has improved greatly on that. the biggest advantage I’ve seen is that it doesn’t require a month of testing settings to get a good print–no other printers have had their materials tested as well to get the settings perfect.
I’ve seen the issues people have posted here on the forums but I’m not sure what the success rate is in general–you’ll get posts when people have problems more than when everything is going OK.
My impression is that they’ve got some really great engineers, but are still a small company and struggle to deal with the defective printers that are inevitable to happen.

Thanks for taking the time to write Zachary. I like Formlabs and what they brought to the market.
This was not a studio investment - it was my investment. I purchased the printer because I wanted to show others in the studio what it was capable of. I wanted to help Formlabs with high profile jobs because I believed in them and the product. They were not interested. I emailed them and saw their members of staff at many of the print shows.

After the lack of interest and the increasing problems with the Plus model - I gave up.
Nobody from the company has approached me - in turn I have let the whole thing go. Given the films that we have worked on since, it is a great opportunity lost. I have nothing to gain from this - I paid like everyone else - I am 47 and content - I was trying to help Formlabs as I love helping others achieve.

It was really nice to read about your experiences, Zac.
Best regards mate, Jet

Yeah, that sucks considering they’ve highlighted other high-profile users like lnterstellar, or the product placement in Ant-Man. Ultimately you should have gotten better service with the issues regardless where you work.

NICE work! Love the art but I LOVE the name more! =)
~Jet “Blaque” O.

@Jet_Cooper, Wondering what your finish process was to achieve that silver look? Did you paint it or plate it? Can you share that?