A look into the process of making a prop like "Mini Functional Replicas of the Personality Spheres from Portal 2" plus some new and custom designs.
Oh, and a little personal rant for the people who may not consider this "good enuff" help.
I design the parts in SolidWorks a 3D modeling program similar to Google sketch-up. Then the parts were printed with a 3D printer by Object called the Eden 350. This is typical of prototype engineering development for consumer products.
Designed, modeled (SolidWorks), painted and assembled by me and made with Eden 350, lancing device springs, paper clips, LEDs, color gels, super glue, etc,....
Wheatley
Adventure Sphere (Rick)
Space Sphere
"Fact" Sphere
3D printing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBqr1vawoaU
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3009377/3d_model_of_a_fruit_bowl_made_by_objet_eden_250_3d_printer/
http://www.quickparts.com/
http://www.shapeways.com/
http://www.solidconcepts.com/rapid-prototyping.html
Modeling/Solidworks Tutorials:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=solidworks+tutorial
BTW, I'm not selling nor making more of these for sale. Sorry, I dont have Valve's permission to profit from their IP. Since I don't have the permission of Valve and these are unmistakably copies of their design/characters, I wouldn't feel comfortable selling any decent number of these. It's not my IP or my significantly original design so I don't have the right to produce even limited quantities of these.
However, if Valve wants me to make more I will happily oblige. (
[email protected])
BTW, I'm not calling anyone stupid. I'm suggesting that many people out there are over-indulged children who feel that (with no personal effort) what they want should be handed to them on a silver platter and a complete stranger (me) should feel honored/obligated of doing so. If this isn't enough info to mimic my process, the best thing you can do is to do the project in a way that plays to the skills/tools you have now, but try 1 or 2 new ones. If you do this project after project, over time you build a decent base of skills and knowledge of what tools/processes you like/hate and what works/doesn't work. As your skill set builds you can tackle more and more complicated projects. I would recommend staying away for projects that have tutorials. A lot of people accidentally spend a lot of time learning how to follow instructions instead of learning how to be creative and overcome their own challenges.
