3Dprinted ring from i.materialise

So I got my ring back from the printers. I have to say at first I was disappointed. It's much thinner and no where near as pronounced in detail as I was hoping for. I don't think it's i.materialises fault. In fact they have been great once again informing me when and how the process was going but I think I'm just not great at judging the measurements. Stupid really it's completely attainable to get the sizes right but I must be making a mistake somewhere with my process. I'm going to do some calibration prints as I see from some of the other forum members and then give it another go.
All a learning curve and I fully expected it to be like this so get back up and carry on. ;)

Pendant update 2

Been working to improve this.  It's getting there, taking much longer than I had thought it would but then it is testing my knowledge of zbrush further.  Still struggling to get it crisp.  I think it's my workflow with dynamesh, I don't feel confident that I'm using it correctly as yet.  I have got to the point that I feel it's right to condense it all down and divide the mesh a few times and doing that I hope to go back into the details and now really punch them out.  Lunch time today was building a stand and the chain.  I just got to the point of staring at it for so long I needed something else to work on.  On the plus side I got notice that my 3D print of the ring I made turned up today.  I will get that up here as soon as I can for you to see the progress.

Pendant update

Didn't like the relief work I did on the previous version and after some much appreciated feedback I have begun the rework.  This is an update:

Shadow Box zbrush

This time starting with the shadow box feature in zbrush.
To be honest I'm not liking where this is right now but thought I would post so I can see it's progress and gather feedback.

The whole things seems noisy and the under lying bloby way in which I created it is showing through in the final mass.  Also don't like this frilly bits at the edges.  makes me think of a cheap ash tray.  I wanted it to look warn and aged which is why it has those damages bits on it but I don't think they are reading.  Overall I feeling I rushed it too much and there are layers of poor execution.  Will have to go back to it and see if I can fix it.

Photoshop doodle

I guess sticking with the nautical theme but perhaps a little more self reflective!  A doodle to pass the time and get me using a pen again. :)

3D Print Toy Making...

Well not quite but I have been trying out new rendering techniques and found this to be fun and exciting.

Ring Renders for 3D Prints

I've just sent one of these to i.materialise.  Hoping it comes back looking like my renders.  If you or anyone you know wants a personalized ring then watch this space and get in contact.  More to come.

Roll Stroke Zbrush

Further to the 3D Printing I learnt some new things when it comes to working on a curved surface.  Thanks go out to Chris Brown for his mighty knowledge of Zbrush.
I used the roll feature in the stroke menu to get a long thin alpha to project correctly on the surface of the ring and then just the normal symmetry settings to do the floral pattern   Final polish was done with the morph target of the original ring, and a quick dirty light cap mimicking studio diffuse lighting.  Super quick and dirty but fun for a Sunday night.