We got a message last year from a customer of one of our retailers, Gloster Models - he was after a custom 3D printed miniature to complete a Subbuteo project he was working on.
He had managed to obtain an original 'World Cup Willie' special edition 1966 World Cup mascot. There is a great article about the story of the creation of the Lion Mascot here.
There were hundreds of promotional items made at the time, one of which was a Subbuteo model. What Shaun wanted to was to create a memorial team.
What we did
At the start of the project there were no print files available for the miniature so we met up with Shaun at the nearest Growth Hub and made use of their 3D scanners in the Innovation Lab - this is a great space if you are interested in finding out more about 3D modelling, digital design and tech in general. Check out their website to find your nearest Lab.
Scanning the model was a challenge as it was a little worn (he is quite old!) and very shiny so the reflections caused quite a few problems. But we persevered and ended us with something we could use to work with.
Then purely by chance, in December a new stl print file was loaded onto Cults3D - which is a platform for sharing and selling 3D print files, so we were able to use that too.
We ended up with a custom print file - Frankensteined from different the purchased stl file, the scans and with some extra work we did to modify the model so he had a football and looked like he was kicking the ball - plus a few tweaks to allow him to print support free and we were ready to go.
We did a couple of test prints at a larger scale before setting up the final print. He is pretty small - standing barely 20mm tall but we were happy how he came out. We did a couple so Shaun ended up with four World Cup Mascots!
The end result
Shaun was really happy with the final model - he had a professional painter lined up to paint them and when they were done, he sent over some images of the finished miniatures.
It was a great project to work on, something a little different from our normal robots and demon miniatures, but really interesting.
As Shaun said "my photos don't do justice to how good the figures look. Thanks again for helping to make this happen, you are good people and real stars."
If you have a custom print you want to get done, please get in touch to see how we can help you.
