I spent 51 hours learning to use a 3D pen. Progress from beginner to 3D pen robot!

About six years ago, a new product was invented, the 3D pen. If you don't know what it is, it's basically a hot glue gun, but instead of shooting glue, it shoots plastic, so a few months ago I decided I wanted to learn how to use one, I filmed the process so you can see all the steps I went through. along the way. I bought this pen with my own money because honestly, no one is going to buy it from me. This particular brand is called Three Doodler and the cool thing about them is that I actually invented the 3D pen technology again about six years ago, as you can see I ran into a little problem early on, it just doesn't seem to fit, the hole is the wrong size or maybe the adapter is the wrong size.

Oh, look there. Come on, I already have it. What was the trick? You have to put it in the right hole and here is the first line of plastic. Honestly, it's a little hard to control. When I press the button on the top of the pen, the motor just spins. I have to keep moving or else the plastic will build up. Probably the closest analog is like a car idol or maybe a frozen yogurt dispenser and once you press that lever the yogurt comes out in a perfect swirl or not, here it comes, I'm starting with a

robot

silhouette le I'm giving a face I'm going to peel that silhouette off the paper and then make another one and connect them ooh that didn't work out as planned that's the fun of

learning

something new you make mistakes I'm going to make a second silhouette and try to connect the two.

This first project is about feeling the environment. I have a lot of experience in design, so what can I borrow from that? Where am I now and what kind of possibilities does it have? medium grip these

robot

s definitely don't look good but it's impossible to overestimate the value of a first step here's a close up of the pen in action again it's like a hot glue gun the plastic goes in the plastic comes out but hot the main difference is that a little motor constantly pushing the plastic out now the big question I'm sure everyone is asking is: can they just take the pen and draw whatever they want in the air?

No, the answer is no, they simply can't do that. it doesn't work here. I'm trying to draw a spiral and it just doesn't form a spiral. What does work is that you can draw straight lines from the air and then wait for them to cool. This footage is sped up a bit, but with this technique you can get the plastic in three dimensions. Here I am

learning

how to make basic shapes. Most man-made objects are made of squares or cylinders. If you master these basic shapes, you can create almost anything you want in one of my previous videos.

I worked on improving my car drawing skills, it seems obvious, but trying to do something is one of the best ways to learn. If I just practiced cubes and simple shapes, I wouldn't push myself or grow, so here I am doing two sides. panels we're going to connect those two side panels with a bumper and then we're going to build more connective structures and then we're just going to build a kind of skin on top of those structures. I couldn't stop thinking about the first robot's mistake. The robot's eyes and mouth stuck to the paper as the body peeled away.

I wanted to make something similar, something like a greeting card where a secret message would stay on the paper until the plastic was peeled off, take it right there and Pull it, yes, yes of course, for the next build I wanted to revisit the robots this time. I wanted to use the wireframe type of process to make a three-legged sentinel robot. This robot could be used to protect important things. like the frozen yogurt doesn't come out particularly well because it still feels a little rough since the plastic comes in different colors. I wanted to try some red and black color combinations.

I drew this person. He would wear a red robe and some kind of black spear. Shield on the back for both this build and the next. I was going for a faceted look. I wanted the figure to be seen. It was made from the cut faces of a precious stone, as if it were carved from a crispy russet potato. I don't think it's the final. The result really matched that expectation, but it's not the worst. The figure was okay, but I was determined to make an amazing faceted skull. What I was starting to realize is that 3D pens by nature are quite imprecise.

The last poor red skull, Yorick, you deserved better. I was also starting to think about how much this plastic cost me. I bought my 3D pen for about $40. The plastic to make the skull cost about two dollars. I knew I was paying a premium for American design and controlled quality. product and was expecting to pay a little more with the used Razer Razer Blade Model 3 Doodler, however I wanted to experiment with different colors and knew that if I jumped ship I could now buy a cheap white label Chinese pen with various low cost colors. PLA was sold by the roll, so that's what I did.

The new pen came with a decent but small selection of filament and I decided to try it out by making a dinosaur. There are some types of plastic for 3D pens, I mean, this is kind of nerdy, but one type. It's the abs that I've been using a different type. The three doodles can use pla or abs, but I have been using abs up until this point, when I switched to pla, the main benefit. The thing about pla was that it smelled so much better than abs, which you wouldn't think was a big deal until you spend several

hours

with the pen just inches from your face, the dinosaur is coming together nicely, but then I realized that I had forgotten. something that the arms are understandable with t-rex, the chinese white label pen was obviously designed quickly to reach a low price without thinking much about ergonomics, you can't easily see the tip which is the most important part of the pen, the buttons are on the side where they are hard to press, however you need the nice rolled plastic so you don't have to change the refill as often, which is actually my main complaint with the three stix doodle system, although it is easy for first time users.

You actually waste more with each color change and disrupt the creative flow. However, it is definitely a better pen, which is why I'm still using it in this next version. The concept for this base is to have a dark background with selectively white decorative panels. applied here, I'm drawing the outside shape. I think this is actually what 3D pens excel at quickly ideating straight lines in space. Think scaffolding. Think of the Eiffel tower. Think cobwebs. This is kind of fun and a very good use of the medium. What are 3D pens? Terrible at covering large plastic distances with precision.

Human hands are absolutely amazing and there is no doubt that with unlimited time and a really engaging true crime podcast you can create a super precise structure, but there are cheap machines that are much better than us. Watch this footage at real speed. I think I

spent

about six

hours

doing this face and I wasn't very happy with the results the next day. I just wanted to use the pencil for what it was good at doing these quick 3D sketches that each medium had. Strengths and Weaknesses If I wanted to create a scale model of a building, I would use foam core or cardboard.

If I were designing the handle. I wanted to test the ergonomics. I would use foam obtained through 3D printing if I want to make a model. of something large that I needed to stand on, I can use plywood now if I want to make a quick wireframe model to measure the relative size and have the design have some sort of wireframe element attached, I'll use a 3D pen for these sketches were fun and really played to medium's strengths. I was very happy with this next project as I made a breakthrough that really helped my designs. I had previously been using the 3D pen the same way you might decorate a cake with icing first.

I made a form where I just glued things to the form, which worked fine, but made everything a little flat. What this unicorn's hair taught me was that I could make a lot of discrete elements and then apply those elements to one type of form. It's like putting Christmas decorations on a tree. By doing this, the model feels more textured and real. I liked how this project turned out so much that I will upload a full video to the channel soon. I wanted to use the same technique, you guessed it. Another robot, the body was quite simple, just a few shapes and then it wrapped around the whole thing like a spider.

I really wanted the star of the show to be the jet feet. The robot, of course, cannot fly without a red star on its chest. I drew the sparks of the flame. flat on a sheet of paper and then assembled everything together the sparks from the flame also formed the stand that the robot would stand on top of the smoke also drawn flat and then assembled in the flames turned out ok but I don't feel like I learned much With this project, I was mainly reinforcing the unicorn techniques, ah, the vases, I couldn't knock them down without a fight, the last one turned out so badly at that point that I had already learned what the 3D pen was for.

I'm trying to turn this into a masterpiece. I didn't spend much time on it. I just made a sketch which is really what the 3D pen excels at and then used the sketch as a model. I put it in a CAD software and then let my robot friend do it for me, but that's not really the goal of this project, so we'll skip this part. I wanted to do something extravagant for this project again. I was still thinking about the idea of ​​making something big with a lot of small pieces. so I designed this skull that would be made of small circles and would have a floral motif like the day of the dead, because I didn't want to make teeth or a jaw, I decided to give the skull a flower shaped gas mask that my wife pointed out.

I discovered that one of the eyes of the skull was very deviated, so I did a little surgery and gave the skull a facelift. There we are much better. Here I am applying some yellow accents. I was very close to finishing the mask when my cheaper 3D pen decided. For blocking, I can't say I was surprised, I got what I paid for, but it took me about half an hour to figure out where it was crashing and how to fix it once everything was back in order, just the last few touches and masks turned. It came out really well, I was almost done with the 3D pencil overall, but I felt like I hadn't made the robot of my dreams, so I jumped into this one instead of making my cartoon shapes, I started with a stick skeleton and then I added a lot of elements to the skeleton, I created fake hydraulic armor, mechanical details, armor, swords by creating all these layers, the robot had a great texture, any small imperfections are easy to miss when there are so many details, the robot, for Of course, I needed a stand that was pretty. simple to make, be careful with the torch, turned out well.

I was pretty proud of this and I'll also be uploading a full build video to the channel later. However, this robot took several hours to build, as you can see I

spent

a lot of time. hours making things and as you can also see, I got better as I went and spent more time on subsequent projects as I went from experimenting with the medium to producing more refined objects. It took me a bit, but now I've built a fun new one. skill if you liked what you saw, subscribe. I'll be posting some in-depth follow-up videos focusing on unicorn and robot builds and it would be a shame if anyone else saw them before you.