Guess who is on vacation for the week! Time to make a post (overtime has only gotten worse during this fucking pandemic, and that along with rattled nerves and major sleep deprivation, temporarily murdered any motivation and creativity I might have had.) It was time to make something…anything. I decided to fire up ZBrush and make another 3D print, as I was quite happy with my last effort.
Here is what I wound up with:
There’s not much that can make me too terribly uneasy, but if one wanted to turn my stomach, show me a picture or a video of a parasite that can lay its eggs in you, or lives in your eyeball, or your colon, or in any other way breaches the human epidermis. These almost alien creatures – as repulsive as they are – have a way of also being fascinating to me. The sheer number of unique physical traits these little bastards have so that they may efficiently violate us upright apes in one foul way or another, can’t NOT inspire me.
So I decided to make a parasite… I gave myself a challenge. It had to be “fleshy,” mammalian, and answer the question “just what the fuck is causing the random stinging itches that have the ability to wake a person from a deep sleep?” I decided that the creature needed a long hollow tongue for piercing the skin so that it could drink the blood, and as added insult to injury, it then defecates and urinates into that very same wound from its tongue. It truly is a multi-purpose tool! Its means of locomotion are unknown to me, as this specimen is just a nymph and hasn’t fully developed yet, but I have to assume that it’s tendrils, tongue and tail allow it to slither/crawl. In the middle of sculpting I realized I was making yet another fetus-looking thing…while thinking about parasites…hrmmmmmm…
So, yeah…The model took about 8 hours to sculpt in ZBrush, another hour to build the print supports and slice it into over 2000 layers for print in Chitubox, and another 9 hours to print (I won’t mention the additional 7 hours the first print that failed wasted…). I built the base with Magic Sculpt epoxy putty and wire, then attached everything with epoxy. I used my cheap-ass acrylic paints in multiple layers and washes and dry-brushing. I them sealed the paint with polyurethane spray, and then painted the eyes and tongue with 5-minute epoxy for the wet-looking shine. Once again, I learned some more things I can and can’t get away with in modeling in ZBrush and support building. It was a good experience overall, and hopefully enough to stave off some guilt over my recent lack of creativity.
I’ll try like hell to get something else on here before my vacation ends.
Be safe, and if you start itching in your sleep…now you know what is causing it!
idrawcrap 