Design of the Week: Hellboy Mecha-Glove Vinegaroon

By on May 9th, 2016 in Design

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 Florence Chan's 3D printed vinegaroon
Florence Chan’s 3D printed vinegaroon

This week’s selection is the delicate Vinegaroon by Canadian 2D/3D artist Florence Chan. 

The Vinegaroon is a component of a larger work to develop a replica of the Mecha-Glove from the movie Hellboy. If you’re not familiar with the plot, the glove is used in the movie to summon  the character to our world. 

This is not the first time the artifact has been modeled. In fact, MythBuster Adam Savage has obsessed over this particular replica for several years, as it is a most challenging item. But Chan was able to use Savage’s detailed notes to complete a design of the Vinegaroon itself. 

 The box that holds the vinegaroon
The box that holds the vinegaroon

Here’s a video with Savage explaining his project: 

The notes were not sufficiently detailed to directly model the item, so Chan had to resort to additional sources. She explains: 

The vinegaroon was modelled in ZBrush and referenced more directly from image searched material involving Mastigoproctus giganteus, which actually grows up to 85mm – which makes this print of the bug rather small (by about half)!

The model is extremely delicate, as you can imagine. Here we see the scale of the object compared to a common bottle cap. 

 Florence Chan's vinegaroon scaled to a bottle cap
Florence Chan’s vinegaroon scaled to a bottle cap

While the design of the arthropod is highly detailed, what also impresses me is the print itself. It was apparently done on a Stratasys Objet machine in VeroClear material by the looks of the print. 

The impressive part of the print is how it was cleaned of support material (which typically completely surrounds the print, top and bottom) without any of the tiny structures breaking off. If you’ve ever cleaned a spindly item from an Objet 3D printer, you’ll know what I’m talking about. 

 Vinegaroon 3D model
Vinegaroon 3D model

Want to try this one yourself? You can! Chan has made the print files available for download in a 15MB archive. It’s provided with a CC non-commercial attribution license that will permit you to remix the model in any way. 

As you can see, the 3D model is extremely detailed. It should be sufficiently detailed for scaling up for printing lobster-sized versions, if one were interested. 

Via Florence Chan

By Kerry Stevenson

Kerry Stevenson, aka "General Fabb" has written over 8,000 stories on 3D printing at Fabbaloo since he launched the venture in 2007, with an intention to promote and grow the incredible technology of 3D printing across the world. So far, it seems to be working!