One of the great things about Christmas time is that there’s always plenty of excuses for doing some fun 3D printing. And, of course, if you are lucky enough to be given a 3D printer as a Christmas gift you’ll be desperately looking for something to print to test it out. And what could be better for festive 3D printing than a Santa Claus (a.k.a. Father Christmas) box featuring his head and a removable hat that reveals a compartment ideal for some treats or a small gift. So here’s my version of such a box, which I’ve had fun sculpting and printing ready for the yuletide season. And it’s designed to need no support material when fused-filament printing, so is ideal for your first print if you do get a 3D printer off Santa!
Quick summary of this 3D creation
Overview: A festive box designed around a sculpted Santa Clause head.
Software used: Nomad Sculpt Andoid app, Meshmixer, Blender.
Intended use: 3D printing with fused-filament (no supports needed) or resin printers.
Download: Thingiverse page, MyMiniFactory page.
The box was designed, with the requirement to need no support material, in Nomad Sculpt on an Android tablet in two parts: the main head and the hat. The two parts were then trimmed using voxel remeshing and a cube that acted as a trim block. The 3D sculpted model was then transferred to a PC where it was remeshed using Meshmixer and the preserve-sharp-edges setting. That allowed me to do the sculpting with plenty of detail, but also end up with a much smaller file size that retained most of the important details. Blender was then used to add a neck above the head and hollow the parts to form a box (using primitive objects and constructive-solid-geometry modifiers). You can see the result of all that work on Sketchfab below (click the play button to load the model and view it in 3D).
I also decided that I’d like to use the Santa box as a decoration, by shining a light from the inside. So in Blender I scaled the head and hat until they were big enough to fit a cheap 38mm diameter LED tealight candle inside (no naked flames please, we don’t want to start a fire). I then printed it with a very low infill density, so that light can shine through the box walls. And below is a photo of the result: an illuminated Santa head to brighten things up over Christmas.
I think the Santa Clause box turned out quite nice and I’m looking forward to making use of it over the Christmas period. And I hope you enjoy it too 🙂
