3D Print Your Own Official Optimus Primal To Celebrate Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
Autobots and metal 3D printing collide in this movie-based collab that sees gorilla-sized prints and free official STLs.
As part of a campaign to promote the just-released “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” movie, Paramount Pictures has created an official brand profile on Printables. There, it has shared STLs for two prints based on the film’s robotic primate star, Optimus Primal.
The first is a print-in-place model of the entire character that can grip and dangle from surfaces – such as your 3D printer’s X-axis bar – created by engineer Nikko Mendoza. The second is Optimus Primal’s head, which was designed by the film’s animators and then converted to a 3D model by Morgan Morey (A.K.A. Printed Obsession). Both models are free, with the head designed for FFF or SLA and the figure for FFF only.
But the fun doesn’t stop there. Taking things a step further is a project that brings together Paramount, Velo3D, the 3D Printing Nerd YouTube channel, and Adam Savage of “Mythbusters” (and now the YouTube channel Adam Savage’s Tested) fame. The result is a print of the aforementioned Optimus Primal head created with laser powder bed fusion on Velo3D’s Sapphire XC printer. The material used to create it, Inconel 718, is a high-strength nickel “superalloy” that has aeronautics and space applications (Velo3D calls it “the ideal material to build a real-life Transformer”).
The enormous print is comprised of nearly 9,000 layers and clocks in at around 225 pounds (including the base), and took over 160 hours to complete. A 3D Printing Nerd video walks viewers through the printing process and puts the finished print up against the likes of a plasma saber and flamethrower to test its strength and resistances.
As if that wasn’t enough, there’s an additional video in which Adam Savage and 3D Printing Nerd’s Joel Telling dive into the ins and outs of the head – and discuss metal 3D printing tech as a whole – which is also certainly worth a watch, if only to see Savage further attack the poor head with a mallet. And, of course, when you’re ready to start printing for yourself – albeit probably on a much smaller scale – head over to Paramount’s brand profile on Printables.
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