50–65cm Dolls Beefy centaur (prototype v2 in progress)

Goal: Create a strong looking centaur, using draft horses and shot-put champions for reference.

Main tools: Blender for modeling, slicing in Cura and printing with PLA, on Ender 3v2.

Current status: finished and printed first version, but decided to rework pretty much all the joints before moving on to bigger prints. Currently printing in tiny size (~34cm?), plan to print finished version in SD size (~60cm)

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Backstory:

I've wanted a centaur BJD ever since I first saw a picture of one a million years ago. What's not to love? In addition to not having to buy or make shoes, they also don't need pants! Or how does a centaur wear pants?

I started off making my own centaur doll out of air dry clay, cardboard, wire and apoxie sculpt, but soon had to admit I would never be able to finish the pieces manually. Or at least it would take forever and the results would likely still be crappy, because I have weak hands and no patience.
So! Now that 3d printers aren't super expensive (compared to the price of finished dolls in SD scale), I figured it was time to try a different approach. I already had a computer and some experience in blender, but I'd never 3d printed anything until getting my own printer this august.

Here's the plan I used for the first try when I started sculpting it years ago. Also, Resinsoul Ai (~60cm) for size. He's the one supposed to get a new body out of this project, so the final print is going to be pretty massive:


Here's the first version of the full centaur without jointing or head&hand parts in Blender:


After the rough 3d model was finished, I naturally tried printing it in tiny form to see the shape in person. The print detached during printing and I only got the horse part out. It was still nice and beefy IRL, so I kept moving on and didn't reprint the tiny test pony.

Here's a shot of the first print and one of the earliest versions of the back leg joints!



If anyone's wondering why some of the parts are cut in pieces when there's no joint, and others are printed in one piece...I'm alternating between printing half parts and full parts depending on what I'm testing and how long it would take to print something usable for testing. For example this above picture has a half a butt, but printing only that piece still takes like 6 hours? I think. And this is even on quick-and-rough settings. His butt is pretty big even in tiny size!

I had to add notches in the knees to keep them from going everywhere. Not sure how durable they'll turn out to be, but in this material and size it's holding up surprisingly well. V1/V2 test prints are about 34cm at the top of the head while standing, smallest I could go while still keeping enough joint detail for testing (and room for stringing!!)
I expect there will have to be changes as the size goes up but I'm keeping the knees as is for now, unless inspiration strikes and I figure out a "stable" and useful way to do double jointing here:



Here's the first full prototype! Behold V1 and the printing lines of doom:


I taped a tail on (there's no joint for it yet) and the stomach was constantly dropping until I added some masking tape to act as a ridge / stopper. After the above picture I manually melted some plastic on the stomach bean it to replace the flimsy tape. Then of course I had to redo the 3d model's stomach for the v2 print, but I've not tested the new part yet due to the new butt not being finished. I doubt the latest stomach print has enough ledges either, but we'll see.

Here's the current situation:



V1 now has all parts and the open / splayed hands, and his ears are in a different spot than V2. I test printed the head in SD size for fun and realized it would've been impossible to find fitting wigs with V1 head

For the v2 (who has no legs or butt printed yet), I'm changing all the joints at least a little. He has poop quality thumbs up hands because splayed hands' tiny little fingers kept snapping off but I needed something for stringing
The new elbows work a lot better, and the topmost chest joint is doing its job, but I still need to adjust or redo the other torso parts. I want him to be kind of chubby but it's very difficult to make that look good in different poses with a hard material.

I love that he can sit as he does, but I want him to be able to reach down towards the ground more - like a horse needs to be able to reach down to graze. Especially in a bigger size, if the doll can't curl up naturally it really limits the options for storage and display.
I also want more natural movement for the legs, as well as adding support in hopes that he can carry his weight in full size + other dolls on his back. And maybe, one day, he'll be able to stand on hind legs! So far he can stand on front legs, which is entertaining but not as cool as standing on hind legs would be



"Now listen to me, you punk!"
"How are you even grabbing my shirt collar I don't have a shirt"

 

Thank you all for the kind words and encouragement! I hope there will be more and more variety in human and centaur doll bodies in the future. Delicate dolls look even more delicate if they have strong looking friends, and the other way around. A complete win-win situation

Currently I'm still working on the new butt piece and studying how horses actually move... I avoided using bigger hip joints at the start because I'm worried it might end up looking like a horse wearing panties, but I haven't figured out another way to make the legs move in the way I feel they should. Fingers crossed the joint turns out ok or at least improved from the previous version!

Here's an example of my typical situation in Blender: a pile of parts and scribbles embedded in the actual model.



I doubt the tail part I've been planning would work for a tiny sized prototype, but here's proof I didn't just completely forget about the tail again!