Process

01

Currently, only the basic land layout of Epic Universe is known. With that information, I looked to Donkey Kong, Classic Monsters, pirates, Milo from Atlantis, and more for inspiration to create the rugged and adventurous character that I thought represented Universal.

Mood Board

02

My goal was to combine as many possible elements of the new land as possible into one cohesive character, so I began with donkey kong and introduced classic monsters

Character Sketch

03

Introducing Nines: the suave new mascot for Universal's upcoming theme park Epic Universe. With a mischievous, mature, and ungraceful personality, he represents the tension between childhood interests and adult expectations.

He's meant to mirror what Mickey Mouse is to the Disney theme parks as universal continues to establish its place between high thrill and family rides.

Final Design

04

I decided to sculpt each piece of clothing separately before joining them at the end to ensure clear parting lines between material and ease of sculpting accuracy. The only downside was the computer’s difficulties with aligning vertices of the objects due to a high polygon count in Blender.

Final Sculpt

05

The first 3D print of Nines was done using white resin in a FormLab 3D printer. I aimed to have the entire print (including scaffolding under 120mL) for cost purposes. Unfortunately, there was an issue/disruption with the light-curing, and parts of his leg and arm were not completed so I was forced to reprint Nines on an FDM printer.

SLA Print

06

The second print was successful but I still wasn’t completely happy with it. I was unable to sand the surface to remove the bumps created by a 3rd party app, Mesh Mixer, which appeared when I made the blender mesh solid. To avoid this problem next time, I would need to spend more time testing tolerances in blender or take a more long winded approach to making the mesh solid.

PLA Print