This project began when an online friend reached out to me, asking if I could make a ring box for their upcoming wedding. Of course, I was honored to be asked, so I jumped at the chance.
The box was to be based on an anime called “Jewelpet”. To this day I am unfamiliar with it, but it does seem up my alley. Anyway, it was decided pretty early on that it would be 3D printed to accommodate its precise geometric shapes. I decided to first just draw everything up in 2D with the reference photos provided by my friend Andre.
You’re going to be able to see through screenshots the progression of time, as I’m far too lazy to crop out the timestamp in each of these.
Once I had the foundational 2D drawing, I could start trying to learn Blender, a program I had scarcely touched prior to this job.
I initially thought the outer edge of the box should be completely rounded, as that is what the inner lip indicates when the box is open, as shown in the reference earlier. I had planned to make the main body of the box bulbous, and then carve in flat sections later. This would ultimately result in the first failed attempt, as it didn’t end up working out at all.
Clearly more time had passed, and it took me a few more attempts to achieve this structure, which I made by importing my 2D drawing from earlier, and moving the points to create depth.
Next up was trying to make the small heart and the gold bezel, which were also based on the 2D art I had created of it. For the heart, I believe I duplicated each vert and merged one of the copies at center, then created an arc from the base to center. Similarly, I was able to create a raised angle in the center of the bezel and connect the sides to it. Pretty basic stuff, I’d imagine, but getting to this point took an insane amount of effort.
I eventually ended up moving some things around. This is more-or-less the final layout of things though.
Here’s everything fresh off the resin printer. My fiancĂ©e and I use an Elegoo Saturn 4, I believe.
This shot shows how all of the parts connect together. The bezel has a snug fit inside the main body, and the center heart just plops into the bezel.
This shot shows me planning out the placement of the rings. The rings are intended to sit at about a 40 degree angle in the body.
Here you can see I added some material around the top “humps” of the heart for more structure around the hinges. I tried to fill and sand over the hinges, but ultimately this would fail eventually. Details to come later.
Well, look at that! It’s finished! And with only a few days to go!
…Too bad I hate it. The colors look all wrong, the finish on the main body is awful, and the filling and sanding over the hinges looked really bad.
At this point, I decided to start over entirely with only three days left to get it done. Risky, but necessary.
I began by repainting the center heart to a much brighter, lighter Tamiya paint. Already, it looks so much better.
I then drove out to my shop at midnight to mount the hinges in a new main body, and do all the filling and sanding on it. I kept world record pace though, and was able to do it in an hour or so.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures from that point on, so we’re on to the finished pics after paint and foam:
I really appreciate Andre for asking me to do this project, and I wish him a very nice wedding and an incredible marriage, but holy shit dude, I am so glad to have this off the workbench finally. I feel it was a pivotal project with regards to 3D software, but I think it really solidified in my mind the desire to create with my hands. Using Blender felt like solving a whole bunch of little brain teasers, which is satisfying, but not at all the process I have loved so much in many of my other builds. I’ll continue to learn and develop my skills, but hopefully I won’t need to use them for a while.
Many thanks to my friend Rob, @riboblito on Instagram, who helped guide me along the path of 3D modeling, and who fixed a couple boolean-related issues for me in the eleventh hour.
Also, many apologies to that same Rob, who pleaded to me for months that I shouldn’t use Blender, and whose pleas went unheard.