HR Giger guitar tribute, inspired from the Ibanez model. The model has been modelled in Autodesk Inventor for the solid part by one collegue that unfortunately I cant link, but it's a really cool guy (metalhead of course he is :D)

Once he finished with the parametric software, we've decided to collaborate and do a scupt on top of it. Alien fitted well also because we are both fan of Giger.

The sculpting part took me couple of days in order to finish and revise some details and reliefs.

3D printed HR Giger guitar

In these tutorial I’m going to explain the main steps that allow me to finish a 3D printed guitar in Zbrush previously modelled in Autodesk inventor by my collegue Lee Plastow at MyMiniFactory.com.

What you need to order from Amazon?

1) Volume and tone pots

2) A Stratocaster Neck Plate (screws included)

3) A neck 

4) A set of humbuckers 

5) A set of strings 

6) A set of string tuning pegs

7) A bridge

8) 3 knobs

Download all parts from the download link, print it out and get assembling!

Step 1 – Modelling the solid parts and import 4 STL files in Zbrush 

Step 2 – Sculpting separate parts choosing the Alien concept from HR Giger 

Once I had the solid components in Zbrush splitted in 4 different subtools I dynamesh each of them to start sculpt on top of it. During this phase I’ve used Clay Tubes with Backface masking on to work only on the upper part of the guitar.

Step 3 – Remove material

In order to speed up the print for the biggest parts of the body I’ve decided to do a subtractive dynamesh. 

Step 4 – Add the last details

Before to export 4 STL files I worked a bit more on details carving into the upper faces of the guitar and maintaining an organic flow between the parts, replicating patterns inspired from Giger.

Step 5 – Optimize in Netfabb

Import every components into Netfabb for the final check, in order to fix eventually problems about orientation, border edges or shells. 

Step 6 - Printing on the Delta Wasp

The biggest parts were almost 40 cm (39.5 cm tall). Only few supports were generated on the base of the outer parts of the guitar.

Step 7 – Assemble the parts

Now that we have all the 4 parts printed in Wasp we just need to assemble them using the long holes on the sides. If you find a bit of resistance combining the parts an easy solution will be to smooth the joint’s borders and use an hammer to force a bit the merging.  

Step 8 - Soldering the pick up cables with the volume and tone pots 

Step 9 – Design (or download) the last two components for the pick ups and the volume controller

The white cover for the humbuckers was designed in Rhino by another collegue at MyMiniFactory, Simone Fontana.

I’ve redesigned the volume controller in Zbrush to finish the project and do my first gig with a 3d printed guitar :D

Step 9 –  Attach the neck and the strings