I've been wanting to to properly finish a 3d print for a while. I've done way too much sanding and painting but never a full proper, give it your all, 3d finishing. And that's what I did with this Boo model I found on thingiverse.
After printing out all the parts, and before anything was assembled, I started with a base coat of Rust-oleum filler/primer. The aerosol spray lays down thick to fill in most print later lines. Anything that it can't fill in I followed up with a light bondo fill and so...much...sanding. Starting at a higher grid of 120/220 down to 400 at first. After a final primer spray and making sure most imperfections were done I then followed up going down to 1500 grit wet sanding for a silky smooth finish.
After finding some harbor freight deals I settled on the airbush to get. With airbrushing you get a much finer spray with 0 brush marks and a super professional look. A different, more watery, paint is used since the airbrush needs to physically push the paint out of the nozzle onto the print. I started spraying most of the pieces unassembled getting a main color on all of them. The way Boo assembles the mouth/teeth need to be installed before the 2 main body pieces connect so those needed to be fully painted first. Once I had those (and some practice on the body done) I could then super glue everything together. Teeth and mouth inside the body and both body parts together locking the mouth inside. Once together I had one last seam of the body to fill in. Starting the prep process all over again with both bondo and sanding I got the final seam between the body to disappear so with a masked off mouth and some more airbrushing I had a seamless Boo body!
After letting the paint dry for a day the final step was to clear coat it. I modeled and printed a quick mount so I could reach all of boo at once and again with the airbrush laid down some light coats of a gloss clear coat to give Boo the shine he deserves. For a future project I might try printing a crown to make him King Boo.
