Building Chappie's Head: My Most Complex 3D Printing Project
Chappie is another great movie by Neill Blomkamp following up his early Tetravaal short. As soon as I watched it, I knew I had to build something from the movie. Going through the ReplicaPropForum threads, I found someone had already designed the files for Chappie’s head, so I had to give them a try.
The Start of the Project
I got the files from RPF member Razmataz and then added and modified some pieces to my liking or to make them more accurate. This was a big project that took me several months and taught me new skills along the way. I had never done electronics before, it was my first time using an airbrush, and my first time building something this complex.
Printing the Parts
After sorting out the files, I started printing all the different parts on my Prusa. There were a lot of pieces to print and it took a while to get through them all. Some of the thinner parts were tricky and needed a couple attempts to get right.
Electronics and LEDs
For the electronics, I wanted to have the eyes light up with blue LEDs. I had no idea what I was doing at first and had to learn everything from scratch. It was mostly figuring out how to wire up some LEDs to a battery pack and hide it all inside the head. After some trial and error, I got it working.
Learning to Airbrush
Another new thing for me was using an airbrush. Chappie has that orange and white color scheme with some wear and tear, and I figured a regular brush wouldn’t give the right finish. I bought a basic airbrush kit and practiced a bit before trying it on the actual head. There was definitely a learning curve, but it worked out well in the end.
Putting It All Together
Assembling everything was like putting together a puzzle. I had to make sure all the electronics were in place and working before closing up the head. Some parts needed to be glued, others were screwed together, and a few things were press-fit. I also made sure some sections could be removed so I could access the battery if needed.
Reaching Out to the Team
At some point I was troubleshooting what was showing up in Chappie’s eyes and what was the output of its screens, but I really couldn’t make anything out from the movie. So I reached out to the WETA workshop artists and asked for help. They were awesome and kind enough to give me the details I needed for the boot sequences, screens, stickers, and more. This made the whole project worth it!
The Finished Build
This project took me several months to complete, working on it here and there when I had time. It was definitely the most complex thing I’ve built so far, but also really fun to work on. I’m very happy with how it turned out, especially when the LEDs are on in a dark room.
I’d like to thank Razmataz for the initial files that made this project possible, and the whole RPF community for their help along the way. Building this got me to learn some new skills that I’ll definitely use in future projects.
If you’re interested in more details about this build, you can check out my build thread on RPF where I posted a lot more pictures of the whole process.
The full build
Below are all the pictures from the entire build process, from the very beginning with just parts to the final finished head. I took photos along the way to document each step. You can see all the challenges I ran into: the first attempts at printing parts, figuring out the electronics, testing different paint techniques, and slowly assembling everything. It was definitely a learning experience, but seeing it come together bit by bit was really satisfying.
