Alien Antennae #CostumeChallenge

thingiverse

Everybody will quickly spot an alien if they have stalks sticking out of their head with tiny dishes attached to the end. The two antennae are basically identical on both sides, just mirrored images of each other. The .stl files for these designs are roughly 6.5 inches tall and can be easily scaled up or down as needed. I've also included a .blend file so you can experiment with tweaking or remixing the design. As for attaching these antennae, that's entirely up to the user - they could be glued into a wig or more likely attached to a headband. You might also consider drilling holes near the flat circle and passing an elastic strap through it, but this would require a very tight fit, and you may want to scale the flat circles slightly larger if you go with this approach. The 1.7-inch diameter flat circle is designed to sit flat against your body, while the more decorative dimple-dish shows off its design to the world. If you must print the entire thing, you can mix this design with something like http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:242087 or http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:521515, or create your own extruded arc to attach these to. Using a commercial headband makes a lot of sense. I'm aware that antennae and ears have been done before - see http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1822443, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:34064, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:32887, or even http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:174949. However, these designs offer a fresh and unique style that may interest people looking for costume ideas. Antennae are simple, lightweight accessories with big visual impact. Print Settings: Printer: FlashForge Dreamer Rafts: Yes Supports: Yes Resolution: 0.18mm Infill: 10% Notes: I went with standard print settings since they worked well. I don't usually use rafts or supports but this design needed them - my first try with tree-like supports failed, but the next two prints were successful. Post-Printing: Cleanup: The support pattern will make your alien look like it's got a rash behind the antennae dishes unless you clean up a bit. Personally, I think matte is a good finish for these designs, so I'm just sanding my ABS prints and not polishing them. How I Designed This: Blender - Skins: The basic shape is a linear edge with three points at each joint. I "skinned" the edge, smoothed it to the 3 level, shrunk all of it, then re-enlarged the middle of each 3 points to create the joint appearance. The attachment disc is another enlargement, but the dish itself is a bisected sphere with some thickness and placed over the segmented edge - the dimple in the middle of the dish is actually the end of the edge. I learned how to skin and bisect objects when I started this project earlier today. Blender has plenty of helpful tutorials online if you're interested in learning more.