Minimalist Glowing Skull

thingiverse

I'm utterly captivated by this skull and thought it would make a fantastic glowing Halloween decoration, which may seem like an unsettling idea to some people. So, I carefully hollowed out the inside of the skull so that it could hold a tea light with an LED and prevent any obstruction from ruining its glow. Given that I only had a dull butter knife and ZBrush at my disposal, the resulting model isn't perfect, but I was still able to print it on my first try. I highly recommend using a line width of 0.4 when printing this skull since it's extremely thin, and if you're using Cura, turn on "Print Thin Walls" just in case. You'll need support both inside and outside the skull. I utilized the experimental tree support from Cura 3.5 and found it to be very effective. Removing the internal supports felt somewhat like scooping out brains with a spoon, but that seemed oddly fitting. At its current size, this skull will barely hold a standard 1.5" LED tea light. I had to bend the bottom edges to get it to fit, but that ensures it won't fall out easily. If you're feeling cautious, simply scale up 5-10% and it'll sit snugly underneath your skull without any force required. Update (2018-10-28): I've added "hollow_skull_V2.stl" with cleaner geometry and significantly fewer polygons, which should now work properly in Slic3r.