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Lithophanes

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This was my original building: part wood, part 3D printed. I only just started printing in 2021, meaning no gigantic items were printed yet, so I could learn from the ongoing process. You can enjoy the vid I created, with a storyline, as I moved it to my new YouTube channel. I needed a watermark for copyright and my previous channel did not offer me one. This channel is not monetized. Theatre story vid My Sylvanian combo Angelina Ballerina theater fell apart in 2024, as the wood must not have been dry when it came from the store. Very sad, but I saw it as an opportunity to create an even better theatre. I figured now that my designing + printing skills are much better than in 2021, I can make everything out of plastic, bringing in much better detail than before. I created a humongous model, it will be just over 7 feet long and over 2 feet wide. Lots more going on than in the original one! But, I only printed small details for it, as there is no way I want to drag a gigantic model to an...

3D printed greenery

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I had foam plants which I used alongside some pavement and in parks in JollyOaksField, but it started to crumble badly. Not just the spongy bits fall off the plastic stems, but actually going to microplastic dust. As they can't be saved, I figured that a more permanent solution was needed.  Time to get cracking! I had some varied green colors of filament left after I printed several decor items for our future home. I designed some flower soil covering plants, which look great between 2 strips of pavement. Easy to design: just look for some free shrubs  and flowers to print, comine them, copy paste till you have a row. Here is one installed: I printed way more then the current diorama has space for, so I would be set to start after we move. I placed one in between curbs below, so you can see the result, which is to offer a delicate touch in alleys. Hope you like them!

Additional Town buildings

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I always keep looking at all of my Town houses to see what could make it even better. It's a happy gathering of  Town series buildings: real, rip-off lookalikes, plus 3D printed. One thing which always struck me, was the lack of a few colors to make it look more complete. I am not into dark colors, except for details, like a dome or a rim. The Town series seems to have come to an end, unfortunately, even with the rip-off brands. So, I bought some dirt cheap last items to feed my OCD, as it just would not shut up, lol!  My Xmas store is a square setup made from stores in matching colors, except the old pink part of the Grand Department Store. That always stuk out like a sore thumb to me, so finally some courage was applied to split it up. There are already plenty of colors going on in that large assembly of buildings and old pink was just one too many. Now, the xmas store is more unified. I lack the space in my house to make a wide U-shape out of the lot, but in my final d...

3D printed trailers

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JollyOaksField town has many vehicles, but I never bought large food vehicles for it. I noticed the small Sylvanian tuktuk which serves as a mobile donut shop and a small hamburger shop on wheels. I wished it all was less specific though and then inspiration struck to create 3 small vehicles myself and print them. I remembered I bought a 3$ tuk-tuk model years ago and adapted it to fit miniature bikes. I created that, but didn't like it that much. I decided that moped trailers would be more fun and altered the model drastically. I also designed or tweaked models to add to each trailer, like custom number plates, marquees, etc. But, they needed to look identical to start with. I was inspired by the days that I hauled just about anything on a moped as a young adult who couldn't afford a driver's license, as it was very expensive to get one without a parent willing or able to teach me. I often wished I had a trailer myself, which was not allowed by law. For example, on my smal...

3 new 3D prints: part 4/4: My version of the missing arched Town House: The Sweet Shop

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Part 3 can be read here:  Part 3 What I described in Part 1, was exactly what happened: my eldest print filament, which I bought years ago, which was the last one available in that color then, meaning it had a long shelf life before it was sold, became brittle. My best guess is that it was about 8 - 10 years old. All my filament is stored with dessicant, and dried for 2 hours before it's first use, so it was not wet, which also makes it brittle. It crumbled and got horribly stuck in all parts leading up to and into the extruder. Not just clogged, but broken off in the extruder before it can get hot and pulled through, or poked with a special needle to declog whilst it's piping hot. Ugh. So, hub had to help, as I can't physically do that anymore, as broken bits and pieces got stuck everywhere. It took hours to get that fixed and no printing could be done till he had time to do so! Since we do plan to move in a few years, this filament disaster made me decide to print as much...

3 new 3D prints: part 3/4: The Corner Hat Shop

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Part 2 can be read here:  Part 2 I had a hat shop in the past, but it was too big for my liking, the displays were not fancy and I needed the hats to posh-up Sylvanians, heheheh. But since, I have a 3D printer ... Sylvanian designers did not include greys in their Town. I guess they just figured that kids mostly like candy colors. I beg to differ if it is done in an appealing way. Candy colors are nice, but even as a kid, I liked a lot more than those. I used all leftover grey filaments I had left to make the greys stylish instead of dull. S o, here it is, my Corner Hat Shop! See my cute misprint squirrel leaving the shop! I took pics of the floor detail before it was assembled, as this might not be really visible after.  I used the same floor pattern as the newspaper shop. I created a counter and furniture as well. Here are the hat stands before the dummy heads were put on.  Fun fact: the dome design is made from an Easter egg model, and I used the egg model to create th...

3 new 3D prints: part 2/4: The Newspaper Shop

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  Part 1 can be read here:  https://sylvanianinvasion.blogspot.com/2025/04/3-new-3d-prints-part-14-mysterious-case.html I had a 3D printed newspaper kiosk. Loved it, but my printer back then was not so good, so it looked "printed" instead of "real". And, once the roof of the kiosk was on, there is no way to see what is behind the storekeeper, which was a shame. Since the previous printer was not so dimensionally accurate, it didn't fit well together at all. I figured a small corner building would make a great Newspaper Shop corner building in Town. The town didn't have any soft citrusy green color buildings yet.  Here's a detail of the floor I created. And now I can spot what's inside very well! Enjoy!