In addition to Pokéballs, Ash also carries around a Pokédex (an electronic device which catalogs and provides information regarding the various types of Pokémon.) Not content with just a custom-made Pokéball for my son’s Halloween costume, I started brainstorming on how to make this as well.
As with the Pokéball, I again hit a wall and couldn’t find anything readily available that I liked. CAD and 3D prints to the rescue! l found a highly detailed render that I used that I used as my source material. I liked how it looked realistic and something that could exist, rather than the simple anime source material.
While not overly complicated, I had to account for a large number of parts with varying colors and how they could be painted easily. This meant breaking things up into smaller pieces to be assembled later. I also needed to account for how the hinge would be hidden inside of the shell as well as figuring out how to keep the lid closed.
As with the Pokéball, the Pokédex was also sliced and printed on the Bambu printers. Again, I was able to fit all the parts on a single plate, however, like with the Pokéball, I thought it best to print small batches of parts. Orientation was also important here, and while I wanted to print some parts flat, it ended up being better to print them vertically. Sometimes your intuition isn't always right, and you just have to rely on trial and error. Printing all the parts of the Pokédex at high quality took about 20 hours in total.
Following the same process as with the Pokéball, I needed to clean-up the parts and do a test fit. The same tools were used (push broaches, sandpaper, large brush etc.) This assembly consisted of many more parts compared to the Pokéball, so there was a lot of test fitting to ensure that nothing interfered.
The parts were primed, but I made sure to do a test fit yet again. Since the tolerances were tight on the model, I need to sand away specific areas where things started to overlap with the new layer of primer. If I were to do this model again, I would find the areas that needed more space (around the cylinder) and allot more of a gap. The extra layers of paint/gloss may have an eventual effect when it comes to movement depending on the model. Luckily, it didn’t appear to be an issue here. Again, large parts were done with spray paint, while smaller parts were done by hand, again allowing them to dry for the recommended time.
Once the paint had fully cured and a gloss coat had been applied, the Pokédex could finally be assembled. Everything was super-glued together and there were only few mistakes while my son and I assembled it together. Luckily, they were easy fixes!
I tested the movement a couple of times and the paint didn’t appear to interfere and it held up for at least through Halloween. I’m happy with how this turned out. There are a couple of things I would change for version 2, but as a quick costume add-on, it serves its purpose for now until a new one is “needed.“
