Galactic British Empire -
kids futuristic set from Ian B

If you are following our Twitter, you surely noticed him. Ian B is one of our favourite maker, who is relatively new in 3D printing, but the passion with which he is doing his project is amazing. Take a look on his biggest one – GBE – Galactic British Empire – a growing 3D printed playset for children. And older children : ).

It’s now some months we started collaborating. You told us about your project and from small one, now you are having pretty big playing set for kids. Please, tell us more about it.

The idea of making a playset is almost as old as I am (which is very old), as I used to make my own 2D playmats when I was a child, I hated being restricted by what was available or what my parents could afford to buy me so I used white card, pencil crayons/felt tip pens and my imagination.

I first got involved in 3D printing in 2015, having bought a printer for work. Using the printer there and learning more about the technology and 3D modelling convinced me that I should get one for home in early 2017. I went for the Creality CR10 and as soon as I had it and started printing less practical prints my thoughts immediately went back to the playset of my youth. Whilst my initial idea was a similar town playset as I had made in 2D all those years ago, very quickly the build volume of the CR10 made me think ROCKETS :-).

I should point out that I do have a 2 yr old son and a 1yr old daughter and so this playset is for them to play with when they’re older …….. Honest!

I probably spent 2 to 3 months working on the designs before releasing them, initially on Thingiverse, and then after the initial release I tasked myself with releasing a new model every week for the first few months. To date there are 15 designs in the collection on Thingiverse although a few of them have multiple models so I think a total of 39 models and some of them are multi-part.

What type of objects are there?

Currently in the playset are rockets, aircraft, vehicles, robots, landing pads and road sections, plus a couple of miscellaneous set dressing kind of items. In work for the future I have more of the same, along with buildings and people, although the playset is sized to allow for play with Lego Minifigures, who doesn’t like Lego after all.

Makers can find your set on Thingiverse. Is the set done or you will be adding more objects?

I have started releasing models on MyMiniFactory, Cults3D and Pinshape too, but I do like the structure of Thingiverse. I still have some unreleased models, both in work, and finished but not printed, but I’m taking a little break from the playset at the moment. However I will definitely be expanding the playset further in the future and already have a big list of model ideas.

You get from us the widest amount of materials in our history and prepared all these amazing models! If you need to pick up, which is you most favourite TOP 5 materials of them?

It really did help in an unexpected way when you very generously donated so much material. In addition to the obviously great fact that I didn’t need to buy all the plastic I was using, I did find that it helped boost my imagination, I actually wanted to find a way to use all off the PLA Extrafill colours. So the wide range of colours you have literally inspired me, although it was funny that most of the first batch I requested were different greys (Science Fiction will do that!). It’s hard to choose a top 5 but I’ll have a go (this can and will regularly change)

#1 Vertigo Grey – This is the easiest choice, it prints so well and looks great, and I find it is really versatile, I’ve used it for all sorts of things but it was initially the colour of the Shades

#2 Rapunzel Silver – Another great finish and looks amazing, no surprise that the original hero starfighters, the Whittle class, were printing in this colour

#3 Pearl Green – Looks so cool and my LandRover inspired trucks look so right in that colour

#4 Pearl Ruby Red – Another colour that I just want to print in, so far not much in the playset uses it but that may change in the future

#5 Gold Happens – I don’t normally like gold in real life but this is crazy nice, I really love my Brunel Class Rocket printed in this

Honourable mention to Metallic Grey, which the Trevithick class is printed in, and Vertigo Galaxy which I like more and more each time I use it, both colours I’ve grown to love.

That’s so great to hear. Thank you Ian 💛. This is why we love this job! Btw the colour combination of Rapunzel Silver and Iceland blue details on one of the rocket is really awesome.

Yes the Whittle StarFighter has the Iceland Blue cockpit, it really looks nice against Rapunzel Body I thought.

And, is there any special model in the set, which you like?

That is way too hard a question, I love the Brunel rocket as it was the development of my original style, the trucks definitely evoke the spirit of LandRover as I’d wanted, RoboTommy is my little dude, the Avenger heralded the shades and the Deathbringer as the ultimate progression of my aircraft designs.

You made not just models, but also some story about (you can find it here). You didn’t forget also to add there commander Tom Jackson : ).

Having a back story was something I liked when I saw the dragons made by Louise Driggers’, whether people printing the models wanted to read it or not I liked the idea and it also helped drive the style consistency and model ideas. Plus I am, amongst other things, a frustrated novel writer, I’d always wanted to write a SF story for my elder boys, who are now in their twenties, but life got in the way, so this is an outlet for me and I’ll definitely be writing more in the future.

Tom was always going to have to make an appearance in the story, he’s my 3D Printing brother from another mother 🙂 and any chance to gently take the mickey out of him couldn’t be passed up! It’s also my way of acknowledging all the encouragement and help that Tom gave me whilst I was dreaming up this playset, he has done a LOT of test printing along the way. He was also, and I’ve never told him this, the original inspiration when I named the robots, they were going to be called RoboToms but then the old wartime nickname for British soldiers seemed like a great fit.

You prepared also decorations for last Christmas. The snowman and also, you are designer of our first official Christmas tree which we love. What will be next? What are you working on now?

The Fillamentum Christmas Tree was a really interesting exercise for me, working to someone else’s guidelines like this was equal parts fun and frustrating :-D. Mr Snow was created in about 25 minutes on my lunch break but is one of my favourite models to date, I loved making the multipart model and printing in multiple materials.

I decided to take a short break from designing to re-energise myself, so I’ve mainly been concentrating on printing models from other designers and trying to improve my YouTube content. I do have a lot of ideas though so I will be back modelling very soon. And I also have a number of ideas for collaborations, mainly with Tom.

We know the struggle. Making real someones else visions is really a hard quest, but you survived : ). We are watching your Youtube updates and looking to hear about you more!

Follow Ian B:

Cults3D profile, MyMiniFactory profile, Pinshape profile, Thingiverse, Youtube,

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