‘Incredible Hauke’ Action Figure — Man 3D Prints a Figure of Himself and then Creates Stop-Motion Video

Boy do I miss the days of playing with my G.I. Joe action figures on the kitchen floor with my brother. We would literally spend hours at a time moving these little figurines around, acting as though they were shooting their guns, throwing their grenades, and jumping off cliffs. We would become fully immersed in the play world that we created. Our kitchen floor became a battleground, and the table and chairs became mountains and cliffs. At times I think we actually believed that we were part of this imaginary world, but when our mother would tell us to clean up for dinner, reality set in.

One thing always crossed my mind while playing with these miniature men: “What if we could become action figures ourselves?” Surely the thought goes through the minds of a lot of children, right?

Apparently I’m not the only person to have thought about this idea. One man, named Hauke Scheer, not only has given this idea some thought, but he actually pursued it. Scheer, who makes action figures as one of the services he offers to clients, decided to create an action figure, not of a G.I. Joe, nor a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, but of himself.

Scheer doesn’t own a 3D scanner so he was forced to model his figurine using photographs for reference.

“Modeling it from scratch allows me to make some adjustments to insure all the details come out nicely on my printer and look good at the smaller scale,” Scheer tells 3DPrint.com. “For example, I tend to make the eyes bigger on the heads so they come out better when printed.”

Scheer uses MODO to model all of his figures, as he says it has really good measuring tools and precise modeling options which aid greatly in creating joints. It also provides an ‘in-build digital sculpting tool’ which allows him to quickly add detailed organic parts such as hair. As you can see in the photo to the right, comparing an actual picture of Scheer himself to that of the model, he did a tremendous job with his design. For the body, he didn’t make an exact replica of his own, but instead used a generic body.

Once the model was ready to be 3D printed, Scheer used his Stratasys Mojo, which he says offers him good reliability even when printing the small pieces he needs for the joints.

“Also with its removable support material it offers an easy way to clean the figure so I do not need to do too much post processing,” Scheer tells us. “The one major drawback is the expensive printing material but fortunately my figures are only between 5 and 7 inches tall so the cost does not get too much out of hand.”

Hauke Scheer’s figure, which we will call the “Incredible Hauke,” features over 30 separate parts, which must all be assembled together. Once all the parts are 3D printed, he needs to sand them down prior to painting them by hand.

As for the creation, Scheer doesn’t exactly get on his kitchen floor and play with it, but he does have some plans for his little “Incredible Hauke.”

“I want to take the Hauke figure with me on my next vacation so I can take all my holiday pictures with the figure instead of myself,” he tells us. “I hate taking selfies on vacation but love taking pictures of my figures, so this will be the best of both worlds. I am also using the figure to promote offering figures with individual heads via my website. The body will be the same as the one I made for the Mini-Hauke but the heads are sculpted after photo reference from the client. I plan to offer different body types in the future.”

As you can see in the photos provided, the figure came out incredibly well. Scheer even created a stop-motion video of the “Incredible Hauke” in order to test the sturdiness of its joints which proved strong enough to hold even the most complicated positions. Check out the stop-motion video below. What do you think of this 3D printed self-action figure? Discuss in the 3D Printed Incredible Hauke forum thread on 3DPB.com. Also check out some more photos below.