3D Printed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Brought to Life by MyMiniFactory

When I was younger, I hardly ever watched cartoons, as I preferred to be either outside playing baseball with my brother, or on the living room floor playing with some of my toys. However, there was one cartoon that I did watch daily, one which I admittedly was quite addicted to. That show was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and I followed the characters religiously. At the same time, I had just about every TMNT action figure available, as well as the weapons and vehicles to go along.

Now, almost 30 years after the first TMNT animated series debuted, these turtles in a half shell have been reborn as part of a new movie and a revived animated series. Action figures of these characters are still flying off the shelves at toy stores, and the fad with these heroic turtles seems to be even bigger than it was back in the ’80s.

For one TMNT fan, named Terry Smith, 3D printing has allowed him to pass his love for the turtles down to his son.

“My young son loves the TMNTs,” Smith tells 3DPrint.com. “He likes to draw them and make his own TMNT stories, and when I had the opportunity to model them, it was something we both liked and something to encourage him to keep an interest in drawing.”

Smith was asked by MyMiniFactory to model the turtles and make them available for other people to download and 3D print for free. He jumped at this opportunity, being that he has always been a big fan of the characters.

“I have to admit it, I loved the movies and the whole concept of it, but I never had the figures as a child,” Smith tells us. “I have bought them for my son though. My favorite character has to be Mikey, as he is an all around fun kinda turtle.”

To model each turtle, Smith used Zbrush to sculpt out their figures. He searched around for reference images and then bundled his ideas together into something he thought would work best. While he admits that he had a few issues along the way, overall, he was quite happy with how they all turned out.

While Smith has not 3D printed the turtles yet himself, MyMiniFactory has, and they have even taken it one step further by painting each one (as seen in photos provided). The files are free to download and print at home, and they recommend printing them with an 8% infill and 0.2mm layer height.

Smith tells us that he is in the process of changing the turtles’ poses around a little bit to prepare for printing on his Form 1+ 3D printer. What do you think about these 3D printed TMNT designs? Have you printed them yet yourself? Discuss in the TMNT forum thread on 3DPB.com.  Check out some more photos below.