This 3D Printable Jointed Puppy is as Cute as a 3D Printed Button

Having a dog is a huge responsibility that far too many people don’t take as seriously as they should. A dog needs more than a bowl of water and some food to be happy–they need our companionship, our attention, and ultimately our love. And in return, they give us their companionship, their undivided attention (unless there is a cat in the yard) and all of the love that they have to give.

Unfortunately, that isn’t all that they give us. Dog owners have to deal with pet hair, chewing, inappropriate placement of waste, and of course barking and yipping. And while those things are often more than worth dealing with for what dog owners receive in exchange, the trade-off isn’t for everyone.

So if you’re one of those people who think of pet ownership as a burden, but really want a cute dog, then I have the perfect 3D printable pet for you. Thingiverse user Jazmy’s 3D Jointed Puppy Dog model has all the adorable cuteness of a real life dog, without any of the poop or yipping.

As a new 3D printer owner and a graphic designer, Jasmine Robinson quickly got bored of printing other people’s models so she turned to designing her own. She started slow, hiring experienced designers on Elance to work with her, and eventually taking what she learned and creating her own models. Her goal was to create a jointed, poseable model that could be printed in a single piece on a standard 3D printer.

“First thing I learned is that I would not become a 3d modeling expert overnight. I outlined what I wanted and posted it as a job on Elance. My goal was to expedite my learning while getting a product completed in a couple weeks,” Robinson told us via email. “I hired multiple designers for the same project. They each tackled the project in different ways because building a jointed-doll-all-in-one piece was unchartered territory. It required dozens of revisions, tweaks and me printing prototypes endlessly for months. I finally took what worked best from each individual designer and Frankenstein’ed it into the perfect puppy.”

Her first project was the 3D Jointed Baby model, which is, frankly, nightmare fuel. Her disturbing and tiny 3D printable baby model naturally creeped out a lot of people, so Robinson began developing her adorable 3D jointed puppy model at the same time. Her ultimate goal is to develop an entire line of 3D printable models of realistic babies and animals that will not require a lot of assembly or customization.

Robinson not only learned how to 3D model a project by practicing on her own, but also by looking at how the people she hired to help tackled her project. She needed to know how their versions were made so she could make sure that they printed correctly, but she also wanted to make her own changes to better reflect her vision.

“One of my favorite things about 3D printing over building web applications is at the end of the day I can hold my finished project in my hand. I can wrap it in a box and give it to a friend as a gift,” Robinson continued. “I can imitate life, immortalize it and print it a million times. I know I have a lot to learn but I am enjoying the journey”

Some of the tools that she used to design her puppy was the 3D sculpting program from ZBrush called Sculptris. She also ran her ideas through programs like Autodesk’s Maya, 123 App MeshMixer, MeshLab, and Netfab Online.

Named Charlie, after Robinson’s childhood dog, the 3D printed puppy has movable joints on his legs, paws, knees, head, and–of course–his tail can be made to wag. Her version printed at home was on her UP! 3D Printer in a single piece as one print. Each model of Charlie should take about five hours to print, and will require all sorts of support material that will need to be cleaned. You can see a short video of Charlie and his articulated joints in action here:

So I guess I was sort of wrong earlier, because even 3D printed dogs require a lot of attention. So what do you think about 3D printed pets, could this be the 21st century version of the Pet Rock? Tell us about it over on the 3D Printable Jointed Puppy forum thread on 3DPB.com.