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Note: I know today is going to be a wild day and anxieties are running high even for those of us not from the US, so I’m just gonna make a fun little post as a wee oasis amongst the election talk.

Ok sorry this is yet another extremely Gravity Falls-themed post but it is specifically about new art stuff I’ve been making/learning how to do, I promise!! I made one long post in two parts, so I can keep all the fan stuff contained to one post instead of sending you multiple emails about it over the week. Okay? OKAY! So. First off:

Halloween!

The Ham is almost three now, and I suspect this might have been the last year I get to pick her costume for her, so I’m VERY pleased that I managed to convince my family to do a Gravity Falls costume with me. It’s one I’ve wanted to do for years, but with it actually being relevant again this year I really rallied hard for it as it felt like a “last chance” kind of thing. And it was GREAT.

As you already know I made my Dipper hat with a plain white ball cap, some paint, and a patch I made from some embroidery thread and a fabric cutout, but I also made Mabel’s shirt with some white puffy paint that I went over with glitter and leather paint (to get the colours perfect), and Stan’s fez the night before with paper, felt, and an old university grad cap tassel safety pinned to the top. I also made some big grey eyebrows to put on top of the glasses out of felt and yarn because it just needed something to pull it all together and frankly? It’s perfect. I will accept no notes.

Anyway we had a great time, the kid had a blast, and we got a lot of “I LOVE your costumes!!!” from people so all in all I consider it a success!!

OKAY. TO THE NEXT!

A thrilling and educational journey into 3D modelling and printing!

Before you laugh at me for being an obsessive weirdo:

1. Becoming consumed by something has happened to me often enough since birth that I know all I can do is ride it out and channel it into something productive, especially if it’s something like learning a new skill that would otherwise be too daunting or difficult to focus on. I’ve started seeing it as a blessing when I feel the brainrot setting in, even though it is annoying as shit, because it usually means I’m about to figure a bunch of stuff out or come up with some cool ideas.

2. Let’s just accept that for something like learning 3D modeling, Bill Cipher is actually the perfect test subject because he’s just a triangle with a couple tubes and cylinders with a few merges and cutouts, and is frankly an excellent starting point for learning how to use almost all the important tools as a complete beginner. Incredible character design, quite honestly.

Anyway! I’ve been learning how to use a few pieces of 3D software between projects.

-I did the classic Blender donut tutorial (yeah, everyone was right; I got the gist of a lot of stuff but it definitely didn’t teach me what I needed to know right off the bat. Also, Blender is DENSE and not particularly user-friendly. I’ll get there eventually but WOOF what a learning curve)

-I played around in Gravity Sketch for the Oculus in VR (SUPER fun, I like it very much, but it is pretty limited in some ways and is taking me a while to get the hang of the interface being hidden in the hand controls)

But my favourite so far is Nomad Sculpt on the iPad, which is definitely not as powerful as Blender, but magnitudes easier to grasp off the hop. Hoping to work on a Nomad-Blender workflow as a next step, but it is VERY exciting now that I’m getting the hang of it all.

This weekend I challenged myself to make something I could send to the 3D resin printer we have upstairs, that could function in a real-world setting, and I settled on a little Bill model that could sit on my shelf. I needed all the parts to be sturdy enough to withstand removing the 3D print supports, and it needed to sit flat on a surface/support itself without falling down. I learned a lot about keeping things on an axis as well as the general modelling and sculpting tools, which is all I needed to know this time around, and I learned about efficient ways to do things AFTER I’d already spent 45 minutes doing it the long way, but it was a lot of fun.

Okay, mission accomplished? Fingers crossed!

Sent to Matt for 3D printing magic that I know nothing about to print a little tiny mini as a test, and later that night he called me upstairs to the printer room to show me!

He snapped the supports off without any real trouble, and other than a couple pockmarks on the back, it was pretty much perfect and ready to be washed and cured, which he did for me the next day.

Now for the moment of truth: WILL HE SIT??

GREAT SUCCESS!!!

All I had left was the painting, and while it’s not perfect, this was just a proof to see if it would work so I think I want to paint a little differently next time. Namely, use a white primer because yellow has absolutely awful coverage. I’ve also made a few tweaks to the model itself, but if this print goes well, I hope to have the STL file available somewhere at some point. I’m still figuring out how I want to do that. But anyway! Without further ado!

BEHOLD. MY BEAUTIFUL BOY!

Bonus: a friend of mine did a bit of illustration for The Book of Bill, and when I was loudly joking on Bluesky about “needing to show Alex Hirsch [the creator of Gravity Falls] Bill’s ass”…. he sent it to him in a DM. LOL.

Anyway! Now that I know how to make 3D stuff I can print, a whole new world has been opened to me! I can make my own minis, I can learn how to make molds for clay or resin or wax, I can create 3D environments and characters to use as reference for comics and illustrations, I can sell 3D model files online… there’s an absolute wealth of possibilities at my fingertips and I am beyond stoked that this worked.

Taking all that into account, PLUS this little Bill that sits on the shelf above my desk now, this would have been a deeply satisfying project just on its own, but knowing I managed to get Alex Hirsch to look at his own creation’s brand spankin’ new set of asscheeks has been such a treat.

I love to share my art and comics, and I’m extremely blessed to be able to do it full-time as a career, in part due to readers like you! If you would like to support my work, please consider sharing with a friend, nabbing a print, buying me a coffee, or subscribing to my Patreon for as little as $1 a month

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