Neptune Vandal : VALORANT
aka the Blup Blup from VALORANT. This was a personal project printed in both FDM and SLA. It was surprisingly straightforward from a geometry standpoint. The base mesh from the game was re-meshed and split up for ease of painting and printing. During this process I added many details that are only in the bump map. Most of the larger parts (stock, lower receiver area, fore grip etc..) are PLA. The clear sections are Somos Watershed which I ordered from a 3d printing company. The smaller portions (fish, anchor, switches, grip etc..) are standard resin prints.
The clear parts are designed to be water tight when assembled so that clear epoxy can be poured in from the top. For the magazine epoxy is poured directly from the top. The main body fill port is right between the octopus’ arms. I used FGCI Superclear Deep Pour Epoxy Liquid Glass 2.0 which is designed for deep pours. It has a relatively slow cure time and low viscosity which helps dramatically reduce bubbles. (even if I had a pressure pot it probably wouldn’t be big enough for the main body) This worked quite well. First I drilled indentations for the fake aquarium plants and super glued them in place, then I spread out white aquarium sand. Then I did an initial pour about half way, when this started to gel I placed the fish. It was my first time using this epoxy and I placed the fish a little too early which is why they are closer to the bottom.
Since there is no room for an internal structure (usually I use 1/2” aluminum tubes inside my vandals) I mounted 1/4 - 20 threaded studs between the front barrel components and the inner filter parts and the rear filter parts/stock.
One major issue I had was a pinhole leak while pouring resin into the magazine. It was a 3 piece design. If I made another one I would probably print the entire magazine as one piece, mask and paint the white/gold parts and try to hand paint the bottom with a bent brush.
Overall this was a really fun project and it now sits behind above my 10 gallon shrimp tank.
Additional Footage:
https://www.tiktok.com/@saidaprops/video/7199098618924813614
https://www.tiktok.com/@saidaprops/video/7218119362748894510
