Protogen Progress

This page is documenting my progress on making a protogen fursuit head based on Arkoss's design. This project has been in the background for a long time.

Or: "How I turned off the blinking lights and embraced the snep"

❄️ Midwest Furfest 2022

TODO: intro to protogens

Some of the skills to build this I already kinda had. I own a 3D printer, I could solder (given diagrams/pictures), and I have a friend who could apply the fur. I had talked about it with a few people, was able to find someone who did the vacu-forming for the visors, and that seemed like the hardest part. At that point I got a little too excited, and ordered the vacuformed plastic right away, spending a bit too much on it.

TODO: deciding model, tinkering with printer, the 3d printing gods

🦝 Midwest Furfest 2024

TODO: Meeting Arkoss in passing
Not a ton of protogens I saw this year;

I could have ordered the prints from a service, but part of this journey was supposed to be building it cheaply.

🍑 FWA 2025

Once I realized I could use primative shapes to subtract sections of the print in Orcaslicer, I was able to fit the files on the bed and get printing! Provided my printer would behave. Which it didn't. While using PETG, small prints would be fine, but these large full-bed prints would suddenly stop after a few layers. Eventually I realized it was the motherboard of my Ender 3v2 overheating. I could order more parts to replace the fan underneath with a more powerful one... or...

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Yeah surprisingly it just needed a tiny bit more airflow. I stacked my printer on top of some containers and it was good to go! The first print was too aggressive on the supports, but being able to see the size was very exciting! Now to wait days for each print to come out before I move onto electronics.

Admittedly at this point I haven't even made the character. 😓