u/Rayxa

I have been releasing multipart models for quite some time now. However, printing these models comes with a common frustration: a perfectly smooth main body gets paired with small inserts that look like stepped topographical maps. Finer layer heights help a bit, but the rings are still there.

As it turns out, the fix is surprisingly simple: tilt the inserts and print them at a 45° angle.

I first stumbled onto this technique when waylaidwanderer published a print profile for my wobbly Snorlax model that oriented its belly this way. Since then I've been refining it, and now I print almost all my small inserts like this. By angling the parts, the layer steps are distributed across the curve rather than stacking bluntly on top. I used this exact method for the red eyes and teeth on my new wobbly Gengar model.

If you want to see how the orientation works in the slicer and print one for yourself, I uploaded it here: https://makerworld.com/en/models/3391336-wobbly-gengar-halloween-fidget-toy-no-ams

Some of you may have seen my previous two wobbly models: the wobbly frog and the wobbly penguin. Now, I also wanted to make my favorite Pokémon wobble: Snorlax! He turned out to be a really good candidate for a roly-poly design. As you can imagine, there is a lot of belly space to work with, which translates perfectly into the heavy, rounded base needed for this kind of toy.

The new thing this time: instead of printing dozens of prototypes and eyeballing the result, I wrote custom physics simulations in Python to optimize the balance. Center of mass, contact curvature, how it behaves when you tip it over – all checked before anything hit the plate. This saved me a lot of trial and error compared to how I designed the penguin. The result: the longest wobble out of all my models yet! If you want to print one for yourself (or for the kids), I uploaded the model here:

👉 https://makerworld.com/en/models/3084784-wobbly-snorlax-fidget-toy-no-ams?profiled=3474829

Well, it finally happened to me. Another user on Makerworld just notified me that my Penguin Roly-Poly toy is currently being mass-sold on Amazon India by what looks like a dozen different sellers.

I checked my commercial license members, and none of the sellers on Amazon India seem to have one. Seeing my work ripped off, mass-produced, and sold as cheap desk toys without any credit or compensation is incredibly frustrating. Has anyone successfully dealt with something like this on Amazon before?

I was recently digging through some old boxes and stumbled upon one of those classic roly-poly toys my mom used to play with as a kid. It made me realize you really don't see these around anymore. So, I decided to fire up CAD to bring this forgotten classic back to life.

After a few iterations to get the center of gravity and the wobble just right, I finally finished it!

If you want to print one for yourself (or for the kids), I uploaded the model for free here:
👉 https://makerworld.com/en/models/2830971-cute-wobbly-penguin-no-ams#profileId-3154375