Articulated Morphing Halloween Pumpkin With Fusion 360

In this Instructable I will show you how to design and go onto 3D Print a Halloween Morphing Pumpkin, to look at this from the front it just looks like an innocent articulated leg Pumpkin, add the Bat wings then rotate to reveal a skull embedded into the body, features to include articulated legs, Arms with hands, Bat wings, A realistic Stalk and and the hidden Gem the skull embedded in the back of the Pumpkin.

The Pumpkin is designed using Fusion360 and using screen shots etc I will show you the process I used to create this Pumpkin with everything, within this design we will be using a plethora of the many design tools using Fusion360, lets get started.

3D Printer With AMS preferably

Orange, Black,Green PLA Filament

Initially we have to create the Pumpkin shape, we open Fusion360 create a new component and select the front plane to sketch from.

The pumpkin doesn't need to be big, start small then it can be scaled up if needed, that way you aren't using a ton of filament etc, more than likely there will be prototypes.

We sketch a vertical line of 40mm and the using the fit point spline tool we create half the basic shape of a Pumpkin, adjust as necessary, (you could even insert an image of a pumpkin, calibrate the image and using the fit point spline tool sketch one half) using the revolve tool, revolve to 45 degrees, then use the fillet tool to radius the 2 edges of the segment to 3mm, this gives us one segment of our pumpkin.

To create the rest of the Pumpkin Segments we use the circular pattern tool, in this instance and because we are adding articulated legs, for symmetry we will have 8 segments, we now need to combine these 8 segments to create our solid Pumpkin, use the combine tool, select all segments and join.

To make this look more like a pumpkin, we need to fillet the gap in between the segments, the easiest way to do this I have found is to add a core to the center of the Pumpkin, using the bottom plane I started a new sketch and created a 10mm centre circle, then extrude this up until it just shows through the top of the Pumpkin Join this to the main body, this shape at the top also adds an effect when we create the stalk.

We can now add 1 or 2mm fillets to each of the segments to finish the look of the Pumpkin body, we can now add the stalk to the top of the Pumpkin.

Start a new sketch on the top face of the extruded core and add a point, finish sketch and create another sketch using the front center plane, project the point and create a fit point spline line which will resemble the curve of the stalk, dont create too much of an overhang, it will be difficult to print, finish sketch again and create a plane along path, highlight the line we made for the stalk and drag the face to the end of the line, create a new sketch to this plane and create a 6mm center circle, we can now using the loft tool create our stalk, to do this we select the loft tool in the solid drop down, highlight the the top of the core and the 6mm centre circle, then select the rail tab within the loft to create the curvature of the stalk, join this to the main body and add a fillet of 1 or 2mm, this finishes off our Pumpkin body, we can now move onto the arms and articulated legs.

To create the articulated legs, actually we only need to design one then we can mirror it.

Looking at the front of the model, off set the center plane to the front of the Pumpkin, then create a sketch on this plane, I created a 10mm centre circle then extruded this out to 11mm create new body, stop sketch and create a sketch on the face of the newly extruded face, create a rectangle of 5mm width and the extent of the face in height, extrude this back, pick an internal face within this socket and create a 2.5mm center circle in the center of the face, extrude this to the opposite side and join, we need to create a small cut out on the lower part of the 1st component, this aids with joint movements, I rotated the pumpkin to a side view, and selected the center plane to sketch from, I sketched a litlle wedge with which we can extrude to cut out the wedges, stop sketch, create an offset plane of 2mm on the front edge of the initial socket and create a new sketch on this, project the socket component and from we can extrude the center into the socket leaving a 2mm gap at the back, create a new body and offset each side of this new component to 0.5mm this gives the leg joint the room to move easily, we can at this point combine these 2 components to cut the hole out for the pin in the new component, select the combine tool, select the new part as the target body, and the socket with the pin as the cutting body, ensure you select the cut tab and keep component, we now have the hole in the new component, off set the face of this hole to 0.4mm to give clearance to not only the joint to move loosely but also at the printing stage as the legs are print in place.

Now remember how we offset the 2nd part of the leg by 2mm, we now copy the 1st component, (save the bodies as components first and paste as new and using the arrows move it along until it meets the face of the 2nd component, join these 2 components, then copy and paste new, we do the same again with the 2nd and 3rd joints, on the 3rd joint, select the face and sketch a center circle to encompass beyond the face, extrude this back leaving 1mm or so, we can then use the new face to sketch a boot shape, this is then extruded to 3mm or so and join to create the boot, add some fillets to smooth the edges of this boot, before we mirror this leg, we need to go back to where we started and extrude the back face of the first component and extrude this into the Pumpkin body, this can be joined to the main body, it doesn't matter if it protrudes below the main body as we need to flatten the base, looking at the pumpkin front the front, select the center plane sketch a line where you want to flatten, then either turn this into a rectangle and extrude symmetrically and cut, or use the line to split the body.

We can now mirror the components of the leg using the center plane, these are still separate components so need to be mirrored individually, but will be printed with the body.

In the images, you can see that I added the arms after the skull was embedded, it's not a problem which way round you do it.

The arms are simply a sketch created on the center plane and sketch a line from within the body angle to just above the bottom plane, in the solid drop down use the pipe tool to create a 4mm pipe, create as a body, I found a cartoon hand SVG online and used this to extrude a hand from the top plane, and extruded to meet the arm, combine both components, and fillet edges to round off, mirror this body on the center plane then combine, fillet the area when arm meets body.

So we now have our pumpkin arms and articulated legs, we can now move onto the 3rd ingredient within our Pumpkin which is a skull embedded into the back of the Pumpkin, hence the Morphing Pumpkin.

For this part of the Instructable we need a skeleton stl, I found a free version online, this is imported into the sketch as a mesh, and from hereon we will using the mesh section of Fusion 360 to convert the mesh into a solid body, the mesh I imported was tiny so I had to scale it up to a usable size, save this body as a component and move to one side, we now need to create a concave cut out in the back of the Pumpkin for our skull to be inserted, to do this I used the top plane and created a sphere of 30mm from this it was turned into a component and then moved into position, we are using the sphere to cut out the concave, move the sphere into a central position and sunk into the back of the Pumpkin to accommodate the skull, we can now use the combine tool and use the Pumpkin as the target body and the sphere to cut out, we can now move onto moving the skull into position, the more you can insert the skull into body, the less support at the printing stage, we will need support at the top above the skull, when you are happy with positioning, combine both components.

We can now move onto the bat wings.

Looking at the front of the Pumpkin, I started a new sketch on the center plane and looking at bat wing clip art I used straight lines and 3 point arcs to create a wing on one side of the body, I off set the outer inwards to 2mm or so and extrude as a new body first the inner to 2mm and then the outer to 4mm, I added a couple of spars within the wing using lines and the pipe tool and filleted all edges inside and outer, save this as a component and mirror using the center plane, The last part to this is to combine each wing into the body to cut out inserts to push the wings into, to do this we use the Pumpkin body as the Target and use each wing as a the cutting tool, I off set the inside of the newly created cavities so the wings would push in more easily.

We can now Save the components as STL's to print, firstly de-select the wings so we just have the Pumpkin and legs etc, in the Browser at the top right click and save as mesh, it will highlight the body and legs and name the model and save to your desktop, right click on each bat wing and save as mesh, save to desktop.

We can now move onto the slicer to 3D Print

I use Bambu Studio to slice my models, and to print I use my trusty X1 Carbon.

I use Makerworld Basic PLA Pumpkin Orange, and a dark green for the stalk with the AMS and Black for the Bat wings on separate build plate.

The main Pumpkin body and legs are print in place.

The stalk is painted green in the slicer using the paint tab, and the AMS changes the PLA color automatically.

I used 5% Gyroid infill with the Pumpkin and created minimal manual tree supports to the top area above the skull, I used a PEI Build plate, you must let the plate cool down and the model pops right off and leaves the support in situ, the wings.

This model is scal- able, I went down to 50% the legs need more working to free joints etc but it worked, 60% was better, 80% great, 100% great.

I have attached the 3mf Print file should anyone wish to print this model.

So there you have it, from the front it looks like a normal pumpkin with articulated legs, add the Bat wings for another twist, turn it around for a more sinister looking side to this Pumpkin, Perfect for Halloween.

I hope this Instructable gives good guidance on how to create a Pumpkin with your own Stamp on it, you could go further and emboss a scary face onto the front, always bear in mind how things will print, I steer away from using supports if possible but sometimes you can't get away from it.

Thanks for Looking in.