Miniature Blue Whale Skeleton - 3d Pen & Clay Light Box

Blue whales are the largest animals on earth. The first time I walked into the Natural History Museum in London I was blown away by the enormous blue whale skeleton that hangs suspended in the centre of the museum. I spent hours looking at it from every perspective. It was so beautiful!

When I came home I could not stop thinking about it, and wanted to make my own miniature version to remember this awesome experience.

This instructable combines the use of a 3d printing pen with polymer clay, acrylic paint and a programmable LED lightstrip.

(the Natural History Museum picture can be found here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Natural_History_Museum_London_Central_Hall_Blue_Whale_Skeleton_2020_03.jpg under creative commons attribution 4.0 licence)

Box:

Any small box could work, or use cardboard to build your box.

The materials I used:

1. Laser cutter
2. 4mm MDF
3. Wood glue
4. Black acrylic paint
5. Drill

Whale Skeleton:

1. 3D pen + filament Ii used wood filament for a more rugged texture)
2. Scissors/cutting tool
3. Printed or drawn design
4. Round object (i.e. promarker)
5. Roll of painters tape
6. To hang the skeleton: thin wire (fishing wire) and some (hot) glue
7. White acrylic paint

Museum Wall Background

1. Print of a picture of the museum wall (or use paper, pencil and your tablet/phone screen to trace it)
2. Polymer clay (terracotta color)
3. Baking paper
4. Clay tools
5. Sharp knife to cut the clay
6. Toothpicks, cotton swabs
7. Acrylic paint
8. Semi-transparent paper
9. Black paper
10. Knife or scissors to cut the paper to size
11. Double sided tape (or glue)

Lights:

you can use a ready to go LED light strip. If you want some variation use these materials:

1. Light strip (LED Neopixel, i.e. WS2812 RGB)
2. Soldering tools
3. Arduino
4. Arduino IDE (coding software)

The shape and size of your box is entirely up to you. Any small box could work, or you could build a simple box out of cardboard.

I already had this hexagon box that was out of 4mm MDF with a laser cutter. It also had some space behind the box to place the Arduino and/or battery holder for the LED lights.These are my dimensions:

1. Shape: Hexagon
2. Material thickness (MDF): 4 mm
3. Hight:130 mm
4. Width:150 mm
5. Depth front: 56 mm
6. Depth back: 30 mm
7. Depth total: 90 mm
8. (Each side is 70 mm)

I painted the inside black with some acrylic paint and drilled a small hole for the wires of the LED light strip.

To hide then LED lights, I also cut out a 5 mm frame to go around the inside edges of the frame.

Creating a miniature whale skeleton of a blue whale with a 3D pen might feel like an impossible task. But do not worry, if you create it piece by piece it's easier to do, though it will take some patience and trial and error, especially if you're new to drawing with a 3D pen.

Also, luckily for us, the Natural History Museum made a 3D scan of the whale skeleton that you can find online:

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/blue-whale-skeleton-3d.htm

To design my whale I took screenshots of a top-down, bottom up, and a sideways view of the skeleton and scaled them down to my preferred size. Since my skeleton is very small, and the nozzle of my 3D pen is relatively thick, I had no option but to simplify the design. If your model is bigger, you can use the scan of the whale as a reference to make it as detailed as you like.

Print or trace your design on paper so you can use it in the next step.

Tracing the prints, I started by 3D drawing each part separately. I used wood-filament for a more 'rugged' texture:

1. The spine (red lines in the sketch): directly traced from the print, including the spikes. 'Overshoot' the spines, drawing them a bit longer than they need to be. This way you can cut them to size while they are still on your paper.
2. The head (blue): start with an outline from the top down view, then fill up to the thickness of the side view. Look at the 3d model for reference.
3. The beak (green): first drawing the outline, based on the shape visible in the bottom up view. Then curving it by carefully using some heat from a lighter (be very careful, don't melt your filament completely, just heat it for about half a second). I used a roll of painters tape to get the right curve, just push the warmed up shape on top of the curve and wait for a few seconds until the filament cools down.
4. The fins (purple): 2 shapes traced from the print, look at the 3d model for reference. To curve them I used the heat from the head of the 3d pen.
5. The ribs (yellow): these might be the most difficult, since they have a curve. To create this I used a thick round promarker pen wrapped in painters tape as a placeholder. It takes some patience to carefully peel the drawn ribs of the painters tape, just loosen each part by lifting it up slightly with your fingernails, without breaking it. I cut the ribs to size afterwards.

After creating all the separate elements I 'welded' them together using my 3d pen and filament as if it were a hot glue gun.

Tips:

1. Don't worry if you break something, you can fix a lot with a 3d pen
2. You can 'clean up' your skeleton with scissors and/or a cutting tool
3. It's okay if the result is a bit bumpy or rugged, it adds to the 'boney' look
4. You may have to practice and recreate the separate parts a few times until you are happy with the results. I made several versions myself. Since the design is very small it does not take a lot of time.

The Natural History Museum in London is a beautiful building. By creating the walls of the interior out of clay, the scale of miniature blue whale becomes more prominent.

I could not place the picture I used on Instructables due to copyright reasons, but a quick Google search gives you plenty of photos of these beautiful walls. I downloaded an image that suited my measurements on my tablet and traced the basic shapes onto some semi-transparent paper.

I traced the drawing onto a slab of terracotta colored polymer clay (2/3 mm thickness). To make sure the slab of clay would not stick to the table surface, I placed it on a sheet of baking paper.

First I cut the slab to size and then cut out the window shapes. Then I added small rolls of clay to create the pillars, the arches around the windows and other structural elements. Using clay tools I created the bricks by pushing in and drawing the lines of the bricks. I used the same technique for the frame.

When you are satisfied with the results, bake your clay in the oven according to the instructions on your clay packaging.

Tip: choose a color somewhat similar to the building blocks

The painting process was surprisingly easy for this project. I used simple cheap acrylic paint.

For the walls I used a cream colored paint and a brush on/wipe off technique. I added a layer of paint and then, while the paint was still wet, quickly wiped most of it off with either a tissue or (in some hard to reach places) a cotton swab or a small clean paintbrush. This way the paint created a dusty stone effect and a light grout line between the bricks.

For the skeleton I used white acrylic paint. Here I also wiped off some of the paint, so that some of the wood filament I used would still be visible to give it a bit more depth. If you use another filament color, you might consider (spray) painting your skeleton in a dark grey or brown color before you add the white paint.

To fill in the windows I used 2 layers of orange and yellow semi-transparent paper. I attached it to the clay background with some double sided tape. In between I cut out a layer of black paper, to make sure the light behind the background would only show through the windows and not 'leak' or show at the seams of the clay background. Make sure the black paper does not cover the windows.

The easiest way to add lights is to buy a led-strip including batteries and a switch. You can cut the strip to size and glue the lights in place at the back of the box, as shown in the pictures.

Since my miniature light box is part of a larger project I added a Neopixel LED strip and connected it to an Arduino. To place the lights in the correct position I had to solder them in several places. The pictures show the way I soldered them in a specific order to fit inside my box. As a final step I added some electrical tape where needed for safety.

In total there are 15 LEDs (0-14), which I have numbered in the picture. Twelve behind the window (yellow numbers in the picture), two at the bottom to light the bricks (purple), and one at the top which is a spotlight to light up the skeleton (white).

I used an Arduino to program the LED light strip to be able to change the color of the lights in a creative way. First I tried to make the bottom ones purple, later I decided to make all of them warm white.

As my LED strip (WS2813 RGBW) would noy work with the more popular Neopixel libraries, it took me a long time to create a code that worked. I would suggest using a WS2812 RGB led-strip, since that is easier to program.

Tip: if you are new to programming Arduino, ask ChatGPT to help you create a code for your led-strip and Arduino model.

I used some small wooden blocks as thick as the width of the LED light strips to make sure there was enough room behind the wall for the lights. This also gave the walls something to attach to. Make sure the blocks don't block the lights. I attached the clay wall background to the wooden blocks with double sided tape (hot glue will also work).

To suspend the whale skeleton inside the box, I added 2 strings of fishing wire to the skeleton, creating 2 small hoops with tiny drops of hot glue. To place small hot glue drops in the right place I used a toothpick. Then I glued the fishing wire to the corners of the box.

Finally, I glued the clay-blocks frame to the wooden frame. The wooden frame friction fits inside the box.

And there it is! Your very own Natural History Museum Blue Whale Miniature Light Box!

Thank you for checking out my instructable, I had a lot of fun making it :)