Rainbow & Leprechaun Scene & Figure

There is no better display of the colors of the rainbow than... The Rainbow! Often associated with a rainbow is a leprechaun chasing a pot of gold, and because of that fact I decided to design a figure that shows just that. Below is how you too can render and make a figure of a leprechauns journey chasing a pot of gold beyond the rainbow.

To model this figure all you need is a computer and access to a 3D modeling software. My choice is Fusion because of its user-face useful functions.

The first part of the scene we will make is the pot of gold. The initial step here is to create the actual pot itself. To do this, I made use of the revolve command, which allows you to make a perfect symmetrical round shape. First create a sketch on either the XZ or YZ plane. From there you can refer to the 4th image, where you can see the shape that we will revolve 360 degrees around to get a hollow pot. There is no exact shape you need to create, but something that has a curve, a bit of thickness and a bulbous handle at the top is best. When you take this shape, and revolve it around the flat edge on the bottom, you will get a perfect pot. From there, you can create another sketch on the XY plane (Floor Plane), make a circle that sits on the bottom of the pot, and extrude up by a small factor to create the flat part that the pot will sit on.

Once you have the pot modeled, we can move onto making the gold coins. Firstly we will offset a plane under the "Construct" tab. Offset that same XY plane up about 75% the height of the pot, and create a sketch of a circle the same diameter as the pot. Once you have this circle, extrude up by only .1mm (As a New Body), as this circle is only to create a platform for the coins to sit on. With this platform, you can now start a new sketch on top of it. From here, we will repeat the same process to model the coins. Randomly place 1.5mm diameter circles all over this platform, and make sure that there is no pattern to these circles. The more random the circles are sketched, the more it'll resemble coins thrown into a pot, and although it may take some time, the randomness makes the whole look. When you have covered this layer to where no full circles will fit anymore, you can extrude them up by a factor of .2mm (And make sure to mark the coins as a "New Body" once again). With this layer done, we will simply make another one on top of it with the same process as before. Again, sketch the same diameter coins in random positions, and when you've filled this new layer again, extrude the new body by .2mm again. (Look at image 2 for an idea of the process).

Finally, we can add some materials to the pot. For the pot itself, I applied a black ABS plastic texture. Then from there, hide the body of the pot, which is why we made the platform and coins a "New Body". With the pot itself hidden, you can simply highlight every coin and the platform too, and drag a material over on all of them. The one I chose was a Yellow Anodized Aluminum. With these applied, you have a really nice pot of gold modeled!

The next step of this figure is to make the actual rainbow, which features most of the colors in the build. To do this, first get a feel for how long you want the rainbow to be. I chose 14mm from one end of the red to the other. Once you know this number, we need to create an arc from start to finish. Start a new sketch on either the XZ or YZ plane, and draw out a 14mm line. Then, using the 3 point arc tool, click on the start and end and create an arc with however much of a radius you'd like. With the first arc done, you can then use the offset command to keep the same radius and make each chunk of the rainbow. I chose to offset this arc a value of .5mm concurrently a total of 7 times, which got me 7 equal chunks that each represent a color of the rainbow. The last step here was to extrude these chunks out a value of 4mm, and give each a color/material. I chose that same ABS plastic from before, just making sure to edit each and provide it the correct respective color (Follow ROYGBIV).

With your colored arches done, we can add a cloud for improved aesthetics. On either side of the rainbow, start a new sketch. Then on one of the ends of the rainbow, make randomly sized arcs that end up finishing on the start of the first arc in a cloud shape (When one arc finishes, the other starts until you end up in the same spot you started in). Then you can extrude this cloud shape by a small factor (I chose .2mm), and use the mirror command to keep the exact same shape on the other side (The axis should be whichever plane is parallel inside the rainbow). In the end, you should have 2 clouds that sandwich only one side of the rainbow, as the other side will go inside the pot. Lastly, apply the same ABS plastic with a white color to give it a nice texture and look.

Following the rainbow we will create our Leprechaun Top Hat. Start by creating a new sketch on the floor plane. Once here, sketch a circle with whatever diameter you want (I chose 4mm). Then simply extrude this circle by only 0.1mm, as we want to keep it thin as this models only the brim of the hat.

Then on top of this brim, start a new sketch. Make another circle in the center of the brim, only this time with a smaller diameter, 3mm if you want to follow me. With this new circle, we will extrude up a factor of 0.4mm. We will repeat this same process again, keeping the same 3mm diameter but extruding this new circle up 0.5mm and marking it as a "New Body", as this chunk needs to be differentiated from the first (It's the black stripe on the hat). Lastly, sketch one more 3mm circle on top of the latest chunk and extrude it up as a "New Body" by 1.8mm. At this point we will have a hat brim and 3 separate chunks. Here will add materials, which is why the chunk in the middle had to be marked as different. We will give the brim, 1st chunk & 3rd chunk a dark green ABS Plastic material, while the central stripe is given a black ABS plastic material.

From here, we will utilize the "Offset Plane" command once more, moving either the XZ or YZ plane tangent to the outside edge of the cylinder. On this new plane, start a sketch and model a hollow rectangle that is central to the black stripe of the hat (As seen in the 1st image). Extrude this shape by 0.05mm, and give it a gold ABS plastic material.

The last thing we will model is a sign that tells us what the leprechaun is up to. On top of the Top Hat, start a new sketch and make a .2mm by .2mm square in the center. With this square, extrude up by a factor of 0.8mm to create the post of the sign. Then, start a new sketch on the plane that is parallel inside the sign's post, which for me was the XZ plane. On this plane, sketch out a 2.6mm by 1.8mm rectangle, which when extruded will model the sign's main frame. On this sign, apply a wood material, which I chose to be Dark Bamboo. Lastly, start a new sketch on the sign itself, and under the "Create" tab, choose Text. This command will allow us to type whatever message we want on the sign, and I chose to write "Off For Gold!" and put the Leprechauns signature under as a funny way to mention why the Leprechaun presumably left his top hat. Feel free to play around with the font, size and position of the text, but when you feel good about the result, extrude the text out by a factor of .05 and apply a gold ABS plastic material (To stick with the gold motif).

With all 3 parts complete, we can finally complete the assembly of all components together. In a new project, insert all 3 parts in by right clicking the file in your Data Panel and selecting "Insert into Current Design". From here, simply move around all the parts to your liking until you get a nice scene put together. What I did was tilt the rainbow slightly so that the end without a cloud goes into the pot of gold more seamlessly, and then on the side with the cloud, put the Top Hat in front of the cloud. There is no correct way to position these elements, but I really do think that angling the rainbow and tilting it slightly improves the look of the whole figure.

The last step in this scene and figure construction is going to be rendering everything. In the top left corner, switch your workspace from "Design" to "Render". Immediately, you should see the materials we placed on each figure pop out a little more. From there, you can look for the "Scene Settings" option on the top bar of the screen. Once you find and click on it, change the background from "Solid Color" to "Environment". With this done, you can move to the other tab that says "Environment Library" and find the field environment. Click and drag it onto the main screen, and with that all done, should see your Rainbow Scene in a nice grassy field as if it was real.

With the background all set up, you can drag and scroll as you'd like to position the scene as you see fit. Regardless of how you decide to place your parts, seeing every figure together with nice materials and a grassy field in the back really adds to the charm of the final product.

And with all of these steps complete, you have officially finished modeling a Rainbow-Leprechaun Scene. With it all done, you can feel free to 3D print each figure out to have this colorful and fun figure to place on your desk, office-table, or really anywhere you'd like. Nevertheless, making this scene was really fun and gratifying, and the end result was very cute as well. I wish you all enjoyed reading along, and hope you decide to follow along and make it yourself!