Realistic 3D Printed Feathers

In my pursuit of costumes and other crafts, I often like to use feathers. Problem is, they can be inhumanely harvested, expensive, and limited to... natural bird colors. So I set out to make my own in a quick and repeatable way. Enter 3D printing!

Check out my video on the process, and see the detailed steps below to make them yourself in Tinkercad!

1. 3D Printer and filament (I used a Prusa mk4 and Prusa Mini)
2. Heat tool (heat gun, embroidery tool, or hair dryer)
3. Scissors
4. My stl files, or Tinkercad/3D modeling software of your choice
5. Paint and brush (optional)

I used Tinkercad to make the model for these, as I frequently use it with my students and I like having examples to show them. The trick of these feathers is making the barbs the right size (barbs are the little strands sticking out from the middle - also coincidentally my name).

First step is to make a big sheet of oversized and properly angled barbs to cut down.

1. Make a block that's .5mm wide, 100mm long, and .4 or .6mm high
2. this height is 2 or 3 layers at .2mm layer height -- you can go thinner or thicker if you like
3. Rotate it 45 degrees (the angle of barbs on a bird's feather can vary, but 45 is a good average)
4. Duplicate it and move it down 1mm (see images)
5. Duplicate those and move them down til they align the same amount
6. Continue doubling the barbs you have until you have at least enough for the number of millimeters you want your feather to be (a 200mm long feather needs about 200 barbs)
7. Make your life easier by selecting and grouping all of those pieces
8. Duplicate the barbs, mirror them, and move them over until they just overlap and you have a big sheet of chevrons

One of the things I love about Tinkercad is the ability to easily turn any combination of shapes into a hole and basically making yourself a mold. You could import an stl with a general feather shape, but you can also make your own using the sketch tool!

1. Select the sketch tool and open a new sketch
2. Make the shape of half of a feather
3. You can do this with as few as 3-4 points, and adjust to make them smooth and/or further refine your shape
4. Finish your sketch to make it a 3d object
5. As with the sheet of barbs, duplicate your shape and mirror it
6. You can either line it up with the other side manually or snap it in place by
7. Dropping a workplane on the inside face of the feather half
8. Selecting your new half and dropping it to the surface (d on a keyboard or the drop button)
9. Select both and combine them into one lovely feather shape

You can adjust the size of your feather now (and make any alternate sizes). You definitely don't want to do it after you've made the punched out shape in the next step.

Make a copy of that feather and set it to the side for step 4.

At this point, we'll turn that feather shape into a tool that can remove all of the barbs that you don't want.

1. Place your feather shape next to the sheet of barbs and make it into a hole
2. Create a new block that is larger than your full sheet of barbs and center it with your feather shaped hole
3. Combine! You'll now have a block with a cut-out in the shape of a feather
4. Turn that block into a hole
5. Align the new hole with your sheet of barbs and combine them
6. Voila! Barbs in a feather shape!

You'll need a shaft to attach the barbs together. This can be done by making a half cylinder (round roof in Tinkercad), making the diameter 3mm and stretching it the length of your feather plus a few centimeters. I've found that a half cylinder is much more reliable than a full one for adhering to the plate when printing, and it's not even noticeable that it's not fully round.

The other part that I recommend, especially if you plan to do the post-processing I detail in the next step is to make a support piece around the outside of the feather. This also helps with adhering to the bed while printing.

1. Take that original feather that you set aside in step 2 (or make a copy of your final feather and go dig it out if you missed that instruction)
2. Duplicate it in place, and turn the duplicate into a hole. Keep the hole selected
3. Use the side handles to make the hole about a millimeter smaller on all sides
4. Select both the feather and the smaller hole and group them to make it an outline
5. Make sure it's the same height as the rest of your feather, then line the outline up with the feather and you're good to go!

It's good to make sure your print bed is very clean before printing this one, as all of the pieces are very thin and can easily come up if it's oily or dirty. Once you've printed your feather, peel it off the plate carefully. I've printed them in PLA and PETG. It'd be interesting to try them in PTU. Let me know if you give it a go!

To give it a more realistic shape than this flat thing, take a heat gun (or embroidery tool, or hair dryer) and hit the barbs VERY briefly. A few seconds is definitely enough, until it just starts to deform. If you heat it for too long, the barbs will melt together and it will lose some of its charm. While it's still warm, you can shape it a bit with your fingers, including giving the full feather a bit of a curve.

It looks pretty good like this, but you can go a step further by trimming off the outline and adjusting the shape with scissors. You can cut in a bit in places to make it a little less perfect looking, including at the bottom where barbs tend to be a bit more downy.

Printing this in multiple colors (like for stripes) is a fun idea that I haven't played with yet. You can also try painting them to get gradients or more variation - I'd suggest dry brushing with a very small amount of paint.

I made holders to use the feathers as a fan, and to install into a shoulder pauldron, while still being able to pluck them out for exchanging, closer examination, or gifting. You could also try creating some holes in the quill part of the feather so that they're easier to sew into clothing individually. I suspect I will eventually add some to a high collared costume, because how cool would that be?

The biggest plan I have in mind for these is to make a phoenix companion bot.

What would you do with some 3D printed feathers? Please leave a comment and share your ideas!