3d Figure for a war memorial

[Lonsdaler]

I've long wanted to create a war memorial for my layout, inspired by the one at Clitheroe Castle. The figure (pictured) is one of the mostenigmatic I have seen.
Would any of you 3d savvy genii be able to create a 3d rendering of this figure and suitable .stl file? I've no idea what value you would put on the time and skill required to do this, but it struck me that an .stl available under Creative Commons licensing would be appreciated by many. Hopefully one of you may see this as a worthwhile venture.

2025-11-10_07-58-49.jpg (476.68 KiB) Viewed 17368 times

[Durley]

Hi Phil
What a great subject for a model and obviously particularly appropriate and poignant for this time of year.
The AI tools do struggle to accurately recreate specific military dress and equipment, but a bit of experimentation suggests generating the rifle and helmet separately gives better results. These could then either be printed separately or the three STLs combined before printing.
I’d want to do a bit more refining and a trial print before sharing, but hopefully these images are along the lines of what you’re looking for.

IMG_5535.jpeg (76.9 KiB) Viewed 17361 times

IMG_5534.jpeg (27.41 KiB) Viewed 17361 times

IMG_5541.jpeg (41.65 KiB) Viewed 17348 times

[philipy]

Just out of curiosity I quickly tried putting your B&W photo into Meshy. It made a fair stab at it but created a 'something' above/behind his hands, and omitted his helmet from hanging on his backpack.

I then found a whole selection of pictures of the actual war memorial on the Clitheroe town website, so I put 10 of those into the Meshy multiple picture input - with a less than impressive result! I know it's supposed to be representative of trench warfare but this poor guy appears to have had his face blown off!! He has also lost his pack etc, and with a rifle that size....!

Screenshot 2025-11-11 07.52.57.png (129.27 KiB) Viewed 17336 times

Will be fascinated to see how you get on with doing it properly.

[Lonsdaler]

Hi Phil
What a great subject for a model and obviously particularly appropriate and poignant for this time of year.
The AI tools do struggle to accurately recreate specific military dress and equipment, but a bit of experimentation suggests generating the rifle and helmet separately gives better results. These could then either be printed separately or the three STLs combined before printing.
I’d want to do a bit more refining and a trial print before sharing, but hopefully these images are along the lines of what you’re looking for.

IMG_5535.jpegIMG_5534.jpegIMG_5541.jpeg

That's amazing. I thought that it would be a longer process to achieve that result! And making the helmet and rifle separately opens up other options too (gun running, anyone?).
I'm really looking forward to seeing the end result. Do you take commissions?

[Lonsdaler]

Just out of curiosity I quickly tried putting your B&W photo into Meshy. It made a fair stab at it but created a 'something' above/behind his hands, and omitted his helmet from hanging on his backpack.

I then found a whole selection of pictures of the actual war memorial on the Clitheroe town website, so I put 10 of those into the Meshy multiple picture input - with a less than impressive result! I know it's supposed to be representative of trench warfare but this poor guy appears to have had his face blown off!! He has also lost his pack etc, and with a rifle that size....!
Screenshot 2025-11-11 07.52.57.png

Will be fascinated to see how you get on with doing it properly.

It's a really difficult subject to photograph well, due to its position. I thought the photo that I put up was probably the best view all told. A drone and photogrammetry software would give a realistic representation I would think. I'm sorry for the horrific injuries your chap suffered!

[Durley]

That's amazing. I thought that it would be a longer process to achieve that result! And making the helmet and rifle separately opens up other options too (gun running, anyone?).
I'm really looking forward to seeing the end result. Do you take commissions?

It doesn't take long to create a model Phil. Most of this was done whilst watching Dan Cruickshank's Monuments of Remembrance on BBC4 last night, which felt very appropriate and the programme is well worth a watch on iPlayer if you've not seen it.

Here's where I have got to, which I'll now trial print. I've ended up adding the rifle, helmet, backpack, bayonet frog/entrenching tool and water bottle as separately created STLs that have subsequently been combined into one.

It's not a perfect recreation of the Clitheroe memorial, but I think captures the general look. It could be further refined with time, but to my eyes is close enough. A 3d Scan or digital sculpture would be the way to achieve better prototype accuracy, but at considerable cost versus this AI generated approach. It has also been a useful learning exercise for me in creating models from composite STLs, opening up other possibilities for me to try.

If the trial print comes out ok, then I'll happily share the file for free for others to download and print. I'm certainly not looking for any payment for it.

Clitheroe Memorial.jpg (39.43 KiB) Viewed 17308 times

[Lonsdaler]

That's excellent work. I think it's in the nature of a monument to allow for some lack of detail, don't you?
Thanks for the programme tip as well. I'll be watching it shortly.

[Durley]

Trial print successful. Here he is with a coat of spray primer applied.

I’ll need to find a way to share the STL file. It is 18Mb when compressed so I can’t upload to the forum due to the file size limit.

IMG_5554.jpeg (1.38 MiB) Viewed 17275 times

IMG_5548.jpeg (957.05 KiB) Viewed 17275 times

IMG_5552.jpeg (1.11 MiB) Viewed 17275 times

[Durley]

Hopefully this works, the link at the bottom is to the STL file saved on my Google Drive. Perhaps someone could try to download and confirm? This is the uncompressed file and is about 34Mb.

Clitheroe Memorial by John Hoddinott, licenced under CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

CC - Creative Commons
BY - Attribution, i.e. you must identify me as the author of the work if you share it
NC - Non-commercial, i.e. you cannot sell it or make profit from it
SA - Share-alike, i.e. you are allowed to create derivative works (let's say you improve the STL file by adding some rivets) as long as you share it under the same licence.

[philipy]

Hopefully this works, the link at the bottom is to the STL file saved on my Google Drive. Perhaps someone could try to download and confirm? This is the uncompressed file and is about 34Mb.

John,
Download is fine and it actually opened in both Cura and Chitubox without any problem.
However, Cura says it isn't watertight and Repetier-Host also says it isn't watertight. Chitubox says it has internal cavities that need puncturing or filling and on the Chitubox bed it shows up the helmet, pack, etc as a different texture, so I suspect that they haven't registered as one solid piece when you added them on. Clearly that hasn't stopped you printing it though.

[Lonsdaler]

Hi John,
What a marvellous rendition of the memorial! And I have been able to download the .stl file. I just need to work out what to do with it. Many, many thanks for your work on this.
I did watch the Dan Cruikshank programme last night. What foresight the designers showed in ensuring that all casualties of the Great war (and subsequently others) are remembered equally.

[Durley]

Hopefully this works, the link at the bottom is to the STL file saved on my Google Drive. Perhaps someone could try to download and confirm? This is the uncompressed file and is about 34Mb.

John,
Download is fine and it actually opened in both Cura and Chitubox without any problem.
However, Cura says it isn't watertight and Repetier-Host also says it isn't watertight. Chitubox says it has internal cavities that need puncturing or filling and on the Chitubox bed it shows up the helmet, pack, etc as a different texture, so I suspect that they haven't registered as one solid piece when you added them on. Clearly that hasn't stopped you printing it though.

Thanks Philip. I have gone back into Lychee which is the program I have used to combine the STLs. It is also reporting errors but was able to repair some. I suspect the remaining errors are tiny holes in the original Meshy created STLs or at the interface where I have combined 2 STLs. Printing in resin, they appear to present no problems in reality. I used Creality Halot box to do the actual slicing and it isn't advanced enough to error check the model - maybe sometimes ignorance is bliss! It may be more of a problem if using a filament printer, I guess? I have changed the link in my earlier post to the better, but still not perfectly repaired, version of the STL file. As to why it shows as different textures, I have no clue. In Lychee it is showing as one single model on merging the separate STLs.

[Durley]

Hi John,
What a marvellous rendition of the memorial! And I have been able to download the .stl file. I just need to work out what to do with it. Many, many thanks for your work on this.
I did watch the Dan Cruikshank programme last night. What foresight the designers showed in ensuring that all casualties of the Great war (and subsequently others) are remembered equally.

No problem Phil. If you are not able to print the file yourself, happy to print and post the physical model to you. I have produced the model at 16mm/ft person height (i..e. the figure is about 95mm tall with the base adding another 5mm or so). Is this the size you wanted your model to be? Obviously it can be rescaled to any size, but I am limited to a total height of about 220mm on my printer.

Feel free to send a private message with your address if you would like me to post to you.

The programme was really interesting. I had never really appreciated the thought that went into the building of such memorials.

[philipy]

Thanks Philip. I have gone back into Lychee which is the program I have used to combine the STLs. It is also reporting errors but was able to repair some. I suspect the remaining errors are tiny holes in the original Meshy created STLs or at the interface where I have combined 2 STLs. Printing in resin, they appear to present no problems in reality. I used Creality Halot box to do the actual slicing and it isn't advanced enough to error check the model - maybe sometimes ignorance is bliss! It may be more of a problem if using a filament printer, I guess? I have changed the link in my earlier post to the better, but still not perfectly repaired, version of the STL file. As to why it shows as different textures, I have no clue. In Lychee it is showing as one single model on merging the separate STLs.

Just for your info, this is a screenshot from Chitubox reporting the error (at bottom right), but showing the different components, as I mentioned.

Screenshot 2025-11-12 16.12.07.png (401.89 KiB) Viewed 17243 times

[Durley]

Thanks Philip. I think that is a result of the way Meshy created the canvass texture on the webbing items. It’s obviously not modelled as a homogeneous structure. Similarly it looks like some of the rifle is hollowed out. Looking at the sliced images, there’s no obvious defects in them, so I suspect the holes are smaller than the printer pixel resolution (less than 0.05mm) so have no noticeable effect on the physical print.
If I was to do it again I would try lowering the mesh resolution of the STL files for the separate items in Meshy, that would smooth out the texture and reduce the chance of creating hollows. It does explain the large file size of the STL as it is retaining a lot of unnecessary mesh complexity.

[philipy]

I've been a having more plays to try to resolve this issue, not as criticism but to try to understand what is happening.

I've spent some time playing with Meshmixer's "make solid" function but I haven't been able to create a solid without losing all the surface crispness at the same time - probably because I don't really know what I'm doing with that software.

Out of curiosity I fired up Anycubic's own slicer, Photon Workshop, ( which I never use) because I vaguely remembered that it has a repair function. I've tried that and it appeared to work but didn't show any obvious external differences to the stl file.
I then exported that repaired file and opened it in Chitubox, alongside your original stl. and Chitubox is not objecting to this version so it presumably has repaired it satisfactorily.
Then, again out of curiosity, I tried the Anycubic repaired file in Repetier-Host. Yesterday, that reported mesh faults but it's repair function didn't resolve them. This time, it still says the repaired Anycubic file has faults, but the R-H repair function did at least complete this time.

Interestingly there si very little file size difference. Your original file shows as being 33MB and the two repaired versions show as 29.8 and 29.6 MB

This shows the three stl's side by side on the Chitubox bed:
LH: After Rep-Host - Centre: AfterChitubox Repair - RH: Your original stl

Screenshot 2025-11-13 06.39.37.png (540.99 KiB) Viewed 17214 times

Not sure where, if anywhere, that gets us!

[Durley]

Thanks Philip. I guess each different software has a different repair algorithm so gives slightly different results. As you have improved the situation would you be able to share one of the repaired files? My original obviously can be successfully printed, but better to make available one that doesn’t cause the slicer software to flag an error. The slightly reduced file size is also beneficial.

[Paul_in_Ricky]

I think that is a result of the way Meshy created.....

Almost everything that comes out of Meshy has errors.
I'm stuck into a month's subscription and have been using it to the maximum. So far I've downloaded almost 500 STLs and only two have been free of errors.
The fastest and easiest way to solve that is to load the mesh into MS 3D Builder, then it's only two clicks to repair the file and save it for further use.

FWIW Everything that's come out of Tripo has been fine.

[Lonsdaler]

No problem Phil. If you are not able to print the file yourself, happy to print and post the physical model to you. I have produced the model at 16mm/ft person height (i..e. the figure is about 95mm tall with the base adding another 5mm or so). Is this the size you wanted your model to be? Obviously it can be rescaled to any size, but I am limited to a total height of about 220mm on my printer.

Feel free to send a private message with your address if you would like me to post to you.

The programme was really interesting. I had never really appreciated the thought that went into the building of such memorials.

Thank you for the offer, but I have bitten the bullet and purchased an Anycubic resin printer, so I'm going to try myself first. Wish me luck!

[philipy]

Thank you for the offer, but I have bitten the bullet and purchased an Anycubic resin printer, so I'm going to try myself first. Wish me luck!

Welcome to the Dark Side!
Which printer have you gone for?