To be able to print the head on 3D printer, I need to have a model and split it for printing on flat surface (with minimum support). The split parts will be glued together.
Design
Because my fursona is an anthro wolf, I have used wolf skull as design (and refsheet of course).I want both upper and bottom teeth (because of servos) but I only need bottom floor (because in upper floor will be servos and space for breathing).
When you look at any Fursuit head head without fur (best to look at resin-based heads), you will see them to end about in middle of fursuiter's head leaving back half to be covered only by fur.
That is something I do not want. It is unnecessary to have the back of head covered by resin (or in my case by 3D-printed material) but I want it because I consider the base to be skull of both the Fursuit and the character and it would not be wise to have half of head not covered by skull.
There may (will) be problems and discomfort because I will need to fit it on rest of the
skulland then zip the fur on head (probably all of it with paws on).
It may (and will) create problems in emergency situations but there is electronics to tell me before it happen.
I also want it to be 3D-printed because I want to have it fit on my face (with some soft filling).
It will not only make it more comfortable but also allow bigger angle of view (because tear ducts, which are used to see out of Fursuit, can be placed nearer to eyes so same size of tear ducts will allow bigger angle).
Head Mechanism
I was thinking about using same mechanism as I saw at some Kigurumi / Animegao masks.It is done by small hinge at top of the mask and two snap mechanisms.
The snap mechanism would be something like this with no hard edge to hook with (more like the middle one found on this page) because it will be hold in place by fur covering it.
The fur should go all over back of head like vertical line starting at edge of neck fur and ending few centimeters above the hinge. It will allow the fur to be opened forming A-shape space for manipulating with the Head Mechanism.
Model
My first version looked like a bear.
...so I tried it again (with different base image) and the result was better. But not good enough.
I spend some time looking at images (references) and then (before going to bed) I made this one. I made some modifications later (seen below) but I still like this one the most (at least the image of it).
It took some time to modify it to its final shape. When I was enough satisfied with it, I showed it to Raika (credited here) and thanks to her I made the last version.
I still need to do some modifications to it (like adding cheek bones and slightly modifying it around eyes).
Modifying for printing
Print a 3D model is not as simple as it may sound because it must have thickness.Also to make it fitting, I will need to have 3D model of my face / head. Not only for main dimensions but also for position of eyes, size of nose...
For creating 3D model of my face / head I wanted to use Autodesk 123D Catch but since 16 December 2016 it is not available for download (also 123Dapp.com redirects to Thinkercad which is
free3D editor from Autodesk (I do not find it better then FreeCAD, Blender or anything in between) ).
I was thinking about alternative ways to make 3D model of my face / head (ideally with right dimensions but I can fix them later).
Looking around my room, I have found 2nd webcam (1st is in my notebook). That may allow me to create my own 3D camera. First camera would be at position [0,0,0] and [0,0,0] rotation. Second on relative position and rotation to the first.
Problem is that my webcams have low quality and I have no place to make photos (not even empty wall with good lights). Ignoring those problems, I could not find any working tool (for 2 cameras or for 1).