Summary

At first, I just wanted to try using 3D printing technology to create a spherical joint tentacle that could be stably formed and had the smallest possible size. Later, I had a sudden inspiration and decided to turn these tentacles into a fun little octopus as a cute gift for others. Although the assembly process was quite tedious, with each segment of the tentacle needing to be manually removed from the support structure and carefully snapped into the next segment, the finished toy ended up having excellent flexibility and mobility, allowing it to be posed in various shapes as desired.

If you want to make the little octopus more playful, you can dye each tentacle a different color and put them together to make a colorful rainbow octopus. Although this step is not necessary, it is highly recommended!

Update date: April 5th - I'm trying out some free sculpting tools and designed a big-eyed, cute alien head for the little octopus, which I've already uploaded to the platform.

Update date: April 7th - I've added a steampunk submarine-style design to the main body of the little octopus, which is full of a fantastical flavor.

Update date: April 9th - Based on the design of http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4126, a new interpretation and re-creation of the skeleton torso has been carried out.

Instructions for use

Please first print one main component, one x8 tentacle end model, and approximately seven x8 tentacle segment models. The length of the tentacles can be adjusted according to personal preference, and it's fine to print more or fewer tentacle segments. The tentacle segments and tentacle ends have predefined support structures during printing, and you need to manually remove the excess support after printing is completed. Additionally, I've thoughtfully provided tentacle segment and tentacle end models with and without support, allowing you to choose as needed.

The central part of the main body is available in two versions: one with a built-in support structure, and the other is a "net version". If you want the support to be added automatically by the slicing software, you can choose the latter.

In order to balance strength and printing efficiency, I set the filling density of the central part of the main body to 15%, while the tentacles were filled with 100% density. After all, these slender parts are already very small in size, so even without excessive filling, the structure can still be ensured to be stable.

Finally, just press each spherical joint gently into the corresponding slot at the tentacle node or the end of the tentacle, and then embed each interface in the center of the body in turn, and you can easily assemble a set of flexible and variable tentacles.