Designing

Designing your own stuff is wonderful. Want a hole a scosche to the left, move it.

The first thing you need to do is decide what kind of stuff you want to design. Do you want things like bears, then Blender is probably right for. Want a square box then you want a CAD package.

CAD comes in a lot of flavors. TinkerCAD is easy to use, but has some limitations. As long as you don’t run up against them it’s fine. If you want more you are talking parametric CAD. OnShape and Fusion 360 are commercial programs and can be very expensive. They also have versions aimed at the hobbyist that have some limitations to keep real companies from using them, but they are free. SCAD is an open source program that you design by creating the statements to create the object. There are more options.

Once you have a thing, Blender or CAD, export it as an STL, slice it up, and print.

When you are designing the thing you should think about how it will be created while you are designing. It is quite often possible to make a small change that will mode it much easier to print cleanly. A nice render with a flat overhang may look nice, but when you print it it looks like hell, unless you put some, nasty to remove, supports on. Or you could make the bottom a 45º angle and it will print fine. Think about how it will be printed, turning on its side could make it much easier to print.

Instead of having supports added by the slicer, do your own. They can be placed exactly where you need them, have tiny contact with the object, and in general be wonderful.

I have a Bambu printer and coloring in studio is a joke. the color may be the wrong depth, getting a straight line in the middle of a flat area is a pain, and a host of other problems. Create the thing as multiple objects, export them as a single STL, break them back into multiple objects in studio and set a color for each object. Much more control and you can do what you want with color.