Manic Miner gets the Boot

Here we are with some more Manic Miner inspired retro 3D printing. Here we have a bit of fun with the old boot graphic many retro gamers will be familiar with. For those who may have never played Manic Miner, this is the scene when Miner Willy has lost all his lives.

The aim of this post is to make two items using the same boot bitmap from Manic Miner. We'll be making a 3D printed picture of that memorable game over scene and also another of our "Trophy" objects where Miner Willy actually escapes the boot.

As the boot (plus leg) on the original bitmap is fairly tall, and also because I want to add a little color to the printout, I have broken up the boot bitmap into three separate models. The model above is the boot only, and we will be printing this in gold plastic for our trophy.

For the top section, we will print in blue and cream, and all three parts will clip together to form our completed boot. For the trophy, we will add a Plaque to the front and also a Miner Willy model created from the original character bitmap.

With the design completed, it's time to feed the design files into the 3D printer! As this is a fairly large trophy, it takes about 7 hours to print all the objects out.

Assembling it is easy; the parts clip together, and for extra strength, we add plenty of super glue.

As mentioned earlier, we will reuse the models we have created to make a 3D picture. For this, we managed to get hold of an A3-sized deep frame. As the depth of the frame was 30 mm, we resized the models to ensure the depth was 30mm.

For this, we also created a platform from the original bitmap that Miner Willy is sitting on as the boot is coming down. Just what every home needs on the wall!