With Halloween this week, I thought it was perfectly acceptable to share this project I’ve been working on.
Last year, I stumbled onto an Instagram account that posted an absolutely adorable 3D-printed Bulbasaur, but instead of his plant, he has a jack o’lantern.
I’m such a sucker for fanart and mashups, so @lv99doge and their super cute 3D-printed Bulbasaurs were too tempting. This year, I decided to treat myself with the Halloween one
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I’ve painted 2 3D-printed figurines prior to this project, so I thought it would be fun to try again. I really like that the shop offered both painted and plain printed options so you could go either route.
When the Bulbasaur arrived, I was super impressed with the quality of the 3D printing! Everything was fairly smooth, and the pumpkin fits perfectly onto Bulbasaur’s back. You can tell a lot of work went into planning the design.
Bulbasaur came as 4 separate pieces: the body, the jack o’lantern, the lid, and the stem. The shop designed Bulbasaur this way so you could place a light inside the jack o’lantern, which I thought was another great addition!
The Base
When I first painted a 3D-printed figurine (a mega Gengar for my husband), I did some research on how to go about doing it.
I found out that there are people who like to start it off by using gesso to try and fill in the dips between the layers of printing. I’ve had very mild success with this. I think it’s primarily a patience thing though 
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After applying a few coats, I also sanded it down to try and get everything even.
I’m sure I would benefit from more layers, but I was too excited to get to painting!
Painting
When it came to painting this Bulbasaur, I modeled it off of both the shop’s rendition of the Bulbasaur and a shirt I’ve had for a few years now.
Each area needed 4 to 5 coats of paint to get a nice even coverage.
My painting skills leave little to be desired, so I kept the pumpkin itself simple: 1 shade of orange for the pumpkin and 1 shade of green for the stem. I did not attempt shading.
After 1 coat of orange paint
For the body, I realized toward the end that I messed up the color order (I painted a darker gray body with lighter spots when I meant to do a lighter gray body with darker spots), so then I had to add even more paint 
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The eyes this shop paints on the Halloween Bulbasaur figurines are absolutely stunning, so I wanted to challenge myself by attempting the glowing look. I’ve only painted a gradient once before (for the mega Gengar).
1 coat of paint on glowing eyes
The End Result
Halloween projects are some of my favorites ones to do, and this one was a blast! Overall, I’m really happy with how this paint job turned out. This little guy will be something that remains in my fall/Halloween decor, and I can’t wait to display him!
Whether you paint it or not, if you love Pokémon and Halloween, I highly suggest this figurine!