>>10358467>We are totally broke and doing things on our free time right nowSince you have no experience with any 3D modeling, 3D printing, finishing/assembly, painting, etc, you'd need to commission others to do everything. It will be expensive. Easily over a thousand dollars for a fully 3D modeled, printed, assembled, and painted articulated figure. Unless you take the time to learn everything yourself, but that will take years to get to a point where you can successfully make custom figures that look exactly like whatever design you want. Not to mention buying all the materials, 3D printer, 3D modeling software, etc etc
>what are the simple first steps I should take.In short, there aren't really any. Every aspect of complex figure customization or creation has a ton to learn and steep learning curves. If you truly want to do it all yourself without paying others for commissions, I'd first start with learning about figures. Hoe they are made, all the different types of joints, how those function and are built, how the 'insides' of figures look, etc. You need to understand how action figures are built before trying to design them successfully.
Then 3D modeling. That alone could take years to master, but there are some free software like Blender that's pretty useful but very complex, and there are tons of tutorials to learn all the aspects of 3D modeling all over the internet.
Next step would be to learn 3D printing. The SLA printers that use resin have come down in price so much over the last few years, but there is a lot to learn about tweaking settings, how to arrange parts on the print bed, working with different slicers, etc etc
Then would be the construction part. Building prototypes from printed parts after cleaning and prepping them, assembly, and painting. None of that is easy to learn either and takes lots of skill, especially painting that looks good.
