Combination Taco Bell/Pizza Hut Ornament

This is easily one of the craziest commission requests I've gotten and the most out of my comfort zone skill-wise. I was asked to turn an image of a Taco Bell/Pizza Hut on Jamaica Ave into a Christmas ornament.

Yup.

First I simplified the image colors in paint.net to help break down the image into the key component pieces. I converted the Taco Bell/Pizza Hut logo into gray scale to import as a height map in Microsoft 3D Builder. I then used Fusion 360 for the first time to generate the background bits. There is a cool sort of "draw over" function that helps you trace lines from a flat image and generate different heights.

I had a hard time extracting the Jamaica Ave sign from the original image, so I found the found they use in New York City street signs and made a quick design in Libre Office Draw to then import into 3D Builder.

Putting all the pieces together in 3D Builder was a challenge - the background, the logo, the street pole, the street sign, plus the hanging holes, but I got it to work and used Cura to generate the instructions for my 3D printer.

It printed great on the first try and I only had to superglue the post and the sign back on, which I anticipated as being a potential issue because of how I designed it, but an easy enough fix. Then some painting, a clear coat, and some hanging ribbon.

I am so incredibly proud of myself for stepping outside my comfort zone to make something so ridiculous. I learned a lot, had a lot of fun making it, and the recipient was so pleased. Apparently I helped win an ornament contest they have with their spouse every year and I am so happy to have helped.