Evil Anchor Alien Tessellation

My daughter calls this tessellation shape “Evil Anchor Alien.” This was a fun evening project where my kids and I went from idea to sketch to model to print in just a couple hours.

We first experimented with creating tessellation shapes with squares of paper. My son drew some curls that inspired my daughter to create the horned alien that resembles an anchor (see photos). I took her concept and modeled a tile starting with a square and then printed them in duplication mode to quickly bring our idea to life.

3D Printing Settings

Model is approximately 75 x 73 x 2 mm. The square base is 50 x 50 mm. I printed them at 0.3 mm layer height with enough top and bottom layers that they are essentially 100% infill.

No rafts. No supports unless . . . We printed ours flipped since the kids wanted the faces to be shiny from the bed surface. So, I added some supports for the eyes because they were 1 mm above the bed.

Note: There is 0.2 mm tolerance between models. Ours fit perfectly when printed. If model is scaled smaller, likely they won't fit if you have any swelling at all with print. Larger scales likely will work, but will increase that gap too.

More of my designs on Cults3D: https://cults3d.com/en/users/abbymath
Not for commercial use. No derivatives. See license below.