FlexiDinos – A trip to the future

TL;DR

I will publish all the print-in-place design principles that I have developed over the last few years under a Creative Commons licence. This will not include the dinosaur models, only the joints as separate files.

Hello Dinophiles!

2026 is right around the corner, and you're wondering what's next on the agenda? In this article, I want to cover some of my thoughts on how to develop the FlexiDinos brand. Starting with a recap about how I came to designing them to where I'm standing now, I want to fill you in on what you can expect next year. 

Boring history lesson

While writing this, I just noticed this chapter got longer and longer, feel free to skip to the Agenda below if you want to get to the interesting stuff.

Günther

When I published Günther some years ago, I would never have thought that he would become such a successful model. The only reason I designed him in the first place was that I wanted to have a birthday present for my son who had a Stegosaurus phase at the time (When Günther was finished two weeks later, this wasn't the case anymore, but whatever). 

When Günther started raking in downloads and I got my first spool of filament together after the first few weeks, I noticed there was a demand for high quality print in place dinosaur models. I started looking for other standard dinosaurs and saw there was practically nobody designing good 3D printable flexi dinosaur models. There's the legendary Flexi Rex by Dr Lex, but that's practically it. 

Some other models might look good, but most of them can't stand and are not very good to actually play with. They might be fun fidget toys, but I wanted something, that would also cope as a real toy. So I started designing more Dinosaur models. I won't include all the models here, but I think it might be interesting to sum up some design concepts I developed over the different models. This will be an important topic for the test, so you better write that down.

Theobald

I was shocked to find out that there was not one satisfying model of a Triceratops, so I started designing Theobald, who is still one of my favorites because I had to come up with a way to tilt his head to get the “V” shape so typical for a Triceratops' head. 

This is how I discovered that there are many ways you can alter joints and get interesting results while still having a print in place design. I decided to set myself a different challenge with every new model I make. 

Bertha

With Bertha, I had to come up with a new way to design the joints because I wanted their ends on different heights as the wings design demanded it. The cones I came up with are the design still in use today. They are an easier print as they don't need bridges and are sturdier than the regular closed-chain design too.

Tessa

I needed a T-Rex model of my own as it is too iconic not to have in your own Jurassic Park. With Tessa, I wanted to try if it's possible to include vertical joints in its jaw. It worked, and I still use the same principle today, but it developed quite a lot over the later models.

Ginko

I also used vertical joints at Ginkos legs and jaws to see how small I can make them. Also, the joints I developed for Bertha allowed me to tilt its flanks and give it a wider stance. 

A few days before it became ready for launch, Printables added the option to monetise the models. Until then, I've wasted so much time on stuff that didn't work (mainly Facebook, and Instagram), I decided to give it a try one last time. So I founded the Printables Club. 

You can't imagine my surprise when after some days I had my first Printables Club Member. And over the following weeks others joined. The Club grew ever since to almost 100 today! This gives me very much confidence. I'm still so grateful to all of you that download and print my models. It makes me happy to see my work is appreciated. And to know that there are people out there willing to pay for them, that I actually don't know in person, is absolutely amazing!

Gregor

I wanted to push the boundaries a little further with Gregor and decided to see how far I can go with the vertical joints. As they need to be broken to start working, I figured I'll be able to make joints that collapse into themselves and give me a way to have its back rounded after printing it flat. It's a difficult print (I'm looking into improving the connectors in its joints right now) but when it works, it's a really cool model, especially when you show it to people that know the boundaries of FDM 3D printing. 

I've also made a design diary for it because I wanted to keep track of the process. You can still see it here if you're interested. It's free to read! Back then, there weren't any articles on Printables, so it's written in the model's description.

Filip

I wanted to design a whistle for a long time. With Filip, this vision became reality. I don't know how good of an idea it was. But now, it's done and there is always the “keep your sanity” version with a regular head.

Chompy

I wanted to have a working print in place set of gears since I saw this video of a 3d printed print in place robot from an SLS machine a while ago. It was quite a challenge and took me way more time than everything else I ever designed, but in the end, Chompy was worth the effort. 

The Agenda

So here comes the interesting part. In the long run, I want to make a living from FlexiDinos. Here are some of the steps I'll take to get there. 

I want to point out the most important part: I want to publish all of my joints as open files for everyone to start creating with. This should be a way to prevent somebody patenting them. I have no idea if that's even possible, but better safe than sorry. And I also think these principles can be a way for everyone to understand how the models work. It's not rocket science (until they print autonomous robots on Mars with it… then it is). 

I'd love to get your feedback about all of this stuff, so if you have any inputs, please feel free to get in touch. It seems to me more and more of you start using this platform to communicate with me, and since I don't have any other social media channels, I'm glad there is a way to be in touch!

Redesigning old models

I've already made Fünther as Günther became outdated very quickly. This doesn't mean he's a bad model, he was my first FlexiDino and needed an upgrade to fit in with the others. 

Theobald will be next for the same reasons. I've learned so much over the last years that it's time to improve him.  

Making new Dinosaurs / Models of the Month

I had a vote on what new Dinosaurs to create some time ago, and I see there are so many species, so coming up with something to do won't be an issue. I will endeavour to ensure that I am always creating something new. This includes voting on the next model for Club Members and updating you with the status of the design process. Of course, there will be new Models of the Month too. 

Publishing the joints under a Creative-Commons license

This might be the most important thing over the next few months: As you can see in the 'History' section above, I learnt and developed a lot while designing the FlexiDinos. I've noticed that things tend to get patented, and I want to prevent this. I'm not sure if it's possible, but since seeing what happened to Dummy 13 and Soozafone, I've become a little paranoid. Therefore, I think it would be best to publish all my joints as Creative Commons-licensed models, so that everyone can remix them and create something new. Since the work must be credited, I hope this will also increase the FlexiDinos brand's visibility.

Since I had the Idea, it's constantly on my mind, and I'll start working on it very soon. I also wanted to make more tutorial videos for quite some time now, and I think I'll give it a try again. 

Lego saddles

I still think this is an awesome idea, but I've underestimated the amount of work that goes into these. It's not the top priority on my to do list at the moment. When I come back to it, I want to get it done in one go.

Quality improvements

Over the last days I've got some messages from you addressing print issues. It's amazing to see some of you actually take the time to tell me when something needs to be fixed! So if you have any troubles with one of my models, please don't be shy and tell me! I'm always glad to help.

Sometimes, when I develop a model and run into issues, I figure it might have to do with bad tuning of my printer (tinkering with the machine is not my favorite task) and I might tolerate print issues as long as no one else mentions it to me. Overall my goal is to make the prints as easy as possible. So your feedback is very much appreciated and helps me to improve the FlexiDinos.

Make a living out of the FlexiDinos

I lost my job at the end of August this year, and since then I have been able to spend much more time on this project. Since I started putting in more work in September, the number of Club Members has increased significantly. I therefore think there must be a way to make enough money from this to support me and my family. 

I'll be back to freelance work in my old job next year, so this should cover my expenses for the time it takes to get there and leave enough time to focus on building the FlexiDinos brand.

Thank you!

When I started all of this, I would never have thought FlexiDinos will become what it is today. This whole community of cool people here has given me so much confidence in my work, I still can barely believe it. So I want to say a big thank you to all of you who support my work by downloading FlexiDinos and giving me a steady income of Prusameters or even financially supporting me by joining my Club. 

Last but not least, a big shout out to Prusa for making all of this possible! And also for showing some appreciation of the designers, like no other platform I know, by providing not just the infrastructure via Printables, but also rewarding Prusameters. The Prusa Mini I've got from Printables is in use almost daily, and it's great that I don't need to go to the office just to print another prototype.

Edit: Give me your feedback 

If you made it down here I bet dinosaurs are serious business to you. I'm very eager to see what you think about this wall of text so please let me know about your thoughts in the comments! Thanks for taking the time to read and comment. 

🦕 <3
Andi

Disclaimer: This text was really typed by a human (me) but checked and corrected with the help of Deepl.com. Some of the images were created with Google Gemini.